Setting Up Payments: The Basics

We have come a long way from collecting gold coins in a bucket. Today, charities are relying on online donations as a primary channel for fundraising. Raisely is here to make this simple and easy for you, utilising two of the most popular payment gateways: Stripe & Paypal. Let’s get you setup:

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Payment Gateways: Stripe & Paypal

Stripe is an online payment processing and credit card processing platform, handling payments for companies like Shopify and Uber. They process millions of transactions per day and are a Level 1 PCI Service Provider. We recommend you connect Stripe to your Raisely campaign to easily accept donations.
You're also able to connect PayPal to your Raisely campaign. If you do, donors will be redirected to PayPal on the final step in the donation form, where they can process their payment.

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# Setting Up Stripe

To begin with Stripe, you need to either create a new Stripe account or connect an existing one. If you don't already have a Stripe account, connect with your Accounts department to gather the following information:
  • Details about your organisation (tax numbers and your registered name)
  • ID documents
  • Bank account details for where your donations will be deposited
To setup Stripe, follow these steps:
1
Within your campaign, select Settings > Payments & Receipts, and select Connect New Account under Gateway Accounts. Select Stripe as the Payment Gateway you’d like to connect.
2
You’ll be redirected to Stripe Connect where you’ll be prompted to enter your email address or login with an existing account.
3
Follow the prompts within Stripe to setup your account. Once completed you’ll be redirected back to Raisely.
4
You will now see your new Stripe account listed under Connected Accounts. Select Save Changes to save this account to your campaign.
Stripe will deposit donations on a rolling basis into your bank account automatically. They will protect you from a large amount of online fraud, and also provide you with a dashboard for basic reporting.
Stripe allows Raisely to support:
  • Donations in over 130 currencies
  • Secure (SCA-compliant) card processing
  • Regular giving
  • Advanced reports of all donations included in a bank payout
  • Advanced fraud protection
Stripe charge a per-transaction fee to process credit cards, which changes for each country. View your local pricing here.
If you're a  registered charity you may also be eligible for Stripe's non-profit pricing. You can learn more about eligibility, and how to apply here.

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# Setting Up PayPal

To setup PayPal, follow these steps:

1
Within your campaign, select Settings > Payments & Receipts, and select Connect New Account under  Gateway Accounts. Select PayPal as the Payment Gateway you’d like to connect.
2
You’ll be redirected to PayPal where you’ll be prompted to enter your email address or login with an existing account.
3
Once logged in, you'll be asked to connect your PayPal account with Raisely. Select Accept and Connect and once done, return to Raisely.
4
Your PayPal account will now be added as a Gateway Account in Raisely. If you select Edit, you'll find the options to add an optional Custom Identifer to all PayPal transactions, and if you are in a jurisdiction that doesn't allow donations with PayPal, you can switch Send as Payment on.
Raisely integrates with the PayPal OneTouch payments experience. This allows donors to make single donations quickly and easily with their PayPal account. 
To integrate your PayPal account with Raisely, you will need a business account. 
When you connect PayPal, you'll be asked for your credit card details, in order for the optional Raisely Fees to be debited.
Do note, PayPal cannot be used for regular donations, ticketing, payment routing, or registration payments. If your campaign requires any of these features, please connect a Stripe account instead. 

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Using Test Mode

Test Mode lets you test donations, custom fields, web designs, and more. By default, all campaigns start out in Test Mode. When in Test mode, you can make donations using a Stripe test card to make sure everything is working as it should.
When you’re ready to launch, return to Settings > Payments & Receipts. Switch Accept Live Payments in your General Settings to ON. You will be prompted to create a Default Receipt if you have not already. 

How do I receive my donations?

Whenever you raise money through Raisely, all of your donations go directly to your payment gateway. We never hold them in our account, or in escrow. 
Both Stripe and PayPal will card and settle card payments for you, then deposit them into your bank account. You only need a regular business account to accept these donations, you do not need a merchant bank account.
Raisely makes it easy for you to report on your donations with financial reports that show the details of each individual payment. You can download these as a CSV file from your Raisely admin panel at any time.
If you use Stripe, we also give you a bank payout report that details the individual donations inside a single bank transfer from Stripe.

Setting up Receipts

In Raisely, you can configure customised receipts to send to your donors. These receipts are automated messages found within your campaigns Messages page. To edit, simply:

1
Within your campaign, from the sidebar select Messages > Automatic > Donation Receipt
2
Leave defaults in Step 1 (Audience) & Step 2 (Triggers)
3
In Step 3, customise your sender address and subject line
4
In Step 4, you can customise the content for the email receipt. We recommend you change the header image to represent your brand, as well as use 'merge tags' with the # command to personalise the content
5
If you would like to attached a PDF receipt to the email, you can activate this in Step 4 as well as find the direct link to setting up your default PDF receipt.
6
In Step 5 you can enable your message so that each time a donation is processed this receipt will be sent to donor.

For more on receipts, check out article Understanding Receipts

FAQ's

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# Can I use a Malaysian Stripe Account

Unfortunately due to Stripe limitations, Raisely is unable to connect with Malaysian Stripe accounts. You can still use Raisely with PayPal.

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# What are the limitations with PayPal?

Raisely provides the option of setting up PayPal as a Payment Gateway account, though PayPal limits some of the features that Raisely has. These include: Regular/Reoccurring Donations, Registration payments, payment routing, Ticketing, and self donations. Testing donations through PayPal is not as easy as Stripe which uses test credit cards, and also is limited when it comes to explaining transaction errors. 

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# How do I migrate Customer Data to my new Stripe account?

Stripe's Migration team seek to make this process as easy as possible for you. Watch their Migrating Customer Data to Stripe video to get started. For reference, here is a helpful email to send to your previous payment provider to help get the process underway:

To: Previous Processor

CC: support-migrations@stripe.com

Dear ‘Previous Processor’,

We are making some changes to our internal systems and how we process payments. Could you please transfer the payment tokens of our customers along with their name and email address to Stripe as Customers? I have CC’d Stripe support to assist as needed. Feel free to direct any questions towards them.

Please let me know if anything else is needed.

Thanks!

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What is next?

You are almost there! In our next Guide we will explore how to be prepared to go LIVE. 

Going Live: The Basics & Checklist

Cannot find the support guide you are after? Head on over to our YouTube channel 📺 for more creative content to help you go further. You can even leave us comments, suggesting new content ideas 🤯

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