Online Express and recurring gifts

Elizabeth MorganBeesley

Hi , I work for an organization that recently set up recurring gifts as a feature on Online Express. However, the last two recurring gifts we have received are not appearing in Blackbaud Merchant Services. When I try to batch manually, I receive a dialogue box stating nothing has been processed. I have followed Blackbaud support steps for processing a recurring gift, but it does not seem to be working.  We are set up for EFT. I have attempted to contact support for this issue, but am unable to access the chat option, or the phone support. 

Veronica Renzo

Hi, 

In your batch what do you have you have listed in the TYPE column? Are these credit cards? if so, did you clear your Authorization code column?

Elizabeth MorganBeesley

In TYPE is says Recurring gift. These are credit cards. However I did not clear the Authorization Code. It just says TestSuccess

Lynnette Fisher

The reason you can't see it on BBMS is the credit card hasn't processed yet.  If it says "TestSuccess" it means that they have chosen a date for their recurring gift to take place which falls after the sign up.  Basically they created their own Recurring gift pledge for you.  When you go to process your EFTs or credit cards it should show up.  For example.  I have it set up on the donation page that they can only choose the 1st or the 15th of the month for their credit cards to be processed.  If they filled out the recurring gift information today and submitted it and selected the 1st as their donation date, the program will process it as a Recurring Gift "pledge" and doesn't charge your card.  The actual donation won't take place until the 1st when you submit for processing.


Hope that makes sense and helps.  I did the same thing the first time I received one.?

Kathleen Eastman

It was confusing for me at first but I've been doing it successfully now for a few months. If you have downloaded the gifts from OLX into a batch, the batch needs to be committed. Once committed, you will see in those Recurring Gift records the payment schedule. Then, when you are ready to process your first batch of recurring gifts do the following:


1. Create a new batch, select from the tool bar Tools/Automatically Generate Transaction Payments

2. Make sure once the gifts load, that the EFT option is checked--doesn't seem to do that automatically. 

3. Make sure you have all of your other fields filled in, add any additional fields you usually use. (Make sure the Waive Benefits field does not appear twice as the system will continue to give you an error regarding having a duplicate field and you can't get back to the field design screen to remove the extra one until you close the batch and go back in)

4. Select from the tool bar Tools/Create EFT Transmission Files, the processing window opens, make sure all of the credit card types you accept are checked off, and the correct Merchant Provider is selected and click OK.

5. Once they are processed you do get a report that pops up indicating the number of gifts and types of credit cards. Don't assume the gifts processed all the way if you get this report/it doesn't tell you if they don't process. Close the report.

6. Check to make sure the authorization code is there in the batch fields for all gifts. If all cards processed successfully, you can commit the batch.


If you didn't need these steps, I apologize, but thought I'd help out if needed. Feel free to contact me directly if you have other questions. keastman@ias.edu


Best,


Kathy

Ginger Risner

Lynnette Fisher:

The reason you can't see it on BBMS is the credit card hasn't processed yet.  If it says "TestSuccess" it means that they have chosen a date for their recurring gift to take place which falls after the sign up.  Basically they created their own Recurring gift pledge for you.  When you go to process your EFTs or credit cards it should show up.  For example.  I have it set up on the donation page that they can only choose the 1st or the 15th of the month for their credit cards to be processed.  If they filled out the recurring gift information today and submitted it and selected the 1st as their donation date, the program will process it as a Recurring Gift "pledge" and doesn't charge your card.  The actual donation won't take place until the 1st when you submit for processing.


Hope that makes sense and helps.  I did the same thing the first time I received one.?

Hey Lynnette, We have just finished setting up our OLX and now have recurring donations being set up. How can you tell when the monthly payment is set up for? We also set ours up for a 1st or 15th payment date, but I'm not sure how to determine which date each payment is set up on. Do you pull them all into the same batch and process on the date and wait to commit the batch until the 15th or do you pull them into separate batches? Thanks for any insight!