Recording Payments Received via a Payment Link in Your Books

The Payment Link feature makes it easy to collect credit card payments for your nonprofit.

To save you as much time as possible, payments received are automatically recorded in your books. This article explains how it works and what steps you may need to take to keep your accounting clean and complete.

• Book entries for a payment received via a Payment Link
• Matching the payment to an existing receivable
• No matching receivable exists — what should you do?

Book entries for a payment received via a Payment Link

Recording a payment affects 2 accounts:

• your E-wallet, where the funds land = 517
• the third party account of the person paying = 467

Example:

You can find all of this information in your E-wallet Journal, accessible from Accounting > Documents → Journal, by selecting "E-wallet" from the dropdown menu.

Matching the payment to an existing receivable

Here's an example to illustrate:

• You've created a Membership Campaign with multiple payment methods: credit card, check, cash, etc.
• John signed up through the Membership Campaign and indicated he would pay his $120 membership fee by check. The membership revenue was recorded. Time passed, and the check never arrived. No payment has been recorded in the books.
• You send him a Payment Link to collect the $120 he owes.
• He pays using the Payment Link.

How do you mark his membership as paid in your books?

• Go to Accounting > Book entry → Track your payables and receivables.

• Use the filters to find the 2 entries you need: the receivable and the payment.

• Select both and click "Group payments".

Please note: entries can only be grouped if they are linked to the same third party. If your receivable is not linked to the contact who made the payment, open the entry details and link it to that contact.

The two entries are now matched: the membership — now marked as paid — disappears from the receivables list.

Note: the receivable may also come from a manually recorded revenue entry under Accounting > Book entry → Record a revenue, where you indicated that payment would be received later. The process is exactly the same.

No matching receivable exists — what should you do?

Here's an example to illustrate:

• You send John a Payment Link to collect $120 he owes you for a past transaction that was never recorded in your books.
• He pays using the Payment Link.
• The payment is recorded in your books.

You now need to create the accounting revenue entry that corresponds to the payment received.

The payment is for a donation or a membership

In this case, we recommend using a Donation Campaign or Membership Campaign if you have one set up on your platform. This lets you record the payer as a Donor or Member of your nonprofit, and recognize them as such in your community — keeping everything clean and consistent.

Here's an example for a membership payment (the process is the same for donations):

• From Forms > Memberships, click Manage Members on the relevant campaign.

  

• Click "Add a Member" on the right side of your screen.

• Fill in the required information: last name, first name, email, and selected plan. If the person is already in your community, link the membership to their existing contact. On the next page, fill in any additional contact information if prompted.

  

• At the payment recording step, click "Do it later" at the top of the screen, then save.

• Once the membership is saved with payment marked as not yet received, a receivable entry is created.

  

• From there, simply follow the steps outlined above: Matching the payment to an existing receivable.

The payment is for something else

In this case, go to Accounting > Book entry → Record a revenue.

Fill in the relevant details and check the "Deferred payment" box. (If it doesn't appear, make sure you've enabled accrual accounting under Settings > Accounting.)

Save.

Now that your receivable is created, follow the steps outlined above: Matching the payment to an existing receivable.