Issue with using Additional Amount field to collect CC processing fee

Leslie Beck

Hi -- This question has to do with using the 'Additional Gift' element on an LO donation form to collect an additional gift that covers a CC processing fee on a donation.  We have implemented on a couple donation forms and it works fine except that on recurring gifts the Additional Amount is only included on the initial donation, subsequent charges are only for the base amount.  


As an example:

A user chooses to have a sustaining gift of $10.00 a month and opts in to cover a 4% processing fee at $.40 for a total initial gift of $10.40.  But when the gift is processed the next month, the donor is only charged $10.  


Does anyone know if there is a way to get that Additional Gift amount added to the total charged each month?  Maybe an SDP setting? I know others have implemented this (see https://community.blackbaud.com/forums/viewtopic/1/41698?post_id=160596#p160596) and I would be interested to know how you handled it. 


Thanks!

Jeremy Reynolds

Before i arrived at the technique you linked, I tried something that could work here, but I don't think I'd recommend it. Instead of the additional gift field, which you're correct is a one-shot gift (by design), I made clicking the checkbox switch which donation level was selected, making it the "user entered" amount field with math (similar javascript as in that link).


That confused users, so I tried it with the user amount field hidden. Less confusing, but now I was making a "fake" user-entered donation level in the code. Still, it worked sometimes.


Biggest problem was that anyone who submits the form with a typo will break things, because it reloads the page without re-running the javascript interaction. Other times, users got weird results and said it charged more than they told it to. To this day, I'm still not sure how that happened. Overall, maybe had a 90% success level.


Other problem with the hacky approach is that all fee-incuded gifts become "user entered" amounts, which can be an issue if you happen to use donation levels for anything in particular. Also, capturing the fact that fees are technically an additional donation might be handy (can't think of a reason why at the moment, but I'm sure there is one).