Learn how to enter and edit recurring donations in this step by step guide. This help guide will cover how to enter recurring donations into the Neon CRM.
Recommended Reading Before You Start
Content
Reporting on Recurring Donations
Recurring Donations from the Constituent Login Portal
Entering Recurring Donations
Neon CRM supports automatically recurring donations for Credit Card or E-Check/ACH transactions. This means that a donation will be automatically processed on a repeating basis, using any time interval you pre-define on donation forms and subsequently chosen by constituents on a donation form.
You, as a system user, my set up a recurring donation on a constituent's account. There are two approaches you can take when creating a recurring donation, depending upon the constituent's wishes:
Starting the Recurring Donation Immediately
(Please note: If you are setting up a recurring donation on behalf of a constituent, and you wish to specify the exact date on which the donation will process, see the Starting the Recurring Donation at a Later Time section below.) If you are setting up a recurring donation on the back-end of the system on behalf of a constituent without any specific date specifications:
1. Select the Quick Add button in the top right corner of any page and select New Donation on the drop-down menu.
2. Enter the required donation fields per the image and table below. Please note: The recurring donation option is enabled by selecting the Recurring toggle (letter "D" in the image) to the "On" position.
Field Name |
Description |
|
A. |
Donor |
Enter the Donor Name. |
B. |
Amount |
Enter the Donation Amount. |
C. |
Date |
Select the Date for the donation. Note: Entering a donation in this way will automatically process the payment immediately if the payment method is Credit Card (online) or E-Check/ACH, even if you change the donation Date. If you are creating a recurring donation, but do not want the first payment to process immediately, click here. |
D. |
Recurring |
Select this toggle to flip to the "On" position for recurring donations and specify how often the constituent wants the recurring donation to occur by specifying the recurring payment unit and increment (month, week, year, day). |
E. |
Every |
Select the recurring payment unit and increment. For example, if the constituent wants the donation to be processed once per month, enter "1" into the Every field and choose Month in the drop-down menu. To process daily recurring donations, select 1 in the Every field and choose Day in the drop-down menu. |
F. |
End Date |
If you specify an End Date, the recurring donation will be automatically terminated on this date. No payments will be processed after this date. |
3. When all information has been entered, select Continue.
4. If, in the previous step, the recurring donation option is turned on, you will see the alert message below informing you that recurring donations can only be set up using Credit Card or E-Check/ACH as the tender type. Select OK.
On the next page, in the Payment section:
5. Complete the Payment Details information, including selecting a tender type in the drop-down menu located immediately under the Payment section heading. When all applicable information has been entered, select Submit Payment to Neon Pay.
Once the payment is successfully processed, the following pop-up appears informing you of the new recurring donation.
6. Select Confirm.
When you navigate back to the constituent's account page you will see two new pieces of information in the Donations section.
-
A record of the donation you just processed under the Donations tab.
-
A record of the new recurring donation under Recurring Donation Schedules tab . This shows the amount of the recurring donation, the next date it will be processed, and the end of the recurring period. If no end date was defined, the End Date area will be blank.
Note: On the Recurring Donation Schedules tab (as seen above and below), if you select the three dot Action Menu on the right side of the row, you can edit the schedule of the recurring donation. You can also set the schedule to inactive.
Starting the Recurring Donation at a Later Time
As a system user, because all credit card and E-Check/ACH donations will be automatically processed the same day using the procedure outlined in the above section (even if the Date field is set to a future date when processing a donation), if you want the first donation to process on a future date, you must complete the actual donation form on behalf of the constituent and set a future start date on the form. (Please note: The donation form must include the Start Date field for the recurring donation - see the Recurring Donations on Forms section below for information on creating donation forms.)
To start a recurring donation on a later date than the day the recurring donation is created, locate the applicable donation form, as follows:
1. Select Forms & Pages in the navigation menu and then select Forms on the drop-down menu.
2. Select the applicable donation form on the Forms page.
3. Select View Form.
4. Complete the Donation Form on behalf of the constituent, including selecting the applicable recurring timeframe for the donation (as seen below). Additionally, select the applicable start date for the recurring donation in the Start Date field (as seen below). You may enter an End Date, if applicable. The first donation will be processed in the start date provided.
5. Complete the remainder of the Donation Form, including payment information.
Once you have completed the Donation Form, the recurring donation is now set up on the constituent's account with the start date you provided on the form. To confirm this information:
6. Search for and open the applicable constituent's account and select Donations in the left side menu.
7. Select the Recurring Donation Schedules tab.
The recurring donation information will appear, including the future start date (please note: even if the start date is in the future, the start date field will be labeled Started On, as seen in the example below).
You have successfully set up a recurring donation to start on a future start date.
Viewing Recurring Donations
To see a list of all recurring donations:
1. Select Fundraising in the navigation menu and then select Recurring Donation Schedules.
On the Recurring Donation Schedules list page, you can view all recurring donors and filter this list using the search filters at the top of the page.
Note: If you see a "clasped hands" icon next to a schedule list record, this indicates that the recurring donation schedule is linked and applied to a pledge on the account.
