Transactions

Like everything in Rock, it all starts with people. People make financial transactions with your organization through gifts, donations, subscriptions or dues. These transactions can be simple (like money given to a single purpose) or they can be more complex (perhaps a single transaction covers multiple purposes). To be able to handle multiple purposes, transactions have one or more detail records to hold the information for each purpose.

In our example below, Ted has given $110 dollars to Rock Solid Church. One hundred of these dollars are designated for the General Fund account with the remaining ten dollars going to the Building Fund account.

Batches

Transactions that occur in a similar date range are grouped together into batches. These batches help organize the transactions. They also play a key role in integrating to your General Ledger account system. Instead of re-entering every transaction into your General Ledger, you can enter the batch totals knowing that Rock will keep the historical details for you to reference later if you need them.

In our example below a batch has been created for the weekly gifts for the Rock Solid Church.

Accounts

Accounts determine what a transaction is for. In our examples above, both the General Fund and the Building Fund are accounts. These accounts usually correspond with accounts you create in your accounting system.

Pledges

While most of Rock's financial tools are designed to be multi-purpose, the concept of pledges is closely tied to the nonprofit world of donations. Pledges allow your members and guests to commit to an amount that they will be giving over a stated period of time.

Characteristics of Batches

Before we dive into looking at the screens that make up batches let's first review the characteristics of batches.

Working With Batches

Batches can be viewed under Finance > Batches. Below is a figure showing the batch list screen with the various filters that are available.

1 Filters

The following filters help narrow the batches that are displayed on the list.

2 Batches

The filtered list of batches with relevant fields.

3 Actions

Clicking the checkbox next to batches and then selecting an action allows you to quickly open or close several batches at once.

4 Totals

At the bottom of the grid, you will see total numbers by account for the batches based on the filters you provide.

Clicking on a batch from the list pictured above will bring you to the Financial Batch Detail screen pictured below. From here you can see all the details of a batch.

1 Date Range

The date range of the batch.

2 Transaction Amounts

The transaction total, control amount and the variance between the two.

3 Transaction Items

The count of transactions, control count and the variance between the two.

4 Accounting Code

This is used to store an optional reference number to the organization's primary accounting system.

5 Notes

Batch notes, if any have been added, will be displayed here.

6 Batch Attribute

Any additional batch attributes you create will be displayed here if they are set to show in the grid. For more information, see the Financial Batch Attributes note below.

7 Edit

Access the Edit screen to open or close the batch or to adjust other settings as shown in the example pictured below.

8 Account Totals

This list shows account totals for the accounts that the transactions are tied to.

9 Currency Totals

This list shows account totals for each currency type.

10 Match Transactions

Batches that have been created by the transaction scanner need to have each transaction linked to an individual. This button takes you to the screen that assists with this process.

11 Audit Log

This button will take you to an audit screen that shows each change made to a batch or transaction in a batch.

12 Transaction List

A list of the transactions contained in the batch. Clicking on one of these transactions will take you to the details screen for the transaction.

13 Transactions / Transaction Details

If a single transaction goes to separate Accounts, selecting "Transaction Details" will provide separate rows in the grid for each Account.

14 Options

Use the Options drop-down to set whether images (e.g., scanned checks) should be shown in the grid.

15 Add Transaction

Assuming the batch is not closed, you can add new transactions to the batch by clicking the icon.

There may be times when a closed batch needs to be reopened in order to make changes. Because reopening a batch can cause hiccups between your system and your financial clearing house, you only want people with a certain level of security to be able to perform this action. This security role is added and modified at the Entity level.

To give a person the ability to reopen closed batches, follow these steps:

1. Go to Admin Tools > Security > Entity Administration.
2. In the Entity List, locate "Rock.Model.FinancialBatch".
3. Click to open the Financial Batch Security window.
4. Click the Reopen Batch button.
5. Add roles and users to the Item Permissions, selecting whether to allow or deny each the ability to perform the action.
6. Click Done.

Once the security permission is set, you can reopen a batch simply by selecting the batch you want to reopen, clicking the Edit button to open the Edit Financial Batch screen, and choosing "Open" from the Status dropdown menu. Click Save when you’re done.

Batch statuses serve a critical function in providing accountability for your accounting processes. Each status in the lifecycle of a batch has been developed to ensure accurate record keeping. Below, we will guide you through each status in the lifecycle of a batch, explaining how it should be used.

1. Pending: When created using the check scanning app, batches start with a 'Pending' status, indicating that the scanning process is still ongoing.
2. Open: When a batch is in the 'Open' status, it means that the scanning process is complete, but additional matching or audits are still being performed. It also indicates that the batch has not yet been entered into the general ledger.
3. Closed: When a batch is in a 'Closed' state, it indicates that its amounts have been entered into the general ledger. To maintain the integrity of your accounting processes, Rock Security prevents closed batches from being re-opened without elevated permissions.

Automated Batches Created by Third Party Systems

Third party systems can create automated batches using the "IsAutomated" feature. These batches have an additional "Automated" label. While the transactions of an automated batch are downloading, the batch will have a "Pending" status. To prevent processing errors, this status cannot be changed until the download is complete. Once all of the transactions are downloaded, the status will automatically change to "Open" and the batch can be processed.

Transactions Created Using Teller Import

Transactions created using Teller Import have contribution amounts and associated accounts but no contributor name. Obviously, this can make matching transactions with givers difficult when processing batches. Selecting the "Limit to Existing" option in the Transaction Matching Accounts Filter screen allows you to display only accounts associated with that particular Teller Import file. To access the Accounts Filter screen, click the button in the Transaction Matching screen.

It's important that all modifications to financial transactions are audited. Below is the audit log screen for a batch. It shows all changes to a batch and the transactions in the batch.

Viewing Transactions in Batches

Where you view transactions in Rock will depend on what you're trying to do. If you're interested in transactions in the context of a specific batch, you can view them on the Batch Detail screen by selecting a batch from the Batch List.

Clicking on one of these transactions will then display the Transaction Detail page.

1 Batch

Link to the batch that the transaction belongs to.

2 Person

Link to the person who initiated and authorized the transaction.

3 Date/Time

This is the date and time that the transaction occurred.

4 Source

Where the transaction originated.

5 Transaction Code

This is the transaction code for the item. Most often this transaction code will be generated by an external service like the credit card gateway.

6 Currency Type

The form of payment that was used for the transaction. These don’t have to be traditional forms of payment like cash or checks. For instance, if Non-Cash Asset is chosen when adding the transaction, you can select an Asset Type of property, stock or vehicles. You can add your own non-cash asset types by adding to the Non-Cash Asset Types defined type.

7 Summary

Any notes related to the transaction.

8 Updates

Information about who last updated and processed the transaction.

9 Accounts

This is the account split for the transaction that shows the details for each account that was included on the transaction.

10 Images

Any images that are associated with the transaction (e.g., check images).

11 Refund

Selecting the 'Refund' button allows you to reverse the transaction. More details on the refund process are provided below.

12 Add Transaction

If the batch is still open, you can add a new transaction. This allows you to quickly enter new transactions without having to go back to the batch detail page.

13 Back / Next

The 'Back' and 'Next' buttons allow you to cycle through the transactions in a batch.

The transaction list on the Batch Detail page has a few extra options.

1 Options Dropdown

The upper right corner of the list allows you to show the transaction summary or the transaction images.

2 Move Transaction

If the batch is open, you can also move the transaction to a different batch. The batch you're moving to must also be open.

