CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

This is a feature that I am interested in as you can see at http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php/topic,33473.msg141963.html#msg141963. (You probably wouldn't have found it as we have 'cheques' in Australia).

I can't help you directly with the information you ask for, but I will outline what I have achieved through the UI in case it is of help to you and perhaps to nudge you in a slightly different direction for your extension. Our current solution is slightly different from the one I indicated in the above topic.

Basically I can get what we need via three custom fields, a new payment type and a report based on Extended Report - Price Set Line Items - Template.

In Australia a bank deposit listing ( ie the piece of paper you need to submit to the bank with your bundle of cheques) needs to include the following for each cheque in the order given:

• Cheque drawer (not always the same as Contact name)
• Bank code (to identify the bank and branch where the account is held)
• Cheque number
• Amount

The current check payment instrument does not provide enough fields for recording the data and adding just the one extra custom field means that the check fields don't appear in the correct order in the report. 

Instead I created a new payment type called Cheque and three contribution custom fields for it called Cheque drawer, Bank code and Cheque number.  Once the information is in those fields, it is straight forward to get the cheque deposit listing using the Extended Report - Price Set Line Items - Template.

The problem lies in getting the data in.

For straight contributions there is no problem, the contribution custom fields are there to be filled in when the contribution is processed.

When membership payments are being processed however contribution custom fields do not appear when the payment is recorded.  This means that the person entering the check payment has to process the membership join up/renewal first, then edit the contribution to add the information into the custom fields.

Have you investigated whether or not Extended Report - Price Set Line Items - Template lets you get out the information you need for your deposit reports?  (You will need to install the native CiviCRM extension  ExtendedReport. )

If it nearly gets you there, but you need more custom fields, then perhaps creating an extension that exposes contribution custom fields when recording payments for memberships would be the way to go. It may only take the same amount of time as the extension you are currently working on and may be of more use to the greater CiviCRM community.  (I don't have the skills to do it myself and have no money for hiring a developer.)