On the Recurring Donation Schedules list page:
2. Select the three dot action menu at the right end of any row to: 1) edit the recurring donation, 2) delete the recurring donation, or 3) make the recurring donation inactive.
3. If you wish, select the Export icon to export the list to either an Excel spreadsheet or .csv file.
Editing Recurring Donations
To change information for a recurring donation:
1. Select Fundraising and then select Recurring Donation Schedules on the drop-down menu.
On the recurring donation row you wish to adjust:
2. Select the three dot Action Menu at the right end of the row and then select Edit on the drop-down menu.
In the Next Date field:
3. Adjust the applicable information. In the example below, a new recurring donation date is being selected. You may also adjust: 1) the Amount, 2) the Frequency, 3) the End Date, and 4) the Credit Card Information.
4. When all applicable adjustments have been made, select Submit.
Reporting on Recurring Donations
1. You can also see a list of recurring donation schedules by going to Reports and selecting New Report.
2. Select Fundraising and then Recurring Donation Report. This report includes a special search category called Recurring Donation Schedule where you can search on schedule properties. Select Create Report at the bottom of the pop-up.
3. Select Run Report.
(Please note: The Donor Report and the Donation Detail Report also include the Recurring Donation Schedule search category and related output columns.)
Stopping Recurring Donations
You have two options for stopping a recurring donation, as follows:
Inactivating a Recurring Donation
1. Select Fundraising and then select Recurring Donation Schedules.
2. On the Recurring Donation Schedules list page, select the three dot Action Menu on the right side of any recurring donation listed and select the Mark Inactive option on the drop-down menu. This action stops any further payments from being processed, but the recurring donation schedule and transaction information is preserved on the constituent's record.
Note: If you change the status to Inactive in this manner, you can reactivate the recurring donation at a later time, if desired.
Deleting a Recurring Donation
1. Select Fundraising and then select Recurring Donation Schedules.
2. On the Recurring Donation Schedules list page, select the three dot Action Menu on the right side of any recurring donation listed and select Delete on the drop-down menu. This action removes the credit card or E-Check/ACH information and the recurring donation schedule. It does not delete past donations that were created by the recurring donation.
Note: If you change the status to Inactive in this manner, you cannot reactivate the recurring donation. You must set up a new recurring donation, as needed.
Recurring Donations on Forms
Note: To have recurring donations available for your constituents, your donation form must accept credit card and E-Check/ACH payment methods.
Creating a Recurring Donation Form
To create a donation for that allows for setting up a recurring donation:
1. Select Forms & Pages in the navigation menu and then select Forms on the drop-down menu.
On the Forms list page:
2. Select the New Form drop-down menu and then select Donation.
On the New Donation Form pop-up:
3. Enter a form name in the Name this form field
The remaining items on this pop-up are optional. You may make all needed updates in the Form Builder. If you wish to progress immediately to the form builder, select Create Your Form at the bottom of the pop-up.
For information on creating a donation form, please see the Creating a Campaign Donation Form tutorial and step-by-step guide in the Neon One Academy. Before proceeding to this link, however, the following section provides specific notes regarding recurring donations.
Adding a Start and End Date and Additional Recurring Donation Intervals for Recurring Donations to Your Donation Form
After you select Create your Form as indicated in the previous section, you will be brought to the Form Builder. The menu for the Form Builder consists of the icons displayed on the left-side menu of the page. In the Form Editor section of the Form Builder (the second icon from the top as seen in the image below), you may include a start (and end) date for a recurring donation. You may also add additional recurring donation intervals to your donation form. To do so, after selecting the Form Editor icon in the left menu (the second icon from the top in the left-side menu):
1. Select the Donation Frequency tile in the right-side of the page (this will appear as the second tile in the right-side area, as seen below).
The tile will expand to display many options. At the bottom of the tile:
2. Select the green plus (+) button next to the Start Date and/or End Date fields to include these fields on the donation form.
Additionally, in addition to the default values of Donate Once and Donate Monthly, you may include other donation intervals by selecting the green plus (+) button next to the applicable recurring donation interval(s) you wish to add to your donation form.
Adding these options to your donation form will give constituents who wish to donate on a recurring basis the applicable options to customize their donations, as seen in the image below of an example donation form.
Recurring Donations from the Constituent Login Portal
To allow your constituent to create a new recurring donation from the login portal, you must enable the Display Recurring Donation Link setting. To do so,
1. Select the Settings cog in the upper right corner and then select Global Settings.
2. Under Constituent Portal, select Portal Pages.
3. Select Edit next to Donations.
4. Check the box Display “Recurring Donation” Link and select Save Changes.
Editing Recurring Donations from the Constituent Login Portal
A constituent can log in to their Neon account to make changes to their recurring donation schedule and update their payment information.
1. To do this, they can select Edit.
2. Selecting Edit takes the donor to your Constituent Recurring Donation page. From here, they can update their billing information and modify the details of their recurring payment schedule. For security reasons, the donor must re-enter their credit card information in order to submit any changes made on this page. If the constituent's most recent recurring donation was declined, they can change the Next Payment Date (MM/DD/YYYY) to the following day.