Searching For Transactions

When you're searching for a specific transaction, it's often easier to use the transaction filtering capabilities found under Finance > Transactions. This screen allows you to provide a set of search options and list transactions that match.

Adding a Transaction

While there are other entry points for transactions (e.g., check scanning, giving on the public website) you can manually add transactions to a batch. You can also edit existing transactions. In either case you'll be brought to the page pictured below.

1 Person

This is where you'll pick the person that the transaction is for. For instance, this is the person who made the contribution that's being entered.

2 Show As Anonymous

Select this option to have the transaction appear as anonymous rather than associated with the person selected above.

3 Transaction Date/Time

This is the date and time that the transaction occurred. You don't need to select a time if it doesn't make sense to do so.

4 Transaction Type

Rock ships with two values for this field, Contribution and Event Registration. In most cases you'll probably be adding a Contribution.

5 Source

The Source indicates where the transaction originated. If you're manually adding transactions, it's likely you'll be entering them from on-site collections, but you can choose other values from the list.

6 Currency Type

The form of payment that was used for the transaction. These don’t have to be traditional forms of payment like cash or checks. For instance, if Non-Cash Asset is chosen when adding the transaction, you can select an Asset Type of property, stock or vehicles. You can add your own non-cash asset types by adding to the Non-Cash Asset Types defined type.

7 Transaction Code

This is the transaction code for the item. Typically, the transaction code will be generated by an external service (e.g., credit card gateway) but when adding transactions manually you can use any code you wish.

8 Comments

These are simply notes that you might want to make about the transaction. These will be visible when viewing the Transaction Detail page described above.

9 Account/Amount

This is where you'll select the account that should be used for the transaction, and the amount of the transaction. You can have multiple accounts and amounts listed for a single transaction, if needed, but you must have at least one.

10 This is a Refund

If the transaction is a refund, then it will be processed as such.

11 Images

You can add one or more images associated with the transaction. Typically, these are images of a check from a check scanner, but you can manually upload any image you wish.

Refunding A Transaction

Sometimes you need to rollback a transaction. Selecting the Refund button from the Transaction Detail page will allow you to reverse the payment using the modal shown below.

1 Amount

This tells Rock how much the refund should be for. By default, the full amount of the financial transaction is entered into the box.

2 Refund Reason

This dropdown allows you to pick from a standard set of refund reasons. You can modify this list under Admin Tools > General Settings > Defined Types > Refund Reason.

3 Summary

This field allows you to enter specific notes about the refund.

4 Process Refund Through Financial Gateway

This checkbox determines if the refund should be automatically run through the payment gateway (checked) or just entered into Rock (unchecked).

Processing Cash Transactions

Cash transactions come in two formats: anonymous gifts and gifts given by a known person. Let's look at how we tackle each one.

Credit Cards

You can add credit card transactions manually by going to the Contributions tab on a person's profile page. Either enter a one-time transaction by clicking the Add One-time Gift button, or you can create a recurring scheduled transaction by clicking the button under Scheduled Transactions.

Checks

Checks can be scanned using Rock's check scanning software. More information about setting up and using this software can be found in the Scanning Checks chapter below. Once the checks are all scanned, they must be matched to individuals and their amounts entered into the correct accounts. We'll discuss that next in the Matching Transactions section below.

Matching Transactions

When you've used the check scanning software to add checks or scanned images of envelopes to a batch you must match them to individuals before you can close the batch. To start this process, open the batch you want to work on under Finance > Batches and then click the Match Transactions button.

This will launch a screen to walk you through each check (or envelope) and allow you to tie them to an individual and enter the amounts into the proper accounts.

1 Progress Indicator

This lets you know how far along you are in the process of matching all the scanned checks to people.

2 Add Family/Business

You may find that the transaction is for someone who is not currently in the system. Using these buttons will pop up a new window where you can add them.

3 Settings

Allows you to select which accounts you are entering amounts for.

4 Check Images

The images of the scanned checks are shown here.

5 Individual

Rock can match a person to the account and routing number of their checking account. If a person already matches the check's account information, you can pick them from the list.

6 Assign to New

Assigns a new individual to the check’s account number.

7 Envelope #

Allows you to search for an individual by their giving envelope number. This requires that the Enable Giving Envelope Number Global Attribute is enabled. See the Giving Envelopes chapter below for details.

8 Person Details

The screen will present the currently matched person's address and contact information. This is a great way to not only ensure that you have matched to the current individual but also that their contact information has not changed.

9 Account Split

Accounts are shown to allow you to split the check's total across multiple accounts based on notes in the memo field of the check or outside of the envelope.

10 Navigation Buttons

Buttons at the bottom of the screen allow you to go to the next record or re-visit a previously completed record.

Enabling the Envelope Number Global Attribute

Envelope numbers are a global attribute in Rock, which means switching them on in one place makes them available across the system. To turn the envelope numbers option on, go to Admin Tools > General Settings > Global Attributes. Select Enable Giving Envelope Number from the attributes list and choose 'Yes' from the dropdown menu. Click Save. Rock is now set to display giving envelope options.

Assigning Envelope Numbers to Members

Envelope numbers are assigned in the Edit Person screen, accessed from the Person Profile. Simply go to a person’s profile and click the button in the bio block.

The envelope number field is located in the Advanced Settings section at the bottom of the Edit Person screen. You can enter a person’s existing envelope number into the Envelope # field, or you can allow Rock to assign a new envelope number by clicking the Generate Envelope # button. When finished, click Save. The envelope number is now associated with that person.

If you enter a number that is already assigned to someone else, Rock will display an alert asking if you want to proceed. There may be times when you’ll want two or more people to have the same number, such as when assigning numbers to multiple members of the same family. Click OK to continue.

Searching for Envelope Numbers

Once envelope numbers have been assigned to members, you can quickly view them using the Directory search function (People > Directory). To do this, you first need to enable envelope numbers in the Person Directory block settings.

Locate the Show Envelope Number field in the Person Directory block settings and select 'Yes' from the dropdown menu. Click Save. Now envelope numbers will be included in the information returned for directory searches.

Keeping this functionality in one search screen, rather than accessing individual profile pages, can save you or your volunteers a lot of time.

Now that you have envelope numbers set up, let’s look at how they can be helpful when matching transactions.

Transaction Matching by Envelope Number

When matching transactions, you can search for members by their assigned envelope numbers. Simply enter the envelope number into the Envelope # field and click Find. The name and information of the individual associated with that number will be displayed.

If the number entered isn’t found, Rock will display an alert. If more than one person has been assigned that number, you’ll be prompted to choose which person you wish to associate with the transaction.

Supported Scanners

Rock supports three types of scanners with its scanning tools.

Rock Check Scanning Software

Rock's check scanning software allows you to quickly and easily add checks to transactions in Rock. Let's walk through the process of scanning checks using this software.

Installing the Rock Check Scanning Software

Installing the check scanning software is easy. It requires a Windows machine running Windows 7 or later to run. To install, follow these steps:

1. First, install the drivers for the scanner you'll be using. If you're using the Canon CR-series, that will be the Ranger software that came with your scanner. In either case, these are simple installs.
2. Download the setup application under Admin Tools > Power Tools > External Applications > Rock Check Scanner.
3. Run the setup. The check scanning setup is a breeze with just three quick screens.

