Are you a new CharityEngine client? If so, this was written just for you! We’re going to walk you through the five simple steps we’ll take together to connect your donation and event forms to our secure payment processing software. When we’re done, your fundraising will be off to the races.
Just a reminder that you’re in good hands. We are payment processing wizards (we processed more than 1,000 transactions per second during a client’s Superbowl PSA) and are trusted by some of the biggest nonprofit names around. We’re PCI-certified and SOC II-compliant and our capabilities keep improving (such as the addition of in-house ACH processing) to make it easier for nonprofits to raise money and grow their organizations.
Okay! Ready for the nitty-gritty details? Again, if you’re not a client, this isn’t for you. (But if you’re thinking of becoming a client, we’d love to show you what we can do.)
For starters, what is FirstData? It’s a huge player in the payments industry, with six million merchants as members. This is the organization that handles almost half of all credit and debit card transactions in the U.S. Any donation will have to go through FirstData to get to your nonprofit.
The first step is to fill out the FirstData form. You can fill it out and submit it online, making it easy!
Your project manager (PM) will know when you submit your FirstData form and will upload it to First Data. This will trigger an email to you, so be on the lookout for it. It will come from CardConnect and will go to the email address on the FirstData form. In that email, you’ll be able to set up a CardePoint account and sign to accept the system.
If you get a message that your link has expired, no worries! Email your PM, and they will reset the link and resend it.
Once you submit your signature, it will take a week or two for the account to be approved. CardPointe will be your nonprofit’s portal to manage your payment processing account. We don’t have access to it! If you have any issues, let us know so we can try to troubleshoot, but always contact CardePointe support directly.
Once your CardPointe account is approved and underway, it will be moved through a series of phases. Some common phrases you will hear from your PM as they provide you with the status of your account are “underwriting” and “boarded.” Once your account is boarded, your Implementation Consultant will initiate the setup of your ACH processing within CharityEngine.
The first step in this process is for our finance department to perform an OFAC check. You can learn more about this on the official U.S. Department of the Treasury website. Once approved, you’re ready to be set up with CharityEngine ACH processing.
CharityEngine is excited to be at the forefront of payment processing, and our ability to accept ACH payments, or bank transfers, is an example of this leadership.
As you might realize, we can’t get to step 3 until you complete step 2. Once the account is approved, your PM will notify you and coordinate with your Implementation Consultant to initiate setup. This gateway connects your CardPointe account with CharityEngine and can take up to three days to complete. At this time, your Implementation Consultant will configure your payment gateway on the back end with the corresponding details for processing both credit card and ACH transactions. These details include the appropriate IDs provided by CardPointe as well as your organization’s bank information, such as routing and account numbers for ACH processing.
Here we go! Your account gateway is now finalized, and we are ready to test the system for processing credit card transactions.
The CharityEngine team will use your donation form in our system to submit a test transaction utilizing the credit card payment method. It will be for an odd amount, such as $5.05, so you can identify it easily.
We will ask you to let us know when you see the transaction and when the money hits your bank account, which can take up to three or more business days.
Once confirmed, we will refund the transaction, and you will be officially live and able to receive Credit Card donations through your donation forms moving forward.
Similar to testing the system for processing Credit Card transactions, we will also test to ensure ACH transactions are processing successfully as well.
The CharityEngine team will use your donation form in our system to submit a test transaction utilizing the ACH payment method. It will be for an alternative amount to the Credit Card transaction amount, such as $5.06 or $5.07, so you can easily identify and differentiate the different tests.
We will ask you to let us know when you see the transaction and when the money hits your bank account, which can take up to three or more business days.
Once confirmed, we will refund the transaction, and you will be officially live and able to receive ACH donations through your donation forms moving forward.
You’re now set up and ready to watch those donations roll in! Remember, we can scale up or down for any size nonprofit, so whether you need us to process millions of transactions a second (really, we can do that!!) or a couple thousand during an event, we’ve got you covered.
A SOC-II compliant and PCI-certified partner to nonprofits, CharityEngine helps you securely manage donations and raise more money. If you want to learn more, see what it looks like to work with us.