Yes, you can allow constituents to cover the processing fee for online payments (credit card or e-check) if you have the Fundraising module and process payments through NeonPay.
What are Donor Covered Fees?
Constituents can elect to increase the amount of their transaction to cover the related payment processing fees. The amount will be the same as the payment processing fee. Covering the fee is always optional to the constituent, though you can default the box to be checked. This is available for donations, event registrations, memberships, and/or store purchases.
Who is eligible?
To see if you have this feature, navigate to Global Settings > Payments & Transactions > Donor Covered Fees.
This feature is only available to NeonPay & Neon Payment Processing clients. Since the feature increases the transaction by the exact amount the processor will cover, NeonCRM must be able to calculate that amount. We can only ensure this for native processors. If you use a different gateway, consider switching to NeonPay.
In addition, you must have the Fundraising module to process these donations.
If you are eligible, do not have this feature, & would like to use it, submit a support ticket to let us know.
How does it work?
A checkbox will appear on your front end forms and for back end users entering a credit card/ACH transaction. When checked, Neon will calculate the payment processing fee and add it to the transaction total.
The additional amount a constituent offers is a donation. It will enter Neon as a donation even if the original transaction is a membership, event registration, store purchase, or a combination. Therefore, you might see a $3.30 donation in the Donations & Pledges List. In the shopping cart section you will see what transactions’ fees were being covered.
If the constituent is donating - or there is a donation in the shopping cart - the covered fee amount will be combined with the donation.
How do I set this up?
Turn on the feature by navigating to Global Settings > Payments & Transactions > Donor Covered Fees and toggling some or all transactions types on. Below, select if the box should be checked by default.
Here, you can also configure different settings which govern the behavior of covering processing fees.
If you want a separate donation record to always be created for covered fees - rather than combining the fee with another donation present in the transaction - you can make that selection here.
You can also set the default campaign for donation records which are solely created to track covered fees.
How do I avoid sending system emails or letters for covered fees?
Create new versions of your transaction acknowledgement system emails & letters that include the <Donor Covered Fees Amount> token. This will show the constituent the amount of their donation plus fee coverage.
Since covered fees are donations, they will trigger a donation appreciation system email and/or system letter just like another gift. If you would like to block these, create a new Donation Appreciation System Email and/or System Letter condition. Check “Do not send” and, under conditions, select Donation Only Includes Donor Covered Fees Equal Yes.
How does this affect reporting & communications?
You can report on Donor Covered Fees in transaction-based reports (e.g. Transaction, Donation Detail, Event Registration, etc). In New Report search criteria and output columns, there is a new field called Donor Covered Fees.
- To see a report of just transactions including covered fees, add a search criterion of Donor Covered Fees Equal Yes.
- Output columns representing the cost of a non-donation transaction (e.g. Event Registration Amount, Membership Cost), will not include the donor covered fees. The Donation Amount, Total Charge, and Donor Covered Fees output columns will include them.
Donations provided to cover fees will be factored into Dashboard Widgets and One-Click Reports. Someone who covers a processing fee in 2019 will be excluded from a 2019 LYBUNT report, for example.
As mentioned above, customize your system emails & system letters once you enable Donor Covered Fees. In communications, a new token, <></> is available. This will display only the donation amount added to cover processing fees.
A donor’s total donation amount and the summary table of donations will include any covered fees.
Reconciliation
If you are trying to figure out the total amount of fees covered by donors, run a donation detail report. In reports, the Fee Coverage Amount will show the total covered for the cart. If a membership & an event registration were in the same cart and you run a transaction report, you’d see the total covered amount twice.