Using Rock Check Scanning Software

Once everything is installed, start by launching the Rock check scanning software and logging in. Users must be a member of one of the security groups below to log in using this software:

• RSR - Finance Administration
• RSR - Finance Worker
• RSR - Rock Administration

If this is your first time logging in, you'll also be asked for the web address of your Rock server. This is the address that the scanning software will upload checks to.

Software Options

First off, we'll show you where the software settings are so you can configure them to meet your needs. To do this, select the icon located on the bottom right of the check scanner window. You can always come back to this page to make any adjustments at any time.

1 Scanner Information

This area displays information about the physical check scanner that is currently configured.

2 Rock URL

You’ll want to confirm this contains the correct Rock server address for your organization.

3 Scanner Interface

Select the type of interface that’s currently set up (Ranger or MagTek).

4 Scan Image Color Type

Select the color depth that should be used when scanning. Options will vary by scanner. The Ranger interface supports black/white, grayscale and color. Just understand that using an option other than black/white will significantly grow the size of your database.

5 Scanning Options

Select the options that best fit your scanning process.

• Capture Amount on Scan: If enabled, the scanning process pauses after each check is scanned to allow the entry of the dollar amount on the check. Enabling this also enables the "Batch Options" and "Accounts for Capturing Batches" options.
• Campus Filter: The list of available accounts (when Capture Amount on Scan is enabled) can be filtered by campus. Accounts that are not tied to any campus will always appear in the list.
• Batch Options: Select whether the Control Amount and/or Item Count fields in the Batch Details should be required. These options are only available if Capture Amount on Scan is enabled.

6 MICR Read Sensitivity/Plurality

The Ranger driver allows you to adjust the sensitivity and/or plurality of the MICR reading. You probably won’t need to change these unless your check scanner is having problems reading checks properly. See the next section below for full details on these settings.

7 Accounts for Capturing Batches

Used when entering the amount for the check to go to a specific account. The list of accounts is only available if Capture Amount on Scan is enabled.

Sensitivity and Plurality

For the most part you shouldn’t need to adjust these settings. However, if you’re running into problems reading checks, changing the Sensitivity and Plurality values might help.

Scanning Checks

When you're ready you'll be at the home page. Here you can start scanning checks to a current batch listed or create a new batch right from this window by pressing the icon next to the batches panel.

Now press the Scan button pictured below to start scanning and advance to the Scan Settings page.

The Scan Settings page (pictured below) lets you select which tender type you'll be scanning into Rock. In most cases you'll be scanning checks, but you can also select "Cash" if you want to scan the envelopes that the cash transaction came in.

1 Currency Type

Select the currency type you will be scanning. The available settings will change based on the currency type and the scanner driver that you select.

2 Single / Double-sided

Determines if Rock should scan one side or both sides of the selected currency.

3 Transaction Source Type

This setting allows you to set the transaction source for the scan. This is helpful for times when you'd like to differentiate bank checks that are from the bank's bill pay system from normal personal checks. You'll notice that not all transaction sources are displayed on this list. You'll only see those that are marked as 'Show In Check Scanner' under Admin Tools > General Settings > Defined Types > Transaction Source.

4 Enable Double Document Detection

The Ranger driver can communicate with the scanner to detect when two or more checks are scanned at once (e.g., because they’re stuck together). It does this by measuring the thickness of what’s being fed into the scanner, so if you're scanning items thicker than a single check (like envelopes) you'll want to ensure this is turned off. Some Ranger model check scanners have a physical button or switch to press to enable duplication detection such as the CR-120 and 150 models. Be sure to check your check scanner user manual for verification.

5 Enable Smart Scan

With smart scan turned on the scanner will read the contents of the MICR on the check to ensure that the same check is not scanned more than once. Also, this should be enabled if you want to be notified if check account information cannot be read correctly.

Now the check scanner will start scanning checks. If there is a problem reading one of the checks, it will immediately stop the scanning process and warn you of the error (upside down check, check facing backwards, etc.) From here, you can skip the bad scan and attempt a rescan, upload the scan as-is without the check account information, or stop the scanning process.

If Capture Amount On Scan is not enabled, the page pictured above will instead appear as pictured below. You’ll note below that the Control Items, Control Amounts and check amount fields are no longer visible.

After the scanner finishes with the batch of checks in its hopper, you can add more and scan again. When you’re done scanning, press the Close button. The main page (pictured below) will show the list of batches and the scanned items. From here, you can add and delete batches, view or delete individual transactions, or start scanning additional items.

When viewing transaction details, you can see the scanned date and time, the transaction date and time (determined by the batch date), and additional details of the transaction. You can also adjust the amount of the check and its disbursement for accounts.

The details page is also impacted by whether Capture Amount On Scan is enabled or not. It is enabled in the screenshot pictured above, so the check amount is available for editing. In the example pictured below, Capture Amount On Scan was not enabled, so there is no amount to edit, but the other details can still be viewed.

Administrating Scheduled Transactions

You can view all of the scheduled transactions in Rock under Finance > Scheduled Transactions.

From there you can choose a scheduled transaction to edit.

1Status

This displays the current status of the scheduled transaction. It is Active in the example, but you may also see values like Canceled, Completed, Failed, Past Due or Paused.

2Details

Here are all the details related to this scheduled transaction.

3Change Account

Link to change account allocation. This option is available for open batches only. When clicked, Rock displays the current account allocation and allows you the option to add and delete allocations.

4Cancel Schedule

Button to cancel the scheduled transaction. Some financial gateways, such as Pay Flow Pro or NMI, allow you to edit scheduled transactions. In such cases, an Edit button is displayed here as well.

5History

History of changes and edits to the scheduled transaction.

6Processed Transactions

Listing of transactions that have been initiated by the schedule.

Personal Profile

Scheduled transactions can also be viewed on the individual's Person Profile page under the Contributions tab.

See our Person and Family Field Guide for more information.

Scheduled Transaction Frequencies

The following options are available as frequency patterns for scheduled transactions. Each payment gateway will support only a subset of these options. Each gateway will also have some special rules for how they calculate the schedules. Notes on these rules can be found at the end of this document under the chapters for each gateway.

• Weekly: Every 7 days starting on the start date.
• Bi-Weekly: Every 2 weeks starting on the start date.
• Twice A Month: Twice a month. Usually this is used with the start date of the first of the month. Payments will then come out on the 1st and 15th of the month.
• Monthly: Once a month on that day of the month established by the start date.
• Quarterly: Every three months on the same date as the first payment.
• Twice A Year: Every six months on the same date as the first payment.
• Yearly: Once a year on the same date as the first payment.

Downloading Transactions

There are two ways to configure this download. The first way is to set up a Get Scheduled Payments job to run every night. This can be done under Admin Tools > System Settings > Jobs Administration. This job will run each night (or when you decide you want it to run) and create batches and transactions for new payments.

The download job has a few settings that you should review. These include:

1. Batch Name Prefix: When the transactions are downloaded from the gateway, they're assigned to a batch. You can configure the names of these batches to all start with a certain prefix.
2. Days Back: The number of previous days that the download job should use when querying the gateway for processed transactions. We recommend a value of seven. This allows for times that the job may not run every day. There is no risk in downloading the same transaction on multiple days as Rock keeps track of which transactions have already been added.
3. Receipt Email: Each time a new transaction is downloaded for a person, Rock can send them a receipt of that transaction. Use this setting to specify the system communication that should be sent when new transactions are downloaded.
4. Failed Payment Email: You can send a communication to specific recipients if a scheduled payment fails. Choose which system communication you want to send from the dropdown menu.
5. Failed Payment Workflow: You can launch an optional workflow if a scheduled payment fails. Choose the workflow you want to run in this field.

