We are in the process of a capital campaign, and I am getting more and more gifts to be paid by credit card over a number of months or years. Of course, each has a different requested date (the first of the month, the 15th, quarterly, only on blue moons...). Other than manually creating Actions for each pledge payment, is there a way to make Raiser's Edge remind me to run a credit card at the appropriate time? Ideally, I would like it to show up on my Home page, like my action reminders do. But I just don't have the time to make anywhere from 10-50 action reminders for every single pledge gift.

So far, I've been putting these payments as a "recurring appointment" in my Outlook so I get a reminder popup. But I realize that this is a clumsy workaround, too. I was hoping RE would have a better solution. (And yes, I know about linking RE action reminders to my Outlook. But again, you'd have to take the time to actually set up all those action reminders!)

 Any advise would be most appreciated

I am hoping you have set up a recurring gift or a pledge with a schedule so you can use that schedule in a number of ways.  you can simply use the reminder feature and pretend you are printing reminders (monthly, weekly, etc). and simply use the reminders as your reminder to run their card.

One HUGE improvement would be the RE:EFT module.  You can use it to automatically populate a batch at the push of a button with everyone who is due with their credit card numebr then you can at the push of a button validate the cards and voila! done.  Where I was previously these were the easiest batches I did every month.  (do not have anyone on a schedule here yet)

I also highly recommend that you limit the offerings you have for when you run the cards.  Do not over promise.  Give them a static list of options which give them enough flexibility but is not making you check every day to see if someone's card is due.  We only offered the same day every month but if you have a lot maybe you offer the 15th or the 30th.   whether or not it is monthly quarterly or annually you stil only check on these days and those due will appear.

We have done several capital campaigns as well as our annual campaign and continue to see an increase in # of people choosing to pay by credit card. 

Other than processing one time gifts when received, our credit card and bank draft/electronic fund transfers are not given options for when payments are processed.  We run them on/about the 5th of each month and this information is on the authorization form they complete.  The payment schedule is set for the 5th using what every schedule they chose: monthly, quarterly, or annually.  We've never had anyone complain or question it.

If you already have a variety of dates requested, I think I'd try to at least consolidate them to 1st and 15th or something like that.  To have to remember to process them every few days isn't very efficient.  As Melissa said, processing the credit card batch is one of the easiest batches to run. 

Good luck.

Ok, thanks to both of you.

I have been putting in scheduled installments and I also have been using the pledge report to see pledges due (which I use mostly for past due pledges). I was hoping there was an even more automated system to remind myself, because I am so addicted to those pop up reminders from Outlook.

Although I don't think we'll be opting for any additional RE services any time soon, the EFT mode does sound like it would make this task much easier. Perhaps when we opt for scaned cards, we'll look at our RE options again.

It's good to hear that, for the most part, donors don't seem to care which day of the month their card is run. The next time we print donation forms, I'll have to remember to put that note in - thanks for that tip!