Recording a Donation Paid at the Same Time as a Membership – Help Center

A member has sent you a check for their membership dues — and generously threw in a little extra.

This article walks you through how to:

Offer the option to make a donation alongside a membership (or event ticket)
Set up a donation in a Membership Campaign or event ticketing form
Record a donation received alongside a membership in your books — without using a form
Group donation and membership entries together
Record payment for both the membership and the donation

Offer the option to make a donation alongside a membership (or event ticket)

You can give your contacts the option to make a donation when they join your nonprofit or sign up for an event.

The process is seamless — a single unified flow makes it easy for registrants to add a donation without any extra steps.

Set up a donation in a Membership Campaign or event ticketing form

Go to your Membership Campaign creation page (under Forms > Memberships) or your event ticketing form (under Forms > Events).

The donation option is configured in step 2 — Pricing and membership plans for Membership Campaigns, or Pricing for event ticketing forms. Click the "+ Pricing plan" button (or "+ Pricing"), then select "One-time donation" — this option appears once at least one pricing tier has been created.

Configurable options

When setting up your donation option, you can configure the following:

Set a fixed donation amount or let donors choose their own ("Open amount");
Show or hide the donation among the available plans — it is displayed by default;
Automatically add donors to a group in your Community;
Assign the donation to a specific accounting account — by default, donations are posted to account "754000 - Donations and Collections", so you only need to change this if a different account applies.

Generated documents

If you issue invoices for memberships or event tickets, the donation will not appear on the invoice.

Let's say you have invoice generation enabled and someone:

purchases a $50 membership;
adds a $100 donation at the same time;
pays the full $150 immediately online.

They will receive a paid invoice for $50, covering only their membership. They will not receive a Tax Receipt for their $100 donation.

Accounting records

The donation is automatically recorded in the correct accounting account — either the default one or the one you specified when configuring your form.

Current limitations

Here they are:

A donation made alongside a membership is not reflected in the Community. Someone who donates through a Membership Campaign will not be flagged as a donor (green heart badge) in the Community;
If you have Tax Receipt generation enabled, the receipt will cover the entire order — not just the donation portion. This may change in a future update, but we cannot commit to a specific timeline;
The donation option is not available if you have VAT enabled on your membership plans or event pricing;
Only one donation option can be added per Membership Campaign or ticketing form.

Record a donation received alongside a membership in your books — without using a form

If you did not use the option described above, you will need to record the donation separately.

Here's an example to illustrate:

A member joins your nonprofit for the year through an online Membership Campaign. Their membership fee is $400, which they choose to pay by check. But here's a pleasant surprise — they generously write a check for $430 ($400 for the membership + $30 as a donation). That $30 donation wasn't processed through any form. Let's walk through how to handle this in your books.

The process has two steps: first record the donation commitment, then record the payment.

Recording revenue: the donation and the membership

Case 1: you don't have a Donation Campaign

You haven't activated the "Donations" module, which lets you track donors in your database. In this case, you'll record the donation directly in your accounting books.

Go to Accounting > Book entry > Revenue. Add a donation entry by entering the label, the amount (here $30), the transaction date, and selecting the accounting account (754). Check the "Deferred payment" option and click the Delete button on the payment line.

Finally, link the entry to the person who wrote the check (a contact in your community) using the Advanced Options, then click Save.

Please note that donations added directly in accounting do not generate a Tax Receipt.

Case 2: you have a Donation Campaign

Since you have the module activated, you can add the donation through a dedicated Donation Campaign.

Open the relevant campaign from Forms > Donations and manually add the donation. This way, you'll be able to issue a Tax Receipt.

At the payment step for the donation, indicate that payment will be made at a later date.

Group donation and membership entries together

You now have two revenue entries recorded: a donation and a membership. You can find them under Accounting > Book entry > Payables & Receivables.

Select both entries, then click "Group payments".

Reminder: for grouping to be meaningful in accounting, the entries must be linked to the same third party — i.e., the same payer. That's why it was important to check "Link to a person or third party" and select the correct person beforehand.

The two entries are now grouped together.

In the grouped entry detail view, you'll see both transactions: the donation and the membership.

If you need more guidance, check out our article: Group entries for a single payment

Record payment for both the membership and the donation

Once the entries are grouped, click the "Detail" icon, then click "Add a payment" to record the $430 check ($400 for the membership + $30 donation).

Mark the payment as "Incoming payment" and fill in the remaining details. When done, click "Save":

The donation and membership payment for this person are now fully recorded:

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