You can also choose to manually download the new payments from the payment processor. You can do this under Finance > Download Payments. This does the same thing as the Rock job but requires you to manually run the download. This block also has settings that are similar to the job settings for setting the batch prefix and email receipt.

Downloading transactions from the gateway is actually a bit trickier than you might think because of certain edge-cases and advanced features. We'll cover some of these next.

Expiring Credit Card Notification

By default, a Send Credit Card Expiration Notices job is configured to run once a month. This can be found under Admin Tools > System Settings > Jobs Administration.

The purpose of this job is to let people know that their credit cards are about to expire. Typically, this will mean that the job will send an Expiring Credit Card Notice system communication (Admin Tools > Communications > System Communications) to the person whose credit card will expire the following month. However, some organizations may use a bus message to signal their system to send an email by enabling the Enable Sending Bus Event option.

If you wish to do additional processing for each expiring scheduled credit card transaction, the job can optionally be configured to launch a custom workflow. You can also choose to delete any saved accounts with credit cards that have expired after the provided number of days.

Types of Giving Transactions

As we’ve seen earlier there are two types of giving transactions:

• One-Time Transactions: A single specific gift given on a single date.
• Scheduled Transactions: A recurring transaction that follows a set schedule (weekly, monthly, etc.)

External Website Tools

Rock provides several pages for your website guests to use to set up and manage their online transactions. These pages can all be found under the Give section.

Giving Homepage

1Pages

Links to the various giving management pages.

2Personalization

If the guest is logged-in, a personalized view of their scheduled transactions will be shown with the option to give now.

Give Now Page

The give now page is a flexible page that walks a person through the process of giving in a wizard-like fashion.

1 Entry Step

The entry page is used to get the giving details from the guest. More information on this step and its settings can be found below.

2 Confirmation Step

The next step in the process confirms what the guest has entered before saving and processing the transaction. The confirmation header and footer of this step can be customized from the block settings.

3 Final Step

The final step provides the guest with the ability to save their account information (credit card or check account/routing number) for future use. It will also encourage the visitor to create a login to use for subsequent visits. Like the confirmation step, the header and footer can be updated from the block settings.

The entry step is by far the most complex. Let’s look at it in more detail.

1 Accounts

The guest will first be asked to select the dollar amount they would like to contribute to each account. The accounts that are listed are configured via a block setting.

2 Additional Accounts

You can also configure less-frequently used accounts to be added from a list.

3 Frequency

This setting determines if the gift will be one-time or be configured to process on a schedule of their choosing. See the section Scheduled Transactions for details on the scheduling patterns for each option. You can disable the creation of scheduled transactions using the block settings.

4 When

This determines when the gift will come out of their bank. When used with a scheduled transaction this will be the start date for the schedule.

5 Personal Information / Business Information

This is the name and contact information of the guest. If they're logged in, it will be auto-filled with their current information. If they change it here, this information will also be updated in the database. If they have given as a business, they can view the business name and information here as well by changing the Give As option to 'Business'.

5a Give As

When Enable Business Giving is enabled in the block settings, both the individual and business names will appear as tabs which allow the user to view the information of each.

6 Payment Information

This contains the credit card or checking account information needed to process the transaction. The block settings define a payment gateway for both credit card and ACH (checking accounts). If you would like to disable either of these payment types, simply leave the gateway blank for the one you would like to exclude.

The giving entry block has a few other settings that you should know about. These include:

1. Batch Name Prefix: When the transactions are downloaded from the gateway, they're assigned to a batch. You can configure the names of these batches to all start with a certain prefix.
2. Source: For reporting, it’s good to know where a transaction came from. For instance, you might use this block on your main website or a web-based kiosk in your lobby. Knowing the source for every transaction will help you determine the success of each platform. New source options can be set up under Admin Tools > General Settings > Defined Types > Transaction Source.
3. Address Type: You'll want the address information the guest entered to be for their home address in most cases, but you can change this if you wish.
4. Layout Style: This setting determines if the layout should be:
   • Vertical: Sections are stacked vertically (default)
   • Fluid: Sections flow in a horizontal layout as they fit.
5. Additional Accounts: Determines if the Add Another Account option is shown.
6. Impersonation: This setting allows staff with proper security to enter gifts for individuals in the database. This is helpful in cases where the block is used internally.
7. Prompt For Phone: Determines if the guest should be asked to provide their phone number on the entry screen (default is no).
8. Prompt For Email: Determines if the guest should be asked for their email address on the entry form (default is yes).
9. Enable Business Giving: This setting displays the option to give as a business. When enabled, the individual can toggle between their personal and business information on the Give Now and Giving History screens.
10. Confirm Account Email Template: When a guest decides to create an account after confirming the gift, you can send them an email confirming this action. This setting allows you to select the email template to use for this email.
11. Receipt Email Template: When a guest's gift has been processed, you can send them an email receipt. This setting allows you to select the template to use for this email. If this setting is left blank no receipt will be sent.

Transactions that occur from the Give Now page will be immediately processed through the payment gateway and added to a batch using the Batch Name Prefix block setting.

Giving History

This page shows all other previous transactions for the logged-in user. Note the Show Giving For tabs which allow you to toggle between individual and business giving history.

1 Show Giving For

This allows you to toggle between individual and business giving history.

2 Date Range

This allows the person to filter the transactions shown to a specific date range. The default range is the first day of the current year as the start date and the current day as the end date.

3 Accounts

Used to filter transactions based on the account. The list of accounts shown is configured on the block settings.

4 Summary

Shows transaction totals based on the filters provided.

5 Transaction List

Shows all the transactions based on the filters.

Manage Giving Profiles

This page allows the guest to manage any scheduled transactions they have created.

1 Profiles

Listing of all configured scheduled transactions with the ability to edit or delete each one. This listing is created with a liquid template that allows you to modify the markup that's used to build the list.

2 Create New Gift

Button that allows the guest to create a new scheduled transaction.

Saved Payment Accounts

Your website guests have the option to save their credit card and bank accounts for later use. This screen allows them to manage these accounts. The options on this screen will vary depending on your gateway provider. At the very least your guests will be able to delete these accounts from this page. Some providers may allow you to also edit the saved payment accounts.

Batches For Online Transactions

Unlike processing on-site transactions, which are manually entered, the creation of online transactions in Rock is an automated process. The steps differ a bit depending on whether the transaction is a one-time transaction or a scheduled recurring transaction.

The Text Giving Experience

Below we’ll look at what a person can expect as they go through the Text Giving process. It starts with a one-time registration each person needs to complete (or you can do it for them, more on that later). Going forward they can text a keyword and an amount, to give at the push of a button.

Text Giving Registration

When a person first texts a giving keyword to your SMS Pipeline they’ll get a response containing a link to the registration page. This is where people go to complete the one-time setup needed to give by text and to complete their first gift.

Out of the box, the setup page is configured for you on the external site template we provide. Located under the Give area, a person could navigate there directly rather than accessing it by text. The page comes with the Utility Payment Entry block. The Utility Payment Entry block is the money block, literally, for Text Giving. However, an administrator must configure this block before Text Giving can be used. We’ll cover that configuration a little later.

If the person is logged in, most of the form is filled in for them. They'll just need to provide a payment method. Otherwise, the form is short and easy to complete.

