Before you process donations, you should select options in NetCommunity Options in The Raiser’s Edge. Specifically, you can apply Transaction Assignments to donations. Review that section before proceeding with this section.
If you are about to process donations for a Fundraiser part, you should first process Fundraiser transactions. Then download the donations. For more information about Fundraiser transactions, see Fundraisers.
There are two main ways to process Donations — single and bulk. We do not recommend combining steps between these two processes. For example, do not use the Process Transaction button if you are going to download transactions using the bulk process. Read this section entirely to learn about the information available for both processes.
| • | Single — You can select each row individually to match the donor with an existing Raiser’s Edge record or add the donor as a new record in the database. |
| • | Bulk — You can select all donors and process every donation simultaneously. If you process all donations, you may need to clean up data in The Raiser’s Edge after processing completes. |
When you process transactions, you must make more decisions beyond using the single or bulk process. For example, you may want to create a batch in The Raiser’s Edge to specifically use for donations from Blackbaud NetCommunity. Or you may want to create the batch in the Donations transaction. Review the following diagram for an example of one way to process donations. Before you begin regularly processing transactions, a best practice decision should be made for your organization.
Warning: To help you comply with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), you cannot process a donation that contains recurring gift information if you use The Raiser’s Edge 7.85 or earlier. To process recurring gift transactions, update The Raiser’s Edge to version 7.86 or later.