Overview
This article explains how to enter and edit recurring transactions into Kindful and set an end date/automatic cancellation. Update recurring frequency options, automatically cancel, report, and more.
Linked Articles:
- Recurring Transaction Receipts
- VIDEO: Recurring Transactions
How to Enter a Recurring Transaction
You can enter a Recurring Transaction from the green + Add New button in the upper left-hand corner of your Kindful account.
Once you select Recurring Transaction, the screen will look familiar, albeit with a few new items. You will notice:
- The ability set the gift frequency. Of note, if you choose the 31st of the month (e.g. July, October, December, etc.) or the 30th of the month (April, June, September and November) the donor's recurrence will run on the final day of each month (e.g. the 30th, 28th, or 29th).
- If you wish to have every day of the month be an option for recurring donation date selections for your donors, please contact Kindful Support, and we can enable this on your account.
- Charge the card linked to the contact record or set it to be a manual (offline recurring transaction) option
- Assign the payment method, if applicable
- Add the option to have the donor cover the transaction fee if it is an online-processed transaction
- Set the recurring transaction to automatically cancel after as many transactions as you wish. This example shows "12" assuming the recurrence is set to cancel after 1 year (12 transactions = 12 monthly transactions = 1 year)
- Expand Advanced options to find things like the Non-Tax Deductible amount (if needed)
You can also Add a Recurring Transaction from a contact profile by clicking on the Payment Info tab along the top of the profile, and then select the + New Recurring option.
Automatic vs. Manual Recurring Transactions
You have the option to set up a recurring transaction as either automatic or manual. The option will depend on whether or not the contact has a billing method accessible on their profile.
Automatic Recurring transactions will run on the schedule you choose when creating the recurring transaction, and will automatically charge the selected billing method on the contact profile.
Manual Recurring Transactions can have any new transactions applied towards them. This is best used in cases when you have a donor who consistently mails you a check each month, so while you are able to rely on it, but you cannot set it up for automatic billing. You do not get the same features like covering transaction fees, automatic cancellation, or (donor) user edit abilities.
Automatically Cancel
For Automatic Recurring Transactions, the admin user can select whether or not they want to automatically cancel the recurring transaction after a certain number of successful payments. When editing a recurring transaction, you’ll be able to see the “progress” field that displays how many successful payments have been processed toward this schedule.
Filtering & Reporting
You can easily filter for and report on recurring donation data on both the Activities page and on the Contacts page.
From the Activities page you can find:
- Transactions assigned to a recurring donation
- The contacts with recurring transactions
- Recurring transactions that are manual
- Select the date to find all transactions set to run on that day
- Contacts who have manual recurring transactions that have not been met from previously scheduled occurrences
When a recurring transaction completes its number of scheduled transactions (using the automatic cancel feature), an activity will be created on the Activities page stating that the contact has canceled their recurring transaction.
From the Contacts page you can find:
- The contacts with recurring transactions
- Contacts who have manual recurring transactions that have not been met from previously scheduled occurrences
You can create a report and export out the following information (of note, this example is from the Activities page):
Additionally, you can create a Group for your monthly donors. Use the filter shown above ("Has Recurring Transaction" to begin the process of finding and flagging these contacts for a Group.
Recurring Transaction Progress: This column shows the current progress of the recurring transaction schedule.
- Example 1: If 6 out of 12 of the recurring transactions have been processed, the value in this exported column is “6/12.”
- Example 2: If 13 recurring transactions have been processed and there is no “auto-cancel” set, the value in this exported column is “13/unlimited.”
Recurring Transaction Frequency: This column shows the frequency assigned to the recurring schedule, e.g. “Monthly on the 1st.”
To find the Total Monthly Recurring Dollar Amount for a particular month, head to the Activities page, and run these filters:
- After Date
- Before Date
- Assigned to Recurring
- Successful Transaction: Yes
This will show all of the transactions. To get the sum total, click the $ Sum Total button on the right-hand side of the page.
Finding New Recurrring Donors
Head to the Activities page and filter "Activity Type: New Recurring" to isolate these events. You can also add the filter "This Month" or "This Week" to further isolate the time frame.
Editing a Recurring Transaction
You can edit a recurring transaction by visiting the recurring donor's contact profile. On the profile, navigate to the Payment Info tab. Scroll to find the Recurring Transaction you wish to edit. Click Edit in the block associated with the recurring donation, and you can edit things like the Amount, Campaign, Frequency, and more.
Removing and Changing a Billing Method a Recurring Transaction
If you or a donor adds in a new payment method, you may want to remove the previously existing billing method on file for a contact. If that contact has a recurring donation already set up, when you try to delete the old card, it will give a message that reads "The billing profile has a recurring transaction assigned to it. Please move the recurring transaction to another billing profile or remove it from the dashboard."
To be able to remove the old card, you need to first update the recurring donation to point to the newly added card. Once this is done, you can continue with deleting the old card.
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