After submitting the form pictured above, the person sees the confirmation page pictured below. The text near the top of the block lets them know their next gift can be sent by texting the word “Give” followed by an amount.

You can configure what the message along the top says by updating the Finish Lava Template block setting for this block. You’ll want to update this if your SMS Pipeline is configured with giving keywords other than “Give”. We’ll dive into the SMS Pipeline configuration in a bit, but for now just know that’s where giving keywords (like "Give" or "Gift") are configured.

Continued Giving

After the above setup is complete, the person can give simply by texting a keyword and an amount.

If they need to access the setup page again, perhaps because they want to change their payment method, all they need to do is text “Setup” and they’ll be sent a link to the setup page. Like the giving keyword, you can configure what Setup keyword(s) a person can text. You can also customize the response the person receives. We'll show you how to set that up in the configuration section below.

Other Scenarios

What we’ve described will be the experience for most people. They will text a giving keyword and will receive a response confirming the gift or requesting they register. Occasionally they may text “Setup” if they need to make changes. However, there are other scenarios. Below is what comes with Rock out of the box, but for each of these scenarios you can customize the response.

Help Response	Because people can text just about anything, the text a person sends may not be what Rock is expecting. Or perhaps an error occurred. In those cases, Rock sends a response providing directions on how to use Text Giving.
Max Amount Response	You can optionally set a maximum allowed amount for Text Giving. If the person tries to give over that amount, they'll receive this response.
Refund Failure Response	Text Giving also allows people to request a refund of their last texted donation. However, there are scenarios where the refund can’t be processed via text (see below). In those cases, the person receives the response seen here.
Refund Success Response	If the refund is requested within a configurable amount of time, the person can text a refund keyword and it will be like the donation never happened. That’s because there’s a configurable delay between the person’s text and sending the transaction through your financial gateway.
Missing Amount Response	If Rock picks up a giving keyword in the person’s text, but can’t determine the amount, the person receives this response. All the person needs to do here is respond with the amount they wish to give (no keyword is needed).

Configuring Text Giving

The above is all made possible with just a few configuration steps. Generally, you'll use what ships with Rock out of the box, but there are opportunities for customization.

Utility Payment Entry Block

The registration page we showed in the prior section is simple for the person using it, but there are many settings driving this block. That's because the Utility Payment Entry block can be used for purposes besides Text Giving. For now, we'll just highlight the settings that are needed for Text Giving to work. The rest of the settings for this block should be kept as-is to avoid any issues with Text Giving.

1 Enable Multi-Account

This should be set to "No" when this block is used for Text Giving. Text Giving is designed to use a single account.

2 Accounts

If you select an account here, it should be the same as the one on the SMS Pipeline. If you have sub-accounts for each campus, choose the parent account here, and be sure to enable the next setting.

3 Use Account Campus Mapping Logic

If this is enabled, then Rock looks at the child accounts of the configured account and uses the first one it finds matching the campus chosen by the person. This lets you have one page with one set of configuration, but with gifts going to multiple accounts based on campus. For full details on this setting and its logic check out the help icon located on the page. Note, the parent account is used by default if a campus can't be determined.

Refund Instructions

There's another block setting called Finish Lava Template that controls what's displayed on the setup confirmation page. You'll want to update this if your giving keywords don't include "give" or if you want to provide instructions on how to request a refund.

On the Advanced Settings tab of the block settings, you'll find the option to enable this block for Text Giving as pictured below. This is enabled on the Text Giving setup page by default, but you may want to double-check it if you're having issues with Text Giving.

SMS Pipeline Setup

The next step in enabling Text Giving requires configuring your SMS Pipeline. There's a special Give action that is added to the pipeline to support Text Giving. For details on setting up and using the SMS Pipeline in general, see our Communicating Using Rock manual.

Navigate to Admin Tools > Communications > SMS Pipeline and select the pipeline you want to use for Text Giving. While editing the pipeline, click and drag the Give action from the panel on the left into the center of the page under Incoming SMS Message. As pictured below, the Give action is now included in your pipeline and is ready to be configured.

1 Give Keyword

This is where you set which keyword(s) a person can text to donate. You can have a single keyword, or multiple keywords separated by a comma. If there are multiple keywords, individuals don't have to use the same keyword for all their gifts.

2 Setup Keyword

If the person texts the keyword(s) here, they'll get a response with a link to the Setup Page configured below. This is where they'll access the one-time setup needed to enable Text Giving. You can have multiple Setup Keywords separated by a comma.

3 Maximum Gift Amount

You might not want to accept gifts over a certain amount via text. This field controls how much a person can give in a single text before receiving the Max Amount Response message configured below.

4 Financial Account

This is the account into which Text Giving transactions go. If you have sub-accounts for each of your campuses, select the parent-level account here. This should match the Utility Payment Entry block configuration discussed in the prior section. That block has a setting that chooses the correct account based on the person's campus selection. Note, if this is left blank then the giving account on the person's profile (see below) is used.

5 Setup Page

Out of the box, Rock comes configured with a page for setting up Text Giving for an individual. This page is already set up for you on the external site template we provide and is located in the Give area. An admin needs to configure the block on this page as described in the prior section above.

6 Refund Keyword

Not only can people give, but they can also request a refund of their last gift by texting the keyword(s) here. A dollar amount is not needed. You can have multiple Refund Keywords, separated by a comma. If the refund can't be issued automatically, the person receives a message that can be configured below. Leave this blank to disable the refund function. A person can't request a refund via text if the Processing Delay Minutes configured below have passed.

7 Processing Delay Minutes

The person can request a refund via text (using the Refund Keyword described above) within this amount of time and it will be like the gift never happened. That's because the transaction won't go through your financial gateway until this delay elapses. If this is blank or set to zero, then the refund function is disabled.

8 Responses

For each stage of the process, you can provide a custom, Lava-enabled message that is sent (as applicable) to the person giving. These responses are sent automatically depending on the person's scenario.

If the person uses Text Giving, you can see that information on the Person Profile page under the Contributions tab.

You can also come here to manually add or edit Text Giving settings for an individual. This is where you can set or change the default financial account to which the person gives. The person must have a saved account (e.g., credit card, checking account) on file to use Text Giving.

Account List

This page shows a list of all the accounts defined in Rock.

Note the hierarchical navigation tree on the left side of the screen. Like with the Group Viewer, this structure allows you to quickly and easily organize and view your accounts. Click the icon to filter by Active or All accounts. If you have many accounts, you can search for an account using the Quick Find field above the tree.

Account Details

From the list of accounts, you can add or update an account using the account details screen.

1 Name

The name that will be used when selecting an account.

2 Description

This is a great place to document what the account will be used for and any details you'd like to keep about when and how it should be used.

3 Active

Since accounts cannot be deleted if they are used by any transactions, you'll need to mark them Inactive once they should no longer be used.

4 Show Publicly

This is where you designate if the account is public and should be viewable on the public website.

5 Parent Account

Rock allows you to create account hierarchies to help manage situations when you need to configure numerous accounts.

6 Account Type

This setting allows you to categorize your accounts to help with reporting. The setting has no impact on how accounts are used in Rock. The list of account types can be set under Admin Tools > General Settings > Defined Types > Account Type. You might consider using this setting to designate accounts that are used for donations vs. those you use for event registrations.

7 Public Name

You might want to describe your account differently when it's shown on the public website. This field allows you to configure a public-friendly name for your account.

