When donors give, the money is tracked as a donation in Giving. When donors pay online, their payment method information is saved in their donor profile.
The table below shows the different ways that people can donate and how the payment methods are entered in Giving. See the sections below for more details.
Payment Method |
Processing Method |
|---|---|
Cash |
Counted and entered in batches |
Check |
Counted and entered in batches |
Credit or debit card |
Stripe (online donation) or manual entry |
ACH bank transfer |
Stripe (online donation) or manual entry |
Text message |
|
Apple Pay |
|
External payment source |
Tracked with batches |
The following sections describe supported payment methods in more detail.
Cash donations in donation envelopes usually identify the donor and fund designation. Loose cash can be counted as an anonymous gift and designated to a general fund.
Cash donations are counted in batches.
Checks usually identify the donor and fund designation. If the check has two names, or the name on the donation envelope doesn't match the name on the check, reach out to the donor for clarification.
Check donations are counted in batches.
Card donations can be initiated by the donors themselves, privately and securely, from your donation form. These donations are processed by Stripe, then immediately added to the dashboard.
If a donor requests an Administrator to add a card donation, you can manually process that donation from the donor's profile.
Canadian Customers: While all major credit cards are supported for Canadian organizations, only a limited number of debit cards will work. Visa Debit is supported, but Interac ATM cards or any card without a 3 or 4 digit CVC code will not.
ACH donations are a bank-to-bank transfer, sometimes called an eCheck. Before donating with a new bank account, donors must verify their account credentials from the donation form. After the bank account is verified donors can make donations privately and securely. These donations are processed by Stripe, then immediately added to the dashboard.
Giving Admins can’t add an ACH payment method on behalf of a donor; however, if a donor requests an Administrator to initiate an ACH donation with a saved bank account, you can manually process that donation from the donor's profile.
Canadian Customers: ACH/EFT is not supported for Canadian organizations.
Donors can give through text message using Text2Give by connecting their donor profile and preferred payment method to their phone number.
Text donations are handled by Stripe, our payment processor.
Once enabled by your Giving Administrators, a donor using an Apple device, such as an iPhone, iPad, or the Safari browser, can give through Apple Pay.
Apple Pay donations are handled by Stripe, our payment processor.
Donations made using an external donation platform (like PushPay, PayPal, Fellowship 1, Tithe.ly, etc.) aren't initiated through Giving, but they can be tracked using payment sources in batches or imported using the Giving API.
See the Giving Product Integrations article for more information about integrations that are supported for Planning Center Giving.
Saved payment methods can be viewed or edited by Giving Administrators from the donor profile on the Admin side of Giving or by the donor from their donor profile on Church Center.
In Giving, the Pay Methods tab in a donor's profile shows the credit cards, debit cards, or bank accounts that your donors have saved to their donor profile. All payment methods except ACH can be added to a donor's profile. Admins can delete payment methods, but they can't modify them.
Handling payment methods yourself subjects your organization to PCI compliance and subjects your donors to a greater risk of fraud. To avoid these issues, encourage donors to add their payment information when giving online or on their donor profile instead of handing over account numbers and card details to your organization.
You can use these buttons to add a card at the request of the donor. The donor's profile must include an email address so that donors can be contacted in the case of a problem.
Click here to delete a payment method.
ACH payment methods must be added and verified by the donor from Church Center. Admins can't initiate or verify an ACH payment method; that must be done by the donor from their Church Center profile. If an ACH micro-deposit verification is in progress, the status will show here.
When donating online, donors can enter their payment method information and save it to their profile.
If they've saved a payment method in the past, they can log in to give using their previous payment methods or add/remove payment methods from their profile. Donors can also complete ACH micro-deposit verification here.
