How Offline Recurring (Pledges) Works in SiteStacker

Recently we have made updates to our current process for Recurring and have noticed a few things with most of our clients. We have added a new feature, similar to Pledges, called Offline Recurring! In this article, we will be showing you how it is being used currently and the things you can do on your end to tie it into your organization's routine!

Here is a breakdown of what we will be covering:

Importing Offline Recurring

The first step to importing your Offline Recurring is to use the Recurring Batch import file (see below) with all of the necessary information (in bold) along with optional information that you may have at hand (not bolded). Note: If you don't have many contributions to import, then you can skip to the Adding Offline Recurring in Contributions section.

Once you have filled out this import file, you can click on the Imports tab, Upload your file, and then by right-clicking and choosing Run Import, you will successfully import all of your Offline Recurring! But this isn't the only import you will need to do, as you will need to provide the designation information, which helps SiteStacker determine what funds each contribution is going toward. See the screenshot below for what the Recurring import file will need for you to assign each of your Offline Recurring transactions to:

Once you have completed both of these imports, you can view your Offline Recurring transactions in the Contributions component under the Recurring View!

Adding Offline Recurring in Contributions

To add Offline Recurring within your Contributions component you will need to have the following information:

• Donor's Name (ex: John Smith)
• Designation Information (Campaign, Amount, Notes, Source Code, etc.)
• Recurring Frequency (Weekly, Monthly, Yearly, etc.)
• Start Date (End Date if applicable)

Once you have the information above you should then input them into their respective fields, while making sure to set the Type to Offline Recurring. This will make sure that the donation is added to the correct area within SiteStacker and is reported properly. Once that is complete, you can click Submit to ensure that the contribution is added flawlessly. See the screenshot below for an example of how an Offline Recurring donation was set up:

Remember that once you Submit this new contribution, you will only be able to see this under the Recurring View within the Contributions component!

Using Batch Entries with Offline Recurring

Batch entries are a helpful way to easily set up Offline Recurring donations that already have a schedule within your SiteStacker installation. Here are the steps to adding multiple offline recurring gifts within a Batch Entry:

1. Open the Contributions component within SiteStacker.
2. Click open the 'Batches' tab, which shows you a list of previous batches entered (if any).
3. Click on the blue Menu / Search bar on the left-hand side of the window.
4. Click New Batch and the Batch Entry window will popup.
5. Fill out the information of the Deposit Date, Donor, Date, and Method, along with the Associated Offline. Recurring schedule, Ref # for the Check/Cash, Amount , and to whom the gift is being given (Campaign).
6. Once all contributions have been added, you can either Save Draft and come back to it later or choose Submit to enter all transactions!

Please note: To ensure that pledges have been fulfilled, you can 'Export as CSV' under the Recurring View tab within the Contributions component so that you can cross-reference the schedules with the donors who have, or have not, fulfilled their pledges! You can do this by looking at the next run date along with just the necessary display columns to see which pledges have been fulfilled or not that you can mark off on a printout.

New Offline Recurring Events in Spark

If you haven't been into the Spark component within your SiteStacker installation, you should take some time to check it out! It is an extremely helpful tool in automating some tasks that may have been manual in the past. Regarding Offline Recurring, we have created a couple of new related categories including the Recurring Designation Reminder and Recurring Schedule Reminder. Let us take a look at what these two Spark categories focus on:

Recurring Designation Reminder - This action focuses solely on any recurring (online/offline) depending on the campaign category and where at a certain period in time that a recurring donation is to be happening, then the Donor can be sent a message or other events happen at that exact time. Here is a screenshot of a Recurring Designation Reminder event that has been set up:

Here is the thought process for that screenshot (which can be changed to fit your preference!): We wanted to say for every Donor contributing $100 to a Child on our Site, that 15 Days before their Yearly donation, that we want to send them a message stating that their donation will be processed after those 15 days are up.

Recurring Schedule Reminder - This action focuses solely on either recurring (online / offline) and when the intervals of recurring donations are to be happening so that something like an email is sent out to the donor, depending on if you want this to be sent out before or after the next run date. Here is an example screenshot below:

Here is the thought process for that screenshot (which can be changed to fit your preference!): Before the Donor's next run date for their Monthly, Offline Recurring donation happened, we wanted to send them a reminder to let them know that it will be processed soon!

Why we use Spark Events: This helps cut down on having to keep a list of all the Offline Recurring dates, donor names, addresses, etc. that you would need to manually send emails to, whereas Spark does it all for you by sending out an email!

There are many other actions, events, and outcomes that you can create with these that can be seen here: Spark Overview. Thank you for reading along about how we are implementing Offline Recurring within SiteStacker and we look forward to seeing how your organization uses this!

If you have any questions regarding configuration or terminology please feel free to contact our support team by using the chat bubble on our site!