Applies to: Web Edition
Accessioning is the process of formally accepting items into the organization's collection. All items accepted into the collection from the same source at the same time are part of the same accession. The Source or Donor of the items will complete a Deed of Gift form that transfers ownership of the items to your organization. An important part of accepting items into the collection is preserving the items' source information. Then once items have been accessioned, you can catalog the individual items with unique Object IDs in the Objects, Photos, Archives and Library catalogs.
The first step in the Accession process is entering the Source or Donor into the Contacts section under Development. Once you have entered the relevant contact information (name, address, email, and phone numbers), you will be able to use forms and letters generated through PastPerfect Web Edition. These documents are set up in Settings | Accessions & Loan Documents.
The next step is adding an Accession record. When adding a new record, you can select the Source from the Contacts section to automatically fill in the contact information for the Donor. This also links the Donor's Contact record to the Accession. Enter information into the Accession's fields to record the scope of the gift and any relevant details surrounding all of the items from the donation. If the Accession is coming from multiple donors, you can connect additional Contact records under the Donors section.
Once the Accession information has been entered, find the donor's name in the Donors section and use the Documents drop-down menu to print the Deed of Gift and Thank You Letter. You can also track Activities (like "Deed of Gift sent" and "Items photographed") on the Accession record. Once the items are formally part of the collection, start cataloging the items in the appropriate catalogs.
A tutorial for the Accession process can be found in the Web Edition User Guide here:
https://museumsoftware.com/we/#t=tutorials_accessionprocess.htm