8 Campus

If the account is specific to a campus, you can select the campus here. This is disabled if you have only one campus.

9 GL Code

The reference code used in the General Ledger software.

10 Date Range

The date range you provide here will help determine when the account is displayed on various screens in Rock. If the account is no longer valid, based on the date range, then it will not be displayed when picking from accounts.

11 Is Tax Deductible

Helps determine if the transactions assigned to this account are considered tax deductible. This is used in reporting.

12 Url

Although unused in Rock's core features, this URL could be used to generate a link to a custom 'More Info' page.

13 Account Participants

Being an Account Participant is similar to following a person or group. For now, this area is only used for notifying the listed people of certain Giving Alerts.

Chart Mode

Chart mode allows us to get summary information on the transactions that meet our search criteria. While the main view is the chart, we can also get the numbers behind the chart.

1 Date Range

The first setting is the date range of the transactions that we're interested in.

2 Total Amounts

Located in the Advanced Options, this is a numeric range of dollar amounts that should be used to filter the total gifts on. Note that this range is on the total amount of gifts per giving unit for the period/filters you've provided, not a range of a specific gift.

3 Limit by Data View

Located in the Advanced Options, this allows you to limit who is considered for the report based on the data view provided.

4 Available Accounts

Located in the Advanced Options, these allow you to decide whether to include only active accounts and/or only tax-deductible accounts.

5 Currency Types

This allows you to filter gifts that were given by a certain currency type.

6 Transaction Source

You can also filter on a source for the transaction. This allows you to see what medium your donors give by.

7 Accounts

This setting allows you to filter by financial account.

8 Group By

The group by setting tells us the time series to use on the x-axis of the chart.

9 Graph By

This determines what series you would like to see on the graph.

10 Copy Link

The Copy Link button lets you share the currently displayed overview of giving with a colleague.

11 Show Data

This allows you to see the data behind the graph.

Details Mode

The details mode shows us the individuals behind the data. Note that the data is shown by 'Giving Unit'. If an individual combines their giving with their family, then the head of household will be listed instead of the individual matched to the transaction.

1 Filter

An additional level of filtering is available when looking in details mode. You can choose to view transactions by:

• All Givers: This displays information for all giving units matching the criteria on the left.
• First Time Givers: This will only show information for giving units whose first gift is within the date range provided on the left.
• Pattern: This allows us to provide a pattern like 'Has given at least three times in the selected range and did not give between another date range.'

2 Return Type

This setting provides four different ways to view family members that have a contribution transaction matching the selected filter criteria. These settings are a great way of getting lists of people to send communications to.

• Giver: This will show each of the giving leaders associated with the matching transactions and the amount given. This view is best for determining the total amount given for each person because multiple people are not shown for the same transactions. Because of this, it is the only view that displays a grand total amount at the bottom of the list.
• Adults: This will show all the adults that have matching transactions or are combining their giving with a person who has matching transactions. It also displays the total amount given by the combined members with each adult listed.
• Children: This will show all the children that have matching transactions or are combining their giving with a person who has matching transactions. It also displays the total amount given by the combined members with each child listed.
• Family: This will show all family members who have matching transactions or are combining their giving with a person who has matching transactions. It also displays the total amount given by the combined members with each person listed.

For example, consider the Decker family. Ted and Cindy both have selected to combine their giving with the Decker Family, but Noah and Alex both give individually (they do not combine giving with any family). If Ted gave $300, Cindy gave $50, and Noah gave $5 during the selected time period, the views would show the following:

• Giver: This will show Ted with $350 given and Noah with $5. This is because Ted and Cindy are the same "giving unit", and Noah is his own. Alex is also her own giving unit but did not give anything during the selected period.
• Adults: This will show Ted with $350 and Cindy with $350. This is because they are the adults in their family and their combined, total given for the family was $350.
• Children: This will show Noah with $5. This is because Noah is a child in his family, he does not combine his giving with the family and his total given was $5. Alex is also a child in the family but because she did not give anything and because she does not combine her giving with anyone who did, she will not appear in the list.
• Family: This will show Ted and Cindy each with $350, and Noah with $5. It shows $350 for Ted and Cindy because that is the combined total of their giving since they are configured to combine their giving. It shows $5 for Noah because he is not configured to combine his giving and his total was $5. It does not show Alex because she did not give anything, and she is not configured to combine her giving with anyone.

3 Data

The grid displays the transactions by giving unit that meet the provided criteria.

Managing Pledges

Pledges are frequently given via paper commitment cards. When this occurs, someone within the organization will need to hand-enter the pledges into the system. This can be done under Finance > Pledges. From this screen you'll see a list of all pledges currently in the system. You can use the grid filters to help limit which pledges are shown.

1 Filter Options

These are the filters available to narrow down the list of pledges.

2Grid

This is a listing of the pledges that match the filters provided.

From this pledge list page, you can update or add new pledges. The figure below shows this screen with the various options available.

1 Person

This is the person who is making the pledge. For families you'll want to pick the head of house. As with many of Rock's financial tools, pledges can be viewed from a family perspective when linked to any adult in the family.

2 Account

The account that the pledge is for. Often times this will be a unique account for a capital campaign or building fund.

3 Total Amount

This is the dollar amount that will be given over the duration of the pledge.

4 Date Range

This defines the duration of the pledge.

5 Payment Schedule

This determines how often gifts (financial transactions) will be given to meet the pledge amount.

Self-Entry

When possible, it's a great idea for members to enter their own pledges online. This not only allows you to reduce the amount of data entry, it also allows them to create a recurring giving profile to match their pledge. The sample external website that comes with Rock already has a pledge entry screen configured for you to use. You can find this page under Give > Pledge.

This pledge block on the external site has several block settings to make it very flexible for you to use. These settings include:

• Enable Smart Names: This feature will attempt to find a matching person record in Rock to link the pledge to. This match will occur if a record exists with an exact match on first name, last name and email address. There’s also some logic built in to handle cases when someone types in Ted and Cindy or Ted & Cindy in the first name field. When this happens only the value Ted will be used in the search. If an exact match does not occur a new person record will be created with the record status of pending, for future review by an Admin.
• Account: If you provide a specific account as a block setting, the guest won’t have to pick one, and their pledge will automatically be assigned to this account.
• New Connection Status: In the case where a new person record must be created this will be the connection status that will be assigned to the record.
• Pledge Date Range: This setting allows you to assign a date range for the pledge. If you provide both a start and end date these values will be used, no dates will display and the guest will not have to worry about entering them.
• Show Pledge Frequency: Determines if the Pledge Frequency field should be displayed. You may not want your guest to have to provide this information.
• Require Pledge Frequency: There may be times when you would like to show the pledge frequency but not require someone to enter one. In other cases, you might want to require this item. With this setting you can have it any way you'd like.
• Save Button Text: This setting allows you to customize the text of the Save button.
• Note Message: The block allows you to provide a note to your guests to help explain the pledge in more detail.
• Receipt Text: This is the message that will be displayed to your guest upon saving. This is a great place to celebrate their commitment. It comes out of the box configured to link them to set up a recurring donation to match the frequency they selected. If one was not selected, it will allow them to pick one. This field supports Lava, so you can personalize it.
• Confirmation Email Template: You can also select to send a template confirmation email after the save. This email template can use the same liquid merge objects from the Receipt Text field.

Once a person enters their pledge on-line you can still view and manage it using the same pages as described in the Managing Pledges section above.

