Retaining Declined CC information from recurring gift batch

Jacob Williamson

In this post Target/Home Depot world we have at least 150 new declined credit cards every time we run our monthly gift, and it's tricky managing them. I'm looking into Blackbaud's credit card updater, but that's an "in the future" thing.When I generate my monthly payments, I've got lots of information at my disposal in the monthly payment batch--every declined CC and its error message all associated with a member record, but I can't commit (or shouldn't commit) those gifts. I'm wondering if there's some easy way to commit those gifts so that the error messages are stored. My first thought was to save it as a Pledge or "Other" gift type, but I'm not sure I can retain the error message in that manner, besides the problem of creating a bunch of dummy gifts and the side-effects *that* might create. I'm not sure that "error message" is even a legitimate gift field.I've been manually adding the declined information into each recurring gift's "Reference" line but it's a tedious exercise, if there's a better solution that I'm simply overlooking. Re-entering data is such a waste of time I'd appreciate any feedback, even if it's "you're missing something very obvious." Thanks!Jacob Williamson, KLRU TV, Austin TX

JoAnn Strommen

Jacob Williamson:
In this post Target/Home Depot world we have at least 150 new declined credit cards every time we run our monthly gift, and it's tricky managing them. I'm looking into Blackbaud's credit card updater, but that's an "in the future" thing.When I generate my monthly payments, I've got lots of information at my disposal in the monthly payment batch--every declined CC and its error message all associated with a member record, but I can't commit (or shouldn't commit) those gifts. I'm wondering if there's some easy way to commit those gifts so that the error messages are stored. My first thought was to save it as a Pledge or "Other" gift type, but I'm not sure I can retain the error message in that manner, besides the problem of creating a bunch of dummy gifts and the side-effects *that* might create. I'm not sure that "error message" is even a legitimate gift field.I've been manually adding the declined information into each recurring gift's "Reference" line but it's a tedious exercise, if there's a better solution that I'm simply overlooking. Re-entering data is such a waste of time I'd appreciate any feedback, even if it's "you're missing something very obvious." Thanks!Jacob Williamson, KLRU TV, Austin TX

Jacob,

How are your cc processed? 

If its through IATS, have you checked this knowledgebase solution?  I know there's a report like this but don't know if it's available for other processing programs.

What happens to declined credit cards in The Raiser's Edge 7

    

If using IATS, you can access your journal report and run a cc reject report for a given day, which tells you which cards were rejected and why. If unsure how to run this report, contact IATS Per BB11743, gifts with rejection codes shouldn't commit, but that has not been my experience.  I've had them commit when I didn't want them to - I'd forgotten to check the auth field for each one. 

 just one option if you use IATS

JoAnn Strommen

JoAnn Strommen:

Jacob,

How are your cc processed? 

If its through IATS, have you checked this knowledgebase solution?  I know there's a report like this but don't know if it's available for other processing programs.

What happens to declined credit cards in The Raiser's Edge 7

    

If using IATS, you can access your journal report and run a cc reject report for a given day, which tells you which cards were rejected and why. If unsure how to run this report, contact IATS

 

Per BB11743, gifts with rejection codes shouldn't commit, but that has not been my experience.  I've had them commit when I didn't want them to - I'd forgotten to check the auth field for each one. 

 just one option if you use IATS

I don't know where rejection code is save or viewable on a gift record.  I don't see it. 

Other thoughts would be to  make gift amount $0 but still don't know how you'd see rejection code. 

To make manual entry easier, I'd probably sort batch by rejection code and then could at least do quicker paste into reference field for each type - wouldn't have to copy each line to paste - just copy each type once and paste in all appropriate gifts.

Best of luck figuring this one out.  Maybe worth a call to support to ask them. 

Jacob Williamson

JoAnn Strommen:

I don't know where rejection code is save or viewable on a gift record.  I don't see it. 

Other thoughts would be to  make gift amount $0 but still don't know how you'd see rejection code. 

To make manual entry easier, I'd probably sort batch by rejection code and then could at least do quicker paste into reference field for each type - wouldn't have to copy each line to paste - just copy each type once and paste in all appropriate gifts.

Best of luck figuring this one out.  Maybe worth a call to support to ask them. 

Thanks! Sorting things by rejection code type helps a LOT, good tip! We used to use IATS, but now we use BBMS (Blackbaud Merchant Services). I'll go to the BBMS website and see if there's a Rejection report--since BBMS is a Blackbaud product the odds that it retains member information's a little bit higher. Best, Jacob Williamson