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monthly recurring gifts

Darlene Ellis

We have been using Moneris to process our monthly credit cards but would like to start using BBMS. I'm looking for some information from someone that is using it. Presently we have approximately 60 credit card donors that give throughout the month. I know there is a button "Create EFT transmission files" and "Automatically generate transactions/payments".

When processing the payment, does it automatically go into a batch? Do you keep the same batch open for the entire month and add all monthly credit card into it? Do you usually have the payments being processed a couple of times through the month (whichever date the donor would like) or just once a month? If I could get a step by step idea of what is involved in processing the monthly donation.

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Faith Murray

Sure thing, Darlene! We transitioned to BBMS about 6-7 years ago for our monthly recurring gifts. While we're definitely glad we made the switch, it was a bit of work transitioning, as we were unable to obtain the credit card file from our previous processor and had to reach out to all of our existing donors and obtain their information, in order to enter it into their gift records in RE. We told them that we were switching to a new system "for better security and software management".

The online donation forms available in Online Express and other Blackbaud systems allow you to give donors the option of what day each month they want their gift processed. Before we transitioned, our previous vendor processed these gifts at random dates scattered throughout the month. When we reached out to our donors to obtain their credit card info, we told them we would process on a specific date each month. When we first began using BBMS, once a month processing was adequate. However, a couple years in, our program had grown and we realized we needed to switch to twice a month in order to keep the batch sizes realistic. We started off with about 50-60 each month, and we now have over 250 recurring EFTs and credit cards to process each month. We now process on the 1st and 15th of each month.

Now that we're all set up and have been going smoothly for a few years, what this looks like is that twice each month, we "Auto Generate Transactions" for anyone whose gift is scheduled to process that half-month. Then we go ahead and "Create EFT Transmission Files" the same day and commit the batch. Two weeks later, we start a new batch and do the same thing.

Some RE users like to keep their recurring gift batches "recurring" in the Batch setup. We don't. With more than 250 monthly gifts, it would be too much maintenance to manually add and subtract people who add new gifts or fall away, or to update their payment info. We maintain that data directly in their gift records (marking the gifts "active" or "terminated"), and generate a brand new batch each time.

Faith Murray

I realized I forgot to answer one of your questions. You ask if the gift automatically goes into a batch when processing. If you use Online Express to manage your website forms and accept online gifts, the answer is "yes". When you download the gifts in OLX, it puts the recurring gift "pledges" into a Batch, and when you commit, those "pledges" go straight into the donor's gift records. Then, when it's time to create your monthly payment batch and "Autogenerate transactions", Raiser's Edge generates payments associated with those original recurring gift "pledges".

This is different from processing directly in BBMS itself. BBMS is an online credit card processor used by Online Express, but it is not, itself, a pledge management software. If you go to your BBMS terminal at bbms.blackbaud.com and try to process a credit card payment directly there, it will not go into a batch in RE and will not show in the donor record. That's why I assume you are intending to use Online Express or another Blackbaud solution to manage your monthly gifts, with BBMS attached as the back-end processor.

Darlene Ellis

Thanks Faith. Now we use Moneris and the cards are
automatically charged at a certain date and the donor gets to pick
whatever date. Only thing is that we have to start a new
batch and manually enter each gift.

If we had 3 dates, for example the 1st and 15th of the month.
Would we automatically generate transactions on those 3 dates? Do
you actually have to generate the transactions on that
date? For example, they are scheduled for the 1st and it
is a holiday and they get done on the 2nd, does that still work or
do you need to process it on the 1st?

I really appreciate all the help.

Seems like it is still a lot of manual work.

Darlene

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Faith Murray

Darlene Ellis:
Thanks Faith. Now we use Moneris and the cards are automatically charged at a certain date and the donor gets to pick whatever date. Only thing is that we have to start a new batch and manually enter each gift.

If we had 3 dates, for example the 1st and 15th of the month. Would we automatically generate transactions on those 3 dates? Do you actually have to generate the transactions on that date?  For example, they are scheduled for the 1st and it is a holiday and they get done on the 2nd, does that still work or do you need to process it on the 1st?

I really appreciate all the help.

Seems like it is still a lot of manual work.

Darlene

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It ended up being less work for us than having to manually enter each gift in a batch with our old processor that was not integrated with RE. If you had 2 dates, the 1st and 15th, you would generate transactions on the business day closest to that date. If the 1st is a holiday, you could process on the 2nd, and you would still pull your date range for any gifts due by the 1st, when auto-generating. Our EFT batch is the easiest batch we process all month - just 5 minutes and it's done, usually. The credit card batch takes a few minutes longer because - after "Creating EFT transmission files" - you have to screen for any that failed to process (expired numbers, etc.) and remove them before committing. Again, though, it takes 15-20 minutes to process at most, for our mid-month batch of 75 credit card donors. There's a learning curve, but once you know the process well, it's a breeze.

JoAnn Strommen

A step-by-step really depends on what platform you plan to use.

We use BBMS to process our transaction using the "Create transmission" and "Auto generate..." options. Recurring gift records are entered on each constituent record with EFT box checked and payment schedule. "Create" essentially creates the batch and "Auto" processes the payments. Works very smoothly. Field in batch shows authorization code or lack of it and another field shows why it may not have processed.

Our recurring gifts are set up to process on/or about the first or fifteenth of the month. Find this leads to consistent timing for donors and more efficient for staff.

That said, do you have RE NXT? They recently implemented a platform to process recurring gifts. Donor can select a date and gifts are processed individually/on that date. Batch created for each date they process. RE user has to approve batch. Note, processing gifts in NXT does not give all the field options of database, such as gift code, attributes. It sounds like a good option once all the kinks are out. Look on BB website for recorded info - maybe under customer success page.

Regarding keeping a batch open for the whole month, no unless you are waiting to actually process at the end of the month. In the batch you only 'Auto generate...' one time to have the card charged.

I have not used OLX for recurring gifts and I hope it's smoother than processing individual gifts. Having to 'check-out' each individual and their fund designation is a pain IMO.

Ray Bergman

Moving this topic to Organizational Best Practices.

Aldera Chisholm

Hi Darlene,

We currently use Moneris, and NXT.

Up until recently we would:

1. Create a recurring batch that held all our monthly gifts. All gifts processed on the 15th. On the 15th or next business day, we would update the dates on that one batch, and review any other changes then Create the EFT Transmissions Files. Based on that, we would then commit the batch. We chose not to use the "Automatically generate transactions/payments" as past staff found the recurring batch easier so I just kept the status quo. I have used the Auto Generate before and it was fine, you would use that, it would create a batch, which you could then post.

2. Now, we are in the process of moving all our recurring gifts to use the NXT recurring gifts functionality. Some cannot be converted due to how the gift was set up, but they are fewer and fewer each month as we call donors to get updated information.

3. We did a small monthly donor campaign via OLX and it worked really nicely! I was pleased with how easy that was.

Feel free to DM me if you have more questions!

Cheers