Hi,

Does anyone out there use direct debit for recurring gifts. I called our bank and they stated that they do not allow money to be taken from personal accounts for businesses reasons due to risk factor. I have been asked to look into this and am at a dead end. Do I need to use an outside vendor or do I need to set up an account with a differernt bank? Any help would be appreciated.

Nancy Rice
The Greater Boston Food Bank
[Email Removed]
617-598-5066
Nancy Rice
Development Associate
Greater Boston Food Bank

When I was at the University we had the donor fill out a SIGNED document authorizing the direct debit from their account to our account. The ORIGINAL went to the BANK and we kept a copy. This was still in effect when I left Nov 2005; I can't imagine a bank NOT allowing a depositor to authorize activity on their account... Elaine Tucker Stewardship Coordinator St. Mark's School of Texas www.smtexas.org [Email Removed]

We have over 1,300 Direct Debit Recurring (Monthly) Gifts. Since we do not use Financial Edge, we create the EFT transmission file as a flat file, and then use our bank's web banking program to send them that file. We receive an online accept/decline report back from the back within 24 hours. Our bank does not require that we send them any written documentation. Harriet Ottawa Humane Society

Nancy, we do our procedures are similar to Harriet's (Hi, Harriet -- still envious of your high-volume recurring giving program!). I cannot imagine a bank that would not allow you to do this as so many corporations (phone, cable, internet providers, credit card companies, etc.) allow their customers to set up automatic payments, not to mention all the non-profits with recurring giving programs. Perhaps the person you talked to didn't understand what you meant? I could be wrong, but it's my understanding that you do need to go through your bank to do this rather than an outside vendor. If your bank truly does not do direct debits, they are not keeping pace with changes in the banking industry that have been in place for decades. Sarah Sarah Taft Fund Development Manager The San Francisco SPCA

Hi Harriet, I used to work for the MSPCA and we also had a recurring gift program but we had an outside vendor do the banking for us. We did not use Raisers Edge. My IT manager wanted to know if we could speak to you in a conference call. Would you be available at all to help us. My direct e-mail is [Email Removed] and phone number is 617-598-5066. Any help would be appreciated. Nancy The Greater Boston Food Bank Nancy Rice Development Associate Greater Boston Food Bank

Hello Harriet! Would you give me a little more information on how you get the 1.300 donor information back into RE? I have talked with someone at IATS who tells me I don't need to purchase additional software to run credit card transactions via RE. Do you have a recurring batch set up to process every month. How hard is it to research who has paid and who has been declined? I'm just looking for more insite on this entire credit card processing issue, as we have only 300 to do every month and currently we do those on a merchant machine!!! by hand!!! So any help would be appreciated!

IATS may have been incorrect to tell you you don't need additional software. I believe you need the EFT module. (am I wrong?) If you already have it that may have been why they told you that in which case they were right! Once you have the EFT module and your recurring gifts and pledges are set up properly (can be easier said than done) - you can simply go to an empty batch - click a button (with a few options) and all people due to be scheduled for a payment are plopped into your batch. (yes, plopped) After checking things came through properly you then click another button to run the cards through IATS. You get them authorized/rejected - then committ the batch. Of course it seems pretty simple and it does get fairly routine after a while, but your fitst time may take a bit of work. But it is definitely better than doing 300 cards manually. We have the EFT module and we only have 50 recurring gift donors! *** my spelling is fine, it's my typing that stinks. Where is spell check? Melissa S. Graves Manager, Development Database & Direct Mail Planned Parenthood of Connecticut [Email Removed] 203-752-2804

In order to easily co-ordinate between RE and IATS for credit cards, you should purchase RE's EFT module. Then, all you do is open a blank batch, and choose to Automatically Generate a Transaction File. This populates your batch with all Recurring Gifts marked for EFT, due for processing based on the time period you selected. The next action is to Create the Transmission File. For Credit Cards, this sends your batch off to whoever you are using to process your credit card payments. In our case, it is IATS. Within seconds, you receive a return file showing "Y" codes for accepted transactions, plus a variety of Rejection Codes. You will have to have a process to determine how you want to handle this file. We sort the batch by Rejection Code,so that all the declined cards are at the top. Then we change the dollar value to $0 before Committing the batch. We have a mail program that sends a letter to all declined credit card holders,asking for updated information. The RE mail program that creates this letter looks for the $0 in gifts associated with a particular credit card batch. The above is a pretty quick overview, but it is really a pretty slick process. We now run about 1500 credit cards and about the same for direct debit. Harriet Farmer Ottawa Humane Society

This is a fairly easy process to use once it is set up. You will need the EFT module in order to set up your batch with the needed fields. We created an EFT template. When committing this batch if you access the third tab the Credit card processing tab on the committment screens and utilize the options by checking the box for "check credit card author..." and then clickig the button under "If declined..." for "If declined do not commit..." this ensures that the gifts that have been declined are not committed to the donor record in RE. Once this feature has been used your user probably will see this as a default but I always check it. If this is not set up the item will be posted to RE as a gift. I have pretty detailed instructions on how to set up RE to work with IATS if you would like them you may e-mail me. Set up of this is important if you are to have success. [Email Removed]

We have the EFT module, but have not used it yet. We're now considering implementing the whole system. I'm wondering how that process/experience was for those of you who have been through it. Did you configure it yourself or did you have RE come out and do it for you. Is my first step contacting my bank? Any help from those of you with the experience would be appreciated.

This all depands on what exactly you will be using the EFT module for. We haven't yet offered true EFT to donors and are just using it for credit card monthly gifts. For that we didn't need to contact our bank - we just set up an account with IATS and they simply deposit to our bank.

I think if you are doing true EFTs from accounts talking to your bank may help but I don't know for sure. *** my spelling is fine, it's my typing that stinks. Where is spell check?

Melissa S. Graves
Manager, Development Database & Direct Mail
Planned Parenthood of Connecticut
[Email Removed]
203-752-2804

We use EFT for all Recurring Gifts and Pledges, both Credit Cards and Direct Debit. Both were easy to setup. For credit cards, we established an IATS account, and the transfer is done automatically when the Create Transmission File is selected. Within seconds, the batch is updated with Authorize/Reject codes. For Direct Debit, we have what I call a "semi-automatic" system. We also use Create Transmission File, but have it set up to create a flat file. This flat file is then retrieved from our server by the Finance Dept, who upload it as a file that is usable by the their desk top banking system and which sends a file to our bank. A couple of days later, they receive an electronic file showing accepted and rejected direct debits. EFT was the first module we set up when we purchased RE and I found it unexpectedly straightforward. Harriet Farmer Ottawa Humane Society