Merchant Providers

Ami Gibson 2 · May 2016

Hello! I am curious to see what Merchant provider you use for your sustaining givers (and how many you process in a month). We currently use iATS and process around 30,000 sustaining transactions per month. Both ACH and RCC.

Thank you!

Brian Mucha · May 2016

We used to use iATS with a bit less than that number of sustainers. When we changed our hospital name, iATS would absolutely not change our name that appeared on donor statements. We tried for months, it was unbelievable. It was ultimately easier to dump them altogether, which we did for BBMS. iATS was really terrible to work with.

BBMS doesn't currently do ACH, so that's probably a deal breaker for you. But they do expiration date guessing, which is great for sustainer campaigns, iATS does not support this common feature.

We also recently needed a second merchant account for our retail store, and BB wanted about $700 to add the PayFlowPro account used on our current ASP store to Luminate, but adding a second BBMS account was free and took about an hour.

Ami Gibson 2 · May 2016

Thank you for this information! How did you migrate your iATS sustaining gifts over to BBMS?

Brian Mucha · May 2016

We actually shifted our Radiothon over to the Children's Miracle Network, and that was our main sustainer campaign. So almost all of them moved out of Luminate, that was the opportunity to get untangled from iATS.

You can have your records unlocked at a merchant, so you can download everything, including CC numbers. Compliance was interested in that process! CMN used that data to import into their system where billing continued, and we canceled them all in Luminate. The remaining sustainers had to be manually re-entered by Finance. BB has not created a migration tool similar to the one CMN used, at least not for iATS. That seems crazy to me, way to make it hard to move to your product BB.

Ami Gibson 2 · May 2016

That is where we are at right now. iATS holds all of our CC info...plan is to stay with Luminate...but would like to move over to BBMS, but sounds like a long drawn out process for us. Also, had asked Luminate for references for BBMS and only recieved one.

Brian Mucha · May 2016

Also, had asked Luminate for references for BBMS and only received one.

Blackbaud is getting a reputation for this kind of thing. Deservedly.

Nicole Pratt · May 2016

We use Luminate Online and LCRM and use BBMS for all of our payment processing. We don't have many sustaining givers, but the experience has been a positive one. BBMS > IATS :-) BBMS is MUCH easier to use for reconciling with my finance department!

Ami Gibson 2 · May 2016

Thank you! Did you manually migrate your sustainers over to BBMS? Any Cons that you have run accross (once a week deposits)? Do you use the Account updater feature? pros/cons?

Nicole Pratt · May 2016

We did not have any sustainers in IATS prior to the switch, so that wasn't a porblem. We do have credit card updater, though and it has saved at least one donation that I am aware of :-). Working on building up our sustaining giving program, but we have the tools to make it happen!

Ryan O'Keefe · May 2016

Brian Mucha:

You can have your records unlocked at a merchant, so you can download everything, including CC numbers. Compliance was interested in that process! CMN used that data to import into their system where billing continued, and we canceled them all in Luminate. The remaining sustainers had to be manually re-entered by Finance. BB has not created a migration tool similar to the one CMN used, at least not for iATS. That seems crazy to me, way to make it hard to move to your product BB.

Hey Brian,

I'd love to hear how CMN did this? Did they import them into RE or another system outside of Luminate? With Luminate you need a token to resubmit payments for sustained gifts and this is what makes it so hard to migrate sustained gifts into Luminate, that and the compliance issues. I'm just wondering how they did this so I can pass this on to some product folks. Any info would be appreciated. Thanks.

Amy Barker 2 · May 2016

We use Luminate Online and BBMS as well. We are working towards getting ACH but for now just do credit/debit cards.

Alicia Searfoss · May 2016

We use Luminate Online, BBMS for Credit Cards and Paytech for ACH. (When BBMS does ACH, we'll probably switch over those as well.) BBMS was able to migrate the majority of our sustainers over from Global Payments. We just had to give permission for the release for PayFlowPro. There were a few sustainers left on Global that couldn't be migrated, so we're waiting for those to naturally need a new payment type or number and manually move those to BBMS. It was incredibly easy, with very little for us to deal with at all. I've been happy with the change. We have the CC updater as well, and that pays for itself every month.

Ali Burke 2 · May 2016

We also use iats, tho we have a considerably smaller monthly program. When we made the switch to luminate, we just left the existing people in iats monthly batches, and anyone moving forward stays on the LO platform...Not ideal if you ask my gift entry team, but it is what it is...we had some trouble getting the info from iats to enter into LO and just got tired of trying to wrangle them.

Ami Gibson 2 · May 2016

We use Luminate Online, BBMS for Credit Cards and Paytech for ACH. (When BBMS does ACH, we'll probably switch over those as well.) BBMS was able to migrate the majority of our sustainers over from Global Payments. We just had to give permission for the release for PayFlowPro. There were a few sustainers left on Global that couldn't be migrated, so we're waiting for those to naturally need a new payment type or number and manually move those to BBMS. It was incredibly easy, with very little for us to deal with at all. I've been happy with the change. We have the CC updater as well, and that pays for itself every month.

You were able to transfer your sustainers from Global to PayFlow and then to BBMS? How long did that take ?

Alicia Searfoss · May 2016

We were already using Global via PayFlowPro. Once we provided permission, it took about 4 months to complete everything. They tested a few first before doing a full migration, and then made sure everything was good before signing off. I was very impressed with the team. They made sure I was comfortable with everything and explained every step of the way.

Jennifer Reager · May 2016

We have about 300 recurring gifts that we process each month, both Direct Debits and Credit Cards. We use the RE:EFT module and process via BBMS. We also recently acquired the Credit Card Updater. The more automated you can get, the easier it is FOR SURE. Depending on how many gifts you are dealing with, I recommend looking into these products.

Daysi Serrano 2 · May 2016

With Hope Builders we use Stripe which I am not a fan of but we only get 5 transactions per month. This will change though as we are trying to re-do our web site and ask donors for monhly recurring gifts.

Ami Gibson 2 · May 2016

We have about 300 recurring gifts that we process each month, both Direct Debits and Credit Cards. We use the RE:EFT module and process via BBMS. We also recently acquired the Credit Card Updater. The more automated you can get, the easier it is FOR SURE. Depending on how many gifts you are dealing with, I recommend looking into these products.

Have you had any complaints from donors with the Credit Card Updater?

Brian Mucha · June 2016

Ryan O'Keefe:

Brian Mucha:

You can have your records unlocked at a merchant, so you can download everything, including CC numbers. Compliance was interested in that process! CMN used that data to import into their system where billing continued, and we canceled them all in Luminate. The remaining sustainers had to be manually re-entered by Finance. BB has not created a migration tool similar to the one CMN used, at least not for iATS. That seems crazy to me, way to make it hard to move to your product BB.

Hey Brian,

I'd love to hear how CMN did this? Did they import them into RE or another system outside of Luminate? With Luminate you need a token to resubmit payments for sustained gifts and this is what makes it so hard to migrate sustained gifts into Luminate, that and the compliance issues. I'm just wondering how they did this so I can pass this on to some product folks. Any info would be appreciated. Thanks.

I wasn't directly involved but I'll ask around.

Joanne Felci 2 · June 2016

I'd love the answer to this as well - how sustaining payment information can be migrated over to a new merchant gateway/processor

We have about 300 sustainers/month and I would not want to switch things if it means having to contact all donors to re set up recurring gifts

Alice Black · June 2016

We use BBMS as our online bank. Our Luminate, NetCommunity and RE Online Express feeds to this merchant account.

Merchant Providers

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