Pledge Frequencies

In several of the screens above, we mention picking pledge frequencies for determining how often someone will be giving towards their pledge. Rock comes pre-configured with several frequency values, but you can add to or edit them under Admin Tools > General Settings > Defined Types > Recurring Transaction Frequency.

Pledge Analytics

Being able to track the status of pledges and report on pledge progress is critical for most capital campaigns. The pledge analytics block (Finance > Pledge Analytics) helps to answer these questions. Let's see what it's capable of.

1 Account

The account that you would like to report on. This will filter both the pledges and giving.

2 Date Range

The date range that will be used to filter pledges. Any pledge that is active during any part of the date range will be used. All gifts in the account selected above will be included in the report regardless of date.

3 Pledge Amount

Limits the pledges that are shown based on the amount of the pledge.

4 Percent Complete

Limits the returned results based on the percentage that has been given towards the pledge.

5 Amount Given

Limits the returned results based on how much the person has given.

6 Show

Determines what should be shown in the result grid.

• Only those with pledges: Only people where a pledge exists will be shown.
• Only those with gifts: Will show anyone with a gift during the date range even if they don't have a pledge.
• Those with gifts or pledges: If you have either a gift OR a pledge, we're going to show you.

7 Result Grid

After clicking the Update button, the results are shown here.

Person Profile Giving Overview

Giving Overview information for a person can be viewed on the Contributions tab of the Person Profile page. There's a lot of important information packed into the Giving Overview that lets you see many details of a person's giving habits, and changes to those habits. For instance, you'll want to keep an eye on the Giving By Month chart, to look for bars that are unusually high or unusually low, as these can be good indicators that maybe something has changed in the person's life.

Let's take a look at an example for Ted Decker. As you read through, keep in mind that each of these items is stored as a person attribute, making it easy to access this data in reporting, communications or workflows.

1 First/Last Gift

This lets you know how long the person has been giving, and how long it's been since their last gift. This high-level information gives you insight into the person's giving history.

2 Giving Alerts

Giving alerts are triggered when a person's gift meets certain criteria. We have a whole section on Giving Alerts below.

3 Last 12 Months

The total amount given in the past 12 months, as well as the number of gifts during that time.

4 Last 90 Days

This shows how much the person has given in the last 90 days, and the number of gifts. The change compared to the past 12 months is shown, so you can gauge changes to the person's giving and whether they're trending up or down.

5 Gives As

Here you can easily see if the person gives as an individual or as a family.

6 Giving Journey

A person's Giving Journey stage tells us more about their giving habits. In this example Ted is a Consistent giver. Others might be in a different stage in their journey. See the Giving Journey section below for more details.

7 Giving by Month

At a glance you can visualize patterns of giving, showing times when the person's giving has gone up or down compared to other months.

8 Typical Gift

It's important to know what the typical gift looks like for a person, to allow us to identify when their giving changes from the norm so we can react appropriately. This statistic gives the median giving amount, and the typical amount by which that might vary.

9 Typical Frequency

This is the average number of days between gifts. In this example Ted typically gives every 8 days, but that can vary by as much as 3.5 days. This tells us that he probably gives weekly, but perhaps not every week.

10 Percent Scheduled

Shows the percentage of the person's gifts that come from scheduled transactions. This helps you identify people who aren't giving as consistently as they could, so you can reach out to them.

11 Frequency

This uses the typical frequency to calculate an overall frequency of giving for the person. Ted gives on a regular basis, so his frequency is classified as Weekly. Others might give on a bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly, erratic or variable basis.

12 Preferred Currency

In this example we can see that Ted primarily gives by writing a check. Others might give using cash, credit cards or other methods.

13 Preferred Source

Ted's preferred way to give is through on-site collection. Others might give through places like your website or mobile application.

14 Community View

This shows you how the person's giving compares to others in the community. This isn't to classify people, but rather to show where this person's giving falls in a larger context. Each person is assigned a bin based on their giving, as detailed in the next section below.

15 Yearly Summary

This area shows a total amount of giving by year for the person, broken up by account. This gives you insight into where the person is giving, in addition to how much.

The Giving Characteristics area of the Giving Overview is calculated by the Giving Automation job. The other areas are calculated when the information is accessed.

You might have noticed that we use two different methods to calculate the Typical Gift and Typical Frequency. A lot of time and effort went into ensuring that we use the right calculations the right way. As you continue to read this chapter, you'll find that anything related to a dollar amount (e.g. Typical Gift) uses a median and Interquartile Range (IQR) to show the typical giving amount and the amount by which it varies. On the other hand, anything related to giving frequency (e.g. Typical Frequency) uses mean (average) and standard deviation to provide the typical frequency and the length of time by which it varies.

Calculating Community View

The Community View is based on a typical yearly giving distribution. In the chart pictured below, the orange line represents giving amounts. The largest gifts are assigned to bin 1, while smaller gifts are assigned to bins 2, 3 and 4.

• Bin 1: Top 5% (+/- 1%) of gifts (e.g., $12,243 and above)
• Bin 2: Next top 15% (+/- 2%) of gifts (e.g., $4,000 to $12,242)
• Bin 3: Next top 20% (+/- 3%) of gifts (e.g., $1,364 to $4,499)
• Bin 4: Bottom 60% (+/- 5%) of gifts (e.g., $1 to $1,363)

It's important that we not apply judgement to people based on the bins into which they are placed. We don't want to classify people based on their giving. Instead, we just want to recognize that people are in different stages of their giving. For instance, someone in bin 4 may simply not understand generosity yet or have not yet put trust in God with their finances.

If a person goes from Bin 4 to Bin 3, we often say they've had a change of mind, while going from Bin 3 to Bin 2 is perhaps a change of heart.

If you dive deeply into the numbers, you may find that the placement into bins won't be exactly perfect. It might be off by a percent or two. This is to avoid a scenario where multiple people who gave the same amount are split into different bins. For instance, bin 1 is intended to hold the top 5% of givers but may actually contain 6% of your attendees if many of them have given the same amount or near the same amount.

Giving Automation Configuration

There are some general settings that control how giving automation features work at a high level. These settings drive much of what you see on the Giving Overview and are used by the Giving Automation job. This configuration can be accessed by clicking the icon near the top right of the list of alerts under Finance > Giving Alerts. Typically, you won't make changes to these settings once they're in place.

1 Enable Giving Automation

This needs to be enabled for the Giving Automation job to run, perform calculations and assign giving alerts. Even if you're not using alerts, you'll probably want to keep this enabled to ensure the giving information on the Person Profile page is up to date and accurate.

2 Days to Update Giving Group Classifications

You might not need to update your giving data every day, or you only need the data updated weekly. For instance, Sunday giving is typically entered on Mondays, so you might choose to only run the update on Mondays. Choosing only certain days to update giving group classifications can help lighten the load on your system.

3 Transaction Types

By default, the giving information described in the prior section comes only from contributions. However, you can choose to include payments for event registrations in the calculations. If you include event registrations, be sure to keep in mind that they do not apply to giving alerts.

4 Accounts

Typically, you'll want the giving calculations to include gifts to any tax-deductible account. However, you can optionally provide a custom list of individual accounts if you want to limit where the giving data is coming from.

Giving Alerts

Giving data has the potential to help you spot changes in a person's life or circumstances. Bearing that in mind, Giving Alerts are designed to let you know when something has changed in a person's giving habits, so you can take action accordingly. You might want to follow up with someone who has suddenly stopped giving, to make sure everything is okay. Or you might want to show your appreciation for someone who has given more than they usually do. Having two alerts for the same person often signals a significant life change.

