Financials

CSiDonate has a number of customization options related to the financial aspect of each gift.

This guide explains the process by which CSiDonate creates or utilizes each financial setting, including cash accounts, batches, distributions, and more.

Overview

A financial account record is a core CSiDonate concept - each financial account stores settings like cash account selection, batch options, and third party payment account information.

Each financial account record can have a name, which is used as a human-friendly description for the settings in the account. Good examples of financial account names are "My Org Foundation", "My Org Fraternity", etc.

When to Create a Financial Account

You should have one financial account per payment account (e.g. if you have 3 BluePay accounts, you should have 3 Financial Account records, at a minimum). You can also have additional financial accounts that apply to external, third-party integrated gift imports, or special financial accounts for certain campaigns like Giving Tuesday (if you need to customize your cash account or batch settings for these templates).

How to Use a Financial Account

Financial accounts are split up for single and recurring donations. This means that if a donor elects to make a one-time gift, that donation can use a different financial account than another donor that elects to make a recurring donation over time.

However, in most cases, the single and recurring financial accounts are the same. So unless there is a special circumstance for your organization, you should probably set these the same.

System Settings

There are default / fallback single and recurring financial account settings located in System Settings > Financial. These settings are used when a new template is created, to populate the default values on that new template. They are also used for any legacy templates that were created prior to version 2.7, that may not have financial account settings applied.

Templates

Each template can have its own financial settings. This means that on a per-template basis, you can change the batch settings and cash accounts that are used when donors use that template.

What's In a Financial Account?

The following sections describe what settings a financial account contains.

Name

Enter a descriptive, human-friendly name for the financial account, such as "BluePay - Foundation" or "General (iMIS Credit Card)". You'll use this name to pick the financial account you want to use on each template, and in the system settings.

Account Settings

Account settings are only for third party payment processors. If you are using iMIS for credit card processing, leave this section blank.

Refer to the following table for which fields to use for which payment processors:

Cash Accounts

Types of Cash Accounts

Refer to System Settings > General > Single Payment Service to find out your payment service type.

If you are using iMIS as your payment service, you should choose a cash account that starts with [Credit Card]. This is the "Credit" cash account type in iMIS.

If you are using BluePay as your payment service, you should choose a cash account that starts with [Cash]. This is the "Cash" cash account type in iMIS.

Choosing an incorrect cash account type can lead to failed payments and system errors.

Splitting a Cash Account By Payment Type

CSiDonate supports using a single cash account for all donations (per financial account record), or splitting the cash account based on the payment type.

If "Single Cash Account" is selected, the same cash account will be used for all donations made with this financial account.

If "Per Account Type" is selected, you are able to select one cash account for each of the five payment types (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, and ACH).

You can select the same cash account for multiple payment types. For example, if you want to have one cash account for credit card payment, and one cash account for ACH payments, select the same cash account from the dropdowns for Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover, and select a different cash account for ACH.

Batches

CSiDonate automatically searches for an open batch based on certain criteria, and if an open batch is not found, a new batch is opened.

For All Batches

The word "CSiDonate" will appear at the front of the batch description. This is a mandatory identifier that signifies that a batch was created using CSiDonate. This prefix is not customizable.

You can enter a custom batch description on the financial account settings screen. This allows you to include some descriptive text that helps identify different batches from different financial accounts (or groups of templates) in CSiDonate, such as "Foundation" or "Fraternity". The custom batch description field is optional.

When Auto-Numbering Is Off

If you do not use auto-numbering (also referred to as manual batch mode), CSiDonate attempts to look for an open batch matching the specified batch number format for this financial account.

The batch number always contains the current date (in YYMMDD format) and a unique index/counter - for example, 181126-1.

You can customize the batch number prefix in CSiDonate in one of two ways:

Use Cash Account

The batch number prefix will be set to the cash account, minus any special characters like "-" or "_".

This enables batches to be split based on the cash account used, and subsequently, by the payment type used (Visa/MasterCard, or Credit Card/ACH).

Custom Prefix

You can enter a custom prefix for this financial account. All batches created under this financial account will split on, and use the same prefix you enter.

When Auto-Numbering Is On

If your iMIS system has batch auto-numbering on (e.g. you do not have to enter a batch number manually each time you create one, it is populated for you), then CSiDonate attempts to look for an open batch based on the batch description and current date. Enter an optional description that you would like your batches split on, e.g. "Fraternity" or "Foundation".

You can also select the Append cash account code option to include the appropriate cash account code in the description, which will cause batches to be split based on the cash account code used (e.g. Visa/MasterCard or Credit Card/ACH).