Drop down fill in-capturing data

[Guest]

I'm creating an alumni database that will track donations. What's the best
way to add the donations to the database to run reports from? Should it be
separate columns for DONATION DATE, DONATION PAYMENT TYPE, DONATION AMOUNT,
DONATION REASON? Or, should it be ONE column called DONATION that has
fill-in with free text for each donation given?

I want to run reports that capture each donation, while not limiting the
database to the number of times an alumni donates (meaning we will be
tracking donations for the alumni's lifetime, so I don't want to limit the
number of times to fill in donations for the alumni).

Help!

Thanks.

 

[MacDermott]

Any item that you will want to sort/group on should be in its own field.
Presumably you'll be wanting to sum amounts (by donor, by date period,
perhaps by payment type), so that should definitely be in a field by itself.
So should the items I just mentioned (donor, date, payment type). Most
beginners feel comfortable with an extra text field for comments - go ahead
and add one for free-form additional information. You won't be able to do a
lot with it except read it, but at least you can store it!