Funds are used to track the intent of a donor's donation. Once created, funds can be made available to donors giving online, as well as restricted for administrator use only, such as adding donations to batches.
Note
Giving is designed to handle donations only, so funds should only be created to handle these types of donations. Sales, payments, or reimbursements can be tracked outside of Planning Center. For US churches, consult the Tax Guide for Churches and Religious Organizations.
To create and edit funds, go to the Funds tab on the Manage page.
To create a fund, select Open a new fund.
Select an existing fund to edit it.
Choose a short but descriptive name.
Some general ledgers (GLs) have numeric codes that act as primary identifiers for funds. If you use numeric codes in your GL, add the code to easily pair Giving funds with your GL as you accomplish various bookkeeping tasks.
Choose a color to help differentiate funds at a glance. The theme is only shown on the admin side of Giving.
Add a short description of what this fund will be used for. Fund descriptions are visible to donors on your donation form.
Choose whether the fund is open to receive donations or closed.
If your fund is set to open, choose its availability on Church Center.
Set up a fund shortcut to make it easier for Text2Give donors to designate their donation to that fund.
Share this link to pre-select this fund on your donation form when Giving Online.
Naming Tips
Instead of adding dates to annual funds, open and close a fund that will be used seasonally.
If you have multiple campuses, include the name of the campus in the fund name.
If your fund will be used for a pledge campaign, match the fund's name with the campaign's name.
Open funds are funds that are available for people to donate to.
The Default Fund is the fund automatically selected on your donation form or in a batch. This fund is also selected if another is not designated while using Text2Give. For this reason, we typically suggest that your default fund be set up as your church's discretionary fund.
The Default Fund is created when you first set up Giving and cannot be closed. However, you can change your Default Fund by contacting Planning Center's Support Team.
In most cases, open funds should be set up as restricted funds as assigned by your General Ledger. These should reflect the donor's intention of how their gift should be spent.
Listed funds will be available to donors on your donation form and to administrators in batches, but Unpublished and Direct link funds will not be listed on your donation form.
3. Link-Only
If you want a fund to be available only through Text2Give or the fund's direct link, designate it as Direct link, and it will be removed from your online donation form.
If you need to keep a fund open but hide it from online giving, you can designate it as Unpublished. This allows administrators to designate donations to this fund in batches but hides it from your online donation form.
If a recurring donation is set up and the selected fund's visibility is changed to Unpublished, those donations will continue to be processed based on their scheduled frequency. While new recurring donations can be set up by administrators for Unpublished funds from a donor's profile, they cannot be created by donors using your donation form.
With the exception of the General fund, you can drag and drop Open funds to change the order. The order of funds on the Funds page will also be reflected in the Fund dropdown on your donation form and in batches.
Funds can be closed when donations are no longer accepted for it. Once closed, the fund is hidden from your donation form, but recurring donations will continue to go to this closed fund until changed either by the donor or an administrator per the donor's request.
If a donation was designated to a specific fund, and there's a need to change or close that fund, contact the donor for permission to reassign their donation or refund the donation.
If a fund is no longer needed, close it instead of renaming it. If you rename a fund, the action is logged to ensure donations aren't mismanaged or embezzled.
Closing a fund is not a permanent action; the fund can be reopened if necessary.
If you receive seasonal donations for a specific fund, once those donations are no longer received, close the fund and reopen it when they need to be received again. This keeps your funds list clean and helps the church designate funds in the best way for any season.
Funds can only be deleted if money has never been donated to them.
To find a fund with $0.00 attributed to it, go to the Donations page and use the By Donation report filtered by fund.
To delete a fund with $0.00 attributed to it, go to the Funds tab on the Manage page. Select the fund and then select Delete at the bottom of the Edit fund box.
You can link from your main church website directly to a specific fund. A fund's direct link can be found in the Edit Fund modal on the Funds tab located on the Manage page in Giving.
For example, this URL would link directly to your New Building fund:
https://yoursubdomain.churchcenter.com/giving/to/new-buildingYou can also link both directly to a fund and include a suggested amount. For example, to link to the New Building fund with a suggested donation of $100, use this code for the URL:
https://yoursubdomain.churchcenter.com/giving/to/new-building?default_amount=100Example for our test account (Centerville Church): Click here to give $100 to our New Building fund.