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Recurring Gifts

Recurring gifts allow you to set up a gift and have it occur on a regularly scheduled interval.

To set up a recurring gift, complete the following steps:

Follow the steps to add a gift.
Click the recurring checkbox located in the upper right portion of the Add - Fundraising Gift form.
Set the frequency of the recurring gift from the frequency drop-down menu.
Click the Save button when the information required for this gift has been completely entered.

Managing Recurring Gifts

When a recurring gift is set up, all of the corresponding objects necessary for a gift are created and managed behind the scenes.

The following objects are associated with a gift:

From the Gift Profile page, click the Go To Pledge link to navigate to the associated Pledge that contains more information about the recurring aspect of the Gift. From the Pledge profile page, you can view or go to the Order, view the payments, etc. Although you might not think of a a recurring Gift as a Pledge, NetForum uses the Pledge feature to manage the scheduling components of a recurring Gift.

The reason a recurring gift creates a pledge is that, at its core, a recurring gift is really like a pledge with no end date, and which keeps getting extended one more installment at a time, rather than having a fixed number of installments. The Order, Order Detail, and Order Detail Schedule are what keeps track of the recurrence and scheduling, while the Pledge serves as a placeholder/header to link all the gifts.

From the Pledge profile, you can go to the associated Order. On the Order page you can update saved credit card information and view more information.

When viewing the schedule child form on the Order Profile, you will notice that the schedule is always set to the next scheduled gift date.

If you wish to cancel a recurring gift, you must go to the Order Profile and click the Void Schedule icon to void the remaining schedule for this recurring gift.

As the number of scheduled payments for a recurring gift continue, the amount shown on the Pledge Profile will increase.

If you need to update the credit card information for the recurring gift, then go to the associated order, edit the order, and then update the existing credit card information or add a new stored credit card. See also Order . From the Gift, you can navigate to the Order by first going to the Invoice, and then clicking on the hyperlinked Order Code on the invoice profile page.

To view a list of recurring gifts belonging to an individual or organization, visit the Individual or Organization Profile page. Under the Orders tab, all recurring gifts associated with that individual or organization are listed under the recurring gifts child form.

Accounting Implications

NetForum handles recurring gifts on a cash basis.

Suppose a donor pledges to give $25 per month indefinitely as a recurring gift.

When the recurring gifts are processed, NetForum will create a proforma invoice at the beginning of each month for $25. Payment will be applied at the same time in the case of auto-pay with a credit card or ACH. Successful payments will convert that invoice to a receivable. This means that the receivable will be cleared out each month. There will be no long-term receivable because there is no real legal commitment to honor a sustaining pledge indefinitely--the donor can cancel at any time.

For any recurring gifts where auto-pay was not specified, the invoice will remain proforma until changed by staff or until payment is applied.

If a donor should cancel his or her recurring gift, then the gift is canceled in NetForum and they will not be picked up in the next monthly batch. Therefore the actual act of canceling does not generate any ledger records.

Transactions

When a recurring gift is added, the following records get created:

One Order (oe_order), with the order type (ord_orig_trans_type) of "recurring".
One Order Detail (oe_order_detail), linked to the Price and Product of the Fund (via odd_prc_key and odd_prc_prd_key respectively).
Two Order Detail Schedule rows (oe_order_detail_schedule), linked to the Order.
- The first is for the initial payment.
- The second is for the next scheduled payment.
An Invoice, linked to the Order via inv_ord_key.
An Invoice Detail, linked to the Order Detail (via ivd_odd_key) and to the first Order Detail Schedule (via ivd_ods_key).
A Payment, Payment Info, and Payment Detail. The Payment Detail is linked to the Invoice Detail via pyd_ivd_key.
A Pledge, linked to the Order (via plg_ord_key) and to the Order Detail (via plg_odd_key).
A Gift, representing the initial payment, linked to the Pledge (via gft_plg_key) and to the Invoice Detail (via gft_ivd_key).

Each time a new installment is generated, either manually from the Order profile page by clicking the generate next installment link, or by the recurring gift task, the following new records are created:

A new Order Detail Schedule placeholder for the next installment. This will be the 3rd overall Order Detail Schedule.
A new Invoice with the same invoice code as the original, but with a new counter (e.g. if the original invoice code was 700078, then the new invoice will be 700078-1).
A new invoice detail, linked to the original Order Detail and to the second Order Detail Schedule.
If auto-pay was selected, then a set of payment records similar to what is described above.
A new Gift, linked to original pledge and new Invoice Detail.

For each new monthly gift (installment), a new Invoice, Invoice Detail and Gift are created. For example, the donor has a monthly gift and has been paying $50 a month for 12 months. You will have:

One Order
One Order Detail
Thirteen Order Detail Schedules - one each for the first 12 months, and the 13th for the next month.
One Pledge
Twelve each of Invoice, Invoice Detail ($50 each) and Gift ($50 each)

The reason a recurring gift creates a pledge is that a recurring gift is like a pledge with no end date, and which keeps getting extended one more installment at a time, rather than having a fixed number of installments. The Order, Order Detail, and Order Detail Schedule keep track of the recurrence and scheduling, while the Pledge serves as a placeholder/header to link all the gifts.

Scheduling the First Payment in the Future

If you choose an electronic payment method for a recurring gift, NetForum attempts the first payment immediately. To schedule the first payment in the future, use the following steps:

Add a Gift, select Recurring type, choose the interval, and enter the gift amount.
Enter the Gift Date and Transaction Date to be the first payment date.
In the Payment section, choose a non-electronic payment method like Cash.
For the payment amount, enter 0, which ensures that no payment is applied.
Save the Gift. At this point, the order is created along with a proforma Invoice for the first scheduled payment.
Navigate to the recurring gift you just created.
From the recurring gift, navigate to the first invoice.
Void the invoice.
From the voided invoice, navigate to the order.
Void the second installment schedule.
Update the order to add or enter the credit card payment information and select the auto-pay installments setting. At this point, the recurring gift is ready for the first payment to be applied by the recurring gift task when the first schedule date arrives.