Online gifts and refunds

This page is for sites that take gifts by card on the Donate page. It explains what is recorded for you when someone gives, where to see every online gift, and how to refund one. Any admin can do all of it.

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Online giving is available on sites we host, on the Premium plan, with Stripe connected. See Take gifts by card on your Donate page. On a self-hosted site the Online tab is there but stays empty.

What happens when someone gives

A gift is recorded only after Stripe confirms that it was paid. Someone who opens the form and walks away leaves a note on the Online tab, but no gift.

When a gift is paid, the site does the following without you doing anything:

1. It finds the donor. If a donor with that email address is already on file (capital letters do not matter, and a donor who is not archived comes first), the gift is added to them. Otherwise a new donor is added with the name, email and any address the giver typed. If the giver asked to be anonymous, the donor is marked Does not want to be named.
2. It records one gift. The amount is what Stripe says was paid. How it was given is Card. The reference is the Stripe payment number. The Notes say "Given online". The campaign is the one chosen, if it still exists. It is marked as able to have a receipt for the whole amount.
3. It dates the gift by the day it is where your choir is, not where the server is. See your time zone in Your choir's name, place, currency and time zone.
4. It sends two emails: a thank-you to the giver and a short notice to you. See Take gifts by card on your Donate page.

If the donor was already on file, what you have written about them stays. Only an address they did not have is filled in. If the giver asked to be anonymous, the donor is marked Does not want to be named (this is never switched off again by a later gift).

A receipt is never issued automatically. When you want to give a receipt, you do it, from the donor's page or the Receipts tab. See Issue receipts.

See your online gifts

1. In the admin panel, open Donors.
2. Choose the Online tab.

A note at the top reminds you how this works and links to Site Settings → Donate page. If cards are not connected it adds "Card payments are not connected at the moment, so the giving form is not shown on your site."

The table shows the 500 most recent attempts, newest first.

Column	What it shows
Date	When it was paid, or if it was not paid, when the form was sent.
From	The giver's name and email. "Asked to be anonymous" if they ticked the box, and their message if they wrote one.
Amount	What they chose to give. If some was given back, for example "$20 refunded".
Campaign	The campaign they gave to, if any.
Status	One of the labels below.
Actions	Refund, for a paid gift.

Status	Meaning
Not paid yet	The giver is on Stripe's page, or left it open. If it is never paid, it becomes Not completed once the payment page has run out.
Paid	Stripe confirmed the payment. The gift is on the donor's record. "Being added to the donor's gifts" under it means the last step is still being done and will finish by itself.
Not completed	The payment page ran out (after 60 minutes) or was abandoned. Nothing was charged.
Payment failed	Stripe could not take the payment. Nothing was charged.
Refunded	All of the money has gone back.

A gift that was not completed is not on any donor's record and is not in your totals.

If nothing has been given online, the tab says "No gifts have been given online yet".

Refund a gift

1. On the Online tab, find the gift and press Refund at the end of its row.
2. A box asks, for example, "Refund $50 to Ada Singer?" It says "The money goes back to the card it was paid with. The gift stays on their record, marked as refunded."
3. Press Refund $50. Press Cancel to leave things as they are.

You see one of two results.

• "Refunded. The gift stays on the donor's record, marked as refunded." The money is on its way back to the giver's card.
• An amber warning, "Refunded. A receipt was issued for this gift: cancel it under Receipts if it should not stand." The money has gone back, but the receipt you issued earlier has not been changed. If it should not stand, cancel it. See Print, email, replace or cancel a receipt.

The refund is always for the whole gift from this button. Pressing it twice refunds it once.

What a refund changes

• The gift is not deleted. It stays on the donor's page, marked Refunded, and its notes say "Refunded in full on" and the date.
• It no longer counts in totals: the donor's total, the campaign's progress, the year's total and your downloads all leave out money given back. See See a year's giving and download your records.
• If no receipt had been issued, the gift can no longer be put on one.
• The giver's own thank-you page changes to say the gift was refunded.

A part refund made in Stripe

If you give back only part of a gift in your own Stripe dashboard, the site notices. The gift stays Paid and shows, for example, "$20 refunded, $30 kept". Its note reads "Part refunded as of" the date, and what a receipt can be given for is lowered to what was kept. The totals count the $30. A refund of the whole amount made in Stripe is treated just as if you had pressed Refund.

The panel's own Refund button does not make part refunds. Use Stripe for those.

If something goes wrong

Message	What to do
"The refund did not go through, so the gift has been left as it was. Try again, or refund it from your Stripe dashboard."	Stripe refused or could not be reached. Nothing changed. Try again in a minute, or refund in Stripe, where payouts and disputes are also handled.
"That gift was refunded already"	It was done, perhaps by another admin or in Stripe. Reload the page.
"Only a gift that has been paid can be refunded"	Only rows with the Paid status have a Refund button.
A paid gift is not on the donor's page	Wait a minute and reload. If it is still missing, the last step has not finished: see "Being added to the donor's gifts" above.