Automated Recurring Gift FAQs

When you add a recurring gift in the web view or a donor donates through a Raiser' Edge NXT donation form, its payments automatically process based on its payment schedule and status. However, a recurring gift created in the database view, such as through an Online Express or Blackbaud NetCommunity form, requires manual payment processing.

To learn how to end or change the schedule for a recurring gift, see:

To save time and eliminate the need to manually process payments, you can convert it to an automatic recurring gift in the web view. For more information, see Automate Manual Recurring Gifts.

  • Payments that succeed are placed in unapproved batches and you must approve them to create their gift records. For more information, see Gift Management.

  • Payments that fail may do so due to a temporary soft rejection or a permanent hard rejection. When an attempt fails due to a soft rejection, it automatically retries each day until it reaches the maximum number of retries or the payment is successful. For more information, see Recurring Gift Payment Processing.

No. To change a manual recurring gift to automatic processing, you must convert it in the web view if it meets eligibility requirements. For more information, see Automate Manual Recurring Gifts.

Unapproved batches in the web view aren't visible in the database view. However, once a batch is approved in the web view, the gifts in the batch and the batch are visible in database view.

Yes, you must approve batches before recurring gift payments are available in the database view, reports, or other downstream processes such as acknowledgments, receipting, post to the general ledger, etc.

Warning: First recurring payments from donation forms won't process until you approve their batches. To ensure payments process on the date donors expect, you should approve batches every day. For more information, see Gift Batches.

When an attempted payment fails or is rejected temporarily, Raiser's Edge NXT retries up to two times automatically. For more information about retrying failed payments, see Recurring Gift Payment Processing.

When a recurring gift payment fails, a $0.00 payment record appears in the donor's history after it is approved in a batch. From the payment record, under Comments, you can view the reason for the failure.

Depending on why the payment failed, you may need to make changes before you retry it. For example, if the donor's credit card expired, amend the recurring gift to update its payment information. Then, return to the failed payment to retry it. For more information, see Recurring Gift Amendments.

Automated recurring gifts are visible in both the database view and web view, however, you can only change information about future payments in the web view.

To make changes to a recurring gift, such as when a donor requests to increase their monthly gift amount, in the web view add an amendment from the gift record. Amendments let you add and track changes to a recurring gift's details over its lifetime. For more information, see Recurring Gift Amendments.

You can use the following payment gateways for automated recurring gifts:

  • US customers: Blackbaud Merchant Services and Cybersource

  • International customers: Ingenico, ePayments, and Ezic

  1. From Recurring gift summary on the recurring gift record, select Amend schedule.

  2. Choose the new frequency and date future payments will begin. If necessary, enter a new end date. For more information, see Recurring Gift Schedule.

    Note: When you or a donor adds an end date to a recurring gift, payments automatically stop processing after the selected date. However, the gift's status doesn't update to Completed. If you use reports or other processes that are based on gift status, we recommend you manually update the status to Completed.

  3. Under Comments, enter any additional details about the reason for the amendment.

  4. Select Update.

  1. From Recurring gift summary on the recurring gift record, select Amend schedule.

  2. In the Ending on field, select when to stop payments.

    Note: When you or a donor adds an end date to a recurring gift, payments automatically stop processing after the selected date. However, the gift's status doesn't update to Completed. If you use reports or other processes that are based on gift status, we recommend you manually update the status to Completed.

  3. Under Comments, enter any additional details about the reason for the amendment.

  4. Select Update.