Pledges: Upgrade Pledge (Increase the Amount Pledged)

Pledges: Upgrade Pledge

1. Upgrading a pledge means increasing the amount pledged of an existing pledge. This can be done by increasing any of the scheduled payments or adding more payments to the pledge.
2. To get started, navigate to the pledge index screen by clicking on click on Fundraising on the Main Menu to open the Fundraising sub-menu and click Pledges under the Fundraising heading.

   

3. This will take you to the pledges index screen where you can find all of your existing pledges.

   

4. You can use the various filters at the top of the page to search for the pledge you wish to edit by date range, contact/donor name, or total pledge amount. Fill in your criteria and click the blue Filter button. To remove/clear the filters/to unfilter the list, click the Reset button.

   

5. To upgrade an existing pledge, click on the Edit button to the right of the appropriate pledge entry.

   

6. This will take you to the Add/Edit Pledge screen. From here, you can upgrade a pledge.

   

7. A pledge can be upgraded in one of three ways: a) use the upgrade button, b) use "receive payment" and over pay/receive more than is due, or c) "use "assign gift" and over pay/apply a donation for greater than is owed.
8. To upgrade the pledge using the Upgrade button:
   • Click the Upgrade Button in the pledge schedule area.

     

   • This will open up the Add Pledge Schedule area and allow you to add additional pledge schedule dates.

     

   • Add the Total Additional Amount, the Start Date of when the additional amount(s) will be charged, the # of Installments, and the Frequency. Then click the blue Add button.

     

   • This will add the additional payment(s) to the pledge schedule.

     

   • If your new pledge payment dates are the same as any of your existing pledge payment dates, the system will update the amount due on those dates (rather than creating a second pledge schedule for that date). In our screen shots below, you can see in the first screen shot that the last date of the original schedule is 9/28/2020 for $100. Our additional pledge amounts start on 9/28/2020 and add $300 per payment. In the second screen shot, you can see that the pledge schedule for 9/28/2020 now equals $400 ($100 (original amount) + $300 (upgrade amount)). The 10/28/2020 pledge schedule is new/is the second upgrade payment and is for $300. The amounts of the original pledge schedules/the ones that don't overlap with the upgrade dates remain as they were before the upgrade.

     BEFORE THE UPGRADE

     

     AFTER THE UPGRADE

     

9.  To upgrade a pledge using Receive Payment and overpaying/receiving more money than is owed:
   • Click the drop down to the right of any scheduled payment and click Receive Payment.
     

     

   • On the payment details pop up, fill in the payment date, payment method, reference number (if any), and amount.

     

     

   • If you put in a payment amount that is greater than the scheduled/due amount, several options will become available to you as to how to handle the overage.

     

     

   • You can select to apply the overpayment amount to the next unpaid pledge schedule (this may include an earlier pledge schedule if this is last unpaid schedule chronologically) (please note: if there are no other unpaid schedules for this pledge, then this option will not be present), to upgrade the amount of the pledge schedule to the amount of the payment, or issue a credit on the contact's account for the overage amount.
   • Once you make your selection, click the Continue button in the lower right to save the payment information.

     

10.  To upgrade your pledge by overpaying the amount due via Assign Gift:
    • Assign Gift is used to link a previously recorded donation to a pledge. This might happen when, for a example, a donor makes a pledge payment online by making a donation or when the donor makes a donation and then later decides to increase their gift/turn their gift into a pledge. They may ask that you consider their donation the first payment toward their pledge. In either instance, the donation already exists in Fundly CRM, separate from the pledge, and you wish to link the two together. Obviously, to use this method, you must have recorded one or more donations for this contact.
    • To link a donation to a pledge schedule, choose Assign Gift from the drop down next to any scheduled payment.

      

    • The Assign Gift pop up window will appear with a list of donations that can be assigned to the pledge schedule (if there are no donations/no donations that are not already assigned to a pledge, then the pop up window will be blank).

      

    • Click the radio button to the right of any donation to select a donation that is greater than the amount due for the pledge schedule and then click the Continue button.

      

      

    • The system will warn you that the pledge schedule will be upgraded to match the amount of the donation. Using Assign Gift, you will not have the option to apply the overage to the next unpaid schedule or to issue a credit for it. You will only have the option to upgrade the amount due/the pledge schedule to equal the amount of the donation.

      

    • Click OK to save the payment.

      

11.  No matter which method you use to upgrade the pledge, once you upgrade the pledge you will see the upgrade details in the upper right corner in the Pledge History area.

    

12. The Latest Commitment and Current Commitment areas will update as well.

    

13. And entry will also be added in the summary for "Additional Commitment." You may have to click the double arrow to open up the Latest/Additional Commitment list.

    

    

14. Each upgrade will make it's own "Additional Pledge Entry" in the pledge summary information. In the screen shot below, we have upgraded this pledge 7 separate times (that is, the donor made a pledge, and then on seven separate occasions contacted us to upgrade their pledge).
    

    

15. Each Upgrade will also create it's own separate invoice. You can see the invoice number attached to each upgrade in the Pledge Summary.