Pledges: Working With Pledges (Editing, Deleting, Receiving Payment, Etc.)
- When you create a pledge, it creates an invoice in the invoices area for the total pledge amount, shown as an outstanding balance. Every payment received toward that outstanding balance is recorded as a separate line item on the invoice. These payments are also recorded as donations/gifts (and will show on the contact's Giving Details area and on the Gifts Index screen).
- Every upgrade to a pledge creates a new invoice for the upgrade amount. Because of this, one pledge may have several invoices. Each upgrade will record an entry in the Pledge Summary area with the invoice number for that portion of the pledge (you may have to click the double arrow to open up the Pledge Summary/to see all of the Pledge Summary entries). Using the Pledge Summary area, you can match the pledge to the various invoices that cover it.
- There is no ability to void/refund/credit a pledge or pledge payment.
- You can delete a payment from a pledge (in case of an erroneous entry) by either editing the pledge, hovering over the payment information, clicking edit, and then click the Delete Payment button. Please Note: Invoices for Pledges cannot be edited or deleted from the invoices area (they will only have a View button and no option to edit or delete).
OR
- Deleting a payment from a paid pledge schedule will open that pledge schedule's date back up for editing.
BEFORE DELETING PAYMENT
AFTER DELETING PAYMENT
- If you delete a payment from a pledge invoice, the donation entry on the invoice is NOT deleted. Instead, it remains on the invoice but is zeroed out. When payment is received again in the future, then the line item updates to show that it is paid.
- Pledge invoices cannot be edited or deleted from the Invoices Index area (Main Menu: Financials: Invoices). The only way to delete a pledge/pledge invoices is to delete the entire pledge, which can be done from the Pledges Index Screen.
- If you attempt to delete a pledge that has received any payments, then the pledge will be deleted but the pledge invoice and the payments will be converted to donations/a donation invoice. This donation will show in the Gifts Index area and on the contact record in their Giving Details just as a normal donation would. If you want to get rid of the entire pledge and all of the financial records, you would need to delete each payment first and then delete the pledge.
- A paid pledge schedule cannot be edited/changed in any way.
- If you want to change the date on a paid pledge schedule, you will need to delete the payment, edit the date, and then re-add the payment
- If you want to change the amount owed of a paid pledge schedule, you will have to delete the payment and then receive payment again (and over or under pay) or use the upgrade/downgrade function to change the amount owed. See our tutorials on upgrading or downgrading a pledge for more information.
- The only way to edit the amount owed on a pledge schedule is to use the upgrade/downgrade function or through receiving payments (to upgrade or downgrade a pledge). See our tutorials on upgrading or downgrading a pledge for more information.
- You can view the details of the payment(s) made against a pledge schedule by hovering over the double-headed arrow to the right of the paid amount. You can click the pencil icon to edit the payment if needed.
- Working with Contingency Pledges:
- If you have set up a contingency pledge, then you will not be able to generate the payment schedule or record payment until you indicate that the contingency has met.
- Edit the pledge and click the "Yes" radio button under the Contingency Fulfilled field.
- This will open up the Pledge Pledge Contingent Fulfilled Date field and populate the pledge schedule based on the previously filled in information.
- Add the date the pledge contingency was fulfilled and click the black Save button in the lower right. Now the pledge will operate like a regular pledge going forward. You can use the upgrade/downgrade buttons to adjust the pledge schedule and/or receive payment as normal.
- To record a payment against for a pledge schedule:
- To record payment against a pledge schedule, click the drop down to the right of the pledge schedule and select either Receive Payment OR Assign Gift. Receive payment will let you record a payment (via check, credit card, credit card offline, cash, etc.) for the pledge. Assign Gift will allow you to associate a previously received donation as payment toward the pledge. For example, a donor might make a donation to your organization for $100. They may then decide a few weeks later to increase their donation to $500, which they will pay in 5 installments, and they would like the $100 previously sent to be counted as the first installment. Or a donor may go online and make a donation as a way of making a pledge payment and you will then have to manually associate that donation and the pledge, as there is no way for a donor to make a pledge payment online.
- To receive payment, click the Receive Payment button. The Add/Edit payment screen will pop up. Fill in the payment details then click the black Continue button in the lower right. Please Note: account credits CANNOT be used to pay for a pledge. If the contact has a credit on their account that you wish to use, you will need to delete the credit and re-enter the payment manually into the pledge payment screen. See our tutorial on working with credits for more information on how to delete credits.
- To Assign Gift, you must first have entered a donation into the system for the donor. After having done that, click the Assign Gift button. In the Assign Gift pop up window, select the donation you wish to associate to the pledge schedule then click the black Continue button in the lower right to save the payment.
- Please Note: if you have previously received a partial payment for a pledge schedule, you will not have the option to Assign Gift.
- If you Receive Payment or Assign Gift for more or less than is owed, you will be given the opportunity to upgrade/downgrade the pledge schedule. See our tutorials on upgrading and downgrading pledges for more information.
- A Pledge can also be paid through stocks. There will be a checkbox that says "The payment is through stocks". Once checked, the stock gift information will be displayed. Click on the plus sign to add the stock gift details. Note that the mode of payment will still be required.
- After you record a payment for a pledge schedule, a thank you/acknowledgement letter will be queued up in the Send Acknowledgements area, using your selected pledge template. There is no way to send one letter for the entire pledge (rather than for each pledge payment). For more information on how to send the thank you letter(s) to your donor, see our tutorial on generating donation acknowledgement letters.
- Auto Recurring/Charging pledges can generate a "payment success" or "payment failure" notification that is sent to your donor and/or internal cc's on your staff. Configure these notifications on Main Menu: Fundraising: Notifications: Pledges. Please Note: turning on the pledge payment failure notification and adding an internal/staff cc is the ONLY way you will be notified when an automatic pledge payment fails/when a pledge payment is missed. We STRONGLY recommend that you turn this notification on.
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