Online Express and Monthly/Recurring Giving

John Zajc

Who has experience in using the monthly/recurring giving in Online Express donation forms?

Did you/do you have the EFT module? Anyone trying to do it withou the EFT module?

We are currently running 7.93.5782.11 and I really can't figure out any way to do monthly giving at this configuration.

I am trying to best understand what limitations there are if my school doesn't add the EFT module.

Thanks!. 

John Zajc, Development Officer, Annual Fund, Cleveland Institute of Music

Jen Claudy

We have the EFT module, and if you have plans to move to RE:NXT, you will then have EFT (at this point, still accessed via RE:7).  I believe that you are not able to run charges from within RE without EFT.  However, I believe you could run them manually through the BBMS portal.  Not sure on that.  Depending on your volume of gifts, you might look at getting EFT to make things easier.



My biggest complaint about EFT/OLX is that you have to manually initiate recurring gift charges...and remember to do so.  We moved from a 3rd party vendor that would allow the donor to set up an account on that site and manage their recurring gift.  The vendor would automatically run the recurring gift charges and send us an alert that they had been run.  BB appears to have no plans and see no need for this sort of system, as I've been told that recurring gifts are automatic, once manually initiated.



Sorry I don't have a more concrete answer for you on this one...maybe someone else will have more information.

John Zajc

Jennifer Claudy:

We have the EFT module, and if you have plans to move to RE:NXT, you will then have EFT (at this point, still accessed via RE:7).  I believe that you are not able to run charges from within RE without EFT.  However, I believe you could run them manually through the BBMS portal.  Not sure on that.  Depending on your volume of gifts, you might look at getting EFT to make things easier.



My biggest complaint about EFT/OLX is that you have to manually initiate recurring gift charges...and remember to do so.  We moved from a 3rd party vendor that would allow the donor to set up an account on that site and manage their recurring gift.  The vendor would automatically run the recurring gift charges and send us an alert that they had been run.  BB appears to have no plans and see no need for this sort of system, as I've been told that recurring gifts are automatic, once manually initiated.



Sorry I don't have a more concrete answer for you on this one...maybe someone else will have more information.

Actually, your comment



"that you have to manually initiate recurring gift charges...and remember to do so."



is extremely helpful as I would have EXPECTED it to be automatic. I mean, I already have a handful of people that tell me to charge their credit card once a month and for some silly reason I thought adding this capability would actually completely automate the process. That's weak tea, Blackbaud....



We are not likely to be an early adopter of RE:NXT (we only caught up to 7.93 after the 7.94 launch). We have BBMS and can't understand the process for the recurring gift (I haven't even found any documentation that makes sense to me (I am fairly new to RE).

Paul Morriss

We use EFT and Online Express. Every month we create a batch and populate it from credit card recurring gifts, in a similar way to Direct Debits. Then RE sends off some sort of file to BBMS to charge the cards, and we can commit the batch. So it's not automatic, but not a lot of work to do once a month. (We run DDs twice a month.) Let me know if you want more detail.

John Zajc

Paul Morriss:

We use EFT and Online Express. Every month we create a batch and populate it from credit card recurring gifts, in a similar way to Direct Debits. Then RE sends off some sort of file to BBMS to charge the cards, and we can commit the batch. So it's not automatic, but not a lot of work to do once a month. (We run DDs twice a month.) Let me know if you want more detail.

Thanks for your reply, Paul.

Rochelle Johnson

Paul Morriss:

We use EFT and Online Express. Every month we create a batch and populate it from credit card recurring gifts, in a similar way to Direct Debits. Then RE sends off some sort of file to BBMS to charge the cards, and we can commit the batch. So it's not automatic, but not a lot of work to do once a month. (We run DDs twice a month.) Let me know if you want more detail.

Paul, I would like more information on how you do this, please. We are new to BBMS and OLX as well.