There are two types of Giving Alerts. The Gratitude alert type is intended to identify when someone has given a large amount or is giving more frequently than they normally do. On the other hand, you'll get a Follow-up alert type if the person starts giving less frequently. These alerts are calculated and generated by the Giving Automation job and are highly customizable as you'll see below.

Giving Alerts for an individual can be accessed from the Person Profile page under the Contributions tab. A list of all Giving Alerts can be found by navigating to Finance > Giving Alerts. In either case, you'll be brought to a page like the one pictured below.

1 Alert Type

The alert types are color coded so you can distinguish between Gratitude (green) and Follow-up (yellow).

2 Alert Date

This is the date the alert was created. This can be useful for reporting or filtering the results.

3 Name

The person's name is displayed as a link. Clicking the link will take you to the Contributions tab of the Person Profile page for that person so you can view more information about their giving.

4 Campus

As applicable, the campus associated with the alert is displayed. You can also filter the list of alerts by campus.

5 Alert Name

You can have multiple alerts of the same type, so you'll need to know which specific alert is being viewed. This is a good reason to give your alerts descriptive names.

6 Gift Amount

The amount of the gift that triggered the alert is shown for reference as a link. Clicking the link will take you to the Transaction Detail page for the transaction, allowing you to view its details.

7 Amount +/- Median

Each person has a median giving amount, which reflects their typical gift. For the gift that triggered the alert, this column shows how much above or below the gift's amount is compared to the person's median gift amount. For instance, if a person's typical gift is $100 and an alert was triggered when they gave $200 then this column would show $100. You might set up a Gratitude alert for people in this scenario.

8 Days +/- Mean

Each person has a typical giving frequency. For instance, a person might have a mean average of one gift every 30 days. For the gift that triggered the alert, this column shows how many days before or after their expected gift that it was received. This tells you if the person gave sooner or later than expected.

9 Amount Measures

Provides the person's current median giving amount and current IQR (Interquartile Range) at the time of the gift. This lets you compare the gift that triggered the alert to the person's typical gift amount.

10 Frequency Measures

Provides the current mean frequency of giving for the person and the current standard deviation at the time of the gift.

Giving Alert Configuration

Now that you're familiar with what Giving Alerts look like, let's see how you can set them up. The configuration for Giving Alerts can be accessed by clicking the icon near the top right of the list of alerts under Finance > Giving Alerts.

The Giving Alert configuration is near the bottom of the page, below the General Settings and Giving Journey settings. As you review this configuration, keep in mind that you don't want to be bugging people all the time about changes to their giving patterns. Make use of the Repeat Prevention Duration settings as described below to ensure alerts are generated at reasonable frequencies.

1 Global Repeat Prevention Duration

You don't want to be bugging people all the time about changes to their giving patterns. Setting this will prevent alerts of either type from being created within the specified number of days after an initial alert. In this example, if an alert is triggered for a person, that person won't get another alert of any type for at least 30 days.

2 Gratitude Repeat Prevention Duration

This setting controls how many days should pass after a Gratitude alert is generated for a person before another Gratitude alert is generated for the same person. A person may give more generously or more frequently, but that doesn't mean an alert should be generated every time. For instance, if a monthly giver were to give a large gift in the middle of the month, you might only want to thank them once even though they gave more frequently and more than usual.

3 Follow-up Repeat Prevention Duration

This is like the above setting but applies to Follow-up alert types. Typically, if you wanted to check in on someone who is giving less frequently you don't need multiple different reasons to do it. Having multiple Follow-up alerts in a small timeframe doesn't mean you'll reach out to the person more than once.

4 Alerts

This is the listing of alerts that you have configured. The order of these alerts matters. Rock will evaluate a person for alerts from the top down. Once a person gets an alert they will not be evaluated for the next alert in the list unless the Continue option is enabled. You can click and drag the icon to move each alert up or down. Clicking on an alert row will open the configuration for that alert.

5 Add New Alert

New alerts can be added by clicking the icon near the bottom of the list. The configuration you'll use is described below.

Settings for Giving Alerts

Each alert has its own settings, with options that let you control exactly when the alert should occur and what actions to take when it does.

As you set up your alerts there are a few things to keep in mind. The most important part is deciding whether you're creating a Gratitude alert or a Follow-up alert. Gratitude alerts are great for recognizing when someone gives a larger gift than normal, or more frequently than usual. Follow-up alerts should be used for tracking when someone starts giving less frequently. In the next section we'll give some suggestions for how to use these settings to set up alerts of different types.

1 Name

A descriptive name will help you easily identify the alert and its purpose. This is especially helpful when you're looking at lists of alerts as shown in the sections above.

2 Person Campus

An alert will only be generated if the person's campus matches the campus selected here. This lets you have different alerts for different campuses.

3 Alert Type

As described in the sections above, alerts can be of type Gratitude or Follow-up. It's important to pick the right type for the alert you're setting up.

4 Account

You can optionally limit alerts to gifts given to a certain financial account. You also have the option of including child accounts under the selected account.

5 Continue If Matched

This setting controls whether Rock should continue evaluating a person for other alerts if they get this alert. Leaving this disabled can help ensure the person doesn't get multiple alerts for the same gift. However, depending on your setup, having multiple alerts can provide a more complete picture of how this gift compares to the person's normal giving.

6 Days to Run

You probably won't need every alert to be processed on every day of the week. For instance, you may only want to calculate alerts on Mondays or Tuesdays after all the weekend giving has been entered. Calculating alerts only one or two days out of the week also lightens the load on your system when the Giving Automation job runs.

7 Repeat Prevention Duration

This is the number of days that must pass before an individual who gets this alert can get it again. This is similar to the Repeat Prevention Duration configurations discussed in the prior section, except this applies to only this one alert.

8 Amount Sensitivity Scale

This is where you find people who gave more or less than usual. The higher the number, the further from the person's normal giving level the gift must be to trigger the alert. You could use this to trigger a Gratitude alert for people who gave more than usual. Be sure to read the on-screen details and examples to guide you in choosing a value. This setting only applies to people who have given more than 5 gifts in the previous 12 months.

9 Frequency Sensitivity Scale

This is like the above setting but identifies people who gave more frequently or less frequently than normal. You might use this to trigger a Follow-up alert for someone who gives regularly but seems to have stopped for some reason. This setting only applies to people who have given more than 5 gifts in the previous 12 months.

10 Min/Max Gift Amount

You might not want an alert created for all gifts, even if they match the alert criteria you've configured. Adding values here will limit who gets an alert based on the amount of their gift. For instance, you might skip an alert for gifts under $10. Or, you might have a separate alert for particularly large gifts.

11 Min/Max Median Gift Amount

This is similar to the above setting but looks at the person's median gift amount. This lets you trigger the alert only if the person regularly gives a certain amount. For instance, you might not want an alert to be triggered for someone who gives $1 every week and then stops.

12 Maximum Days Since Last Gift

This setting gives you another way to control who gets alerts based on the frequency of giving. You could use this to set up a Gratitude alert for someone who has given twice in the past week.

13 Person Data View

Data Views are a powerful and flexible way to identify the exact population of people for whom you want to create alerts. For instance, you might only want alerts for people with a certain connection status.

14 Launch Workflow of Type

A workflow is a great way to take action on an alert. With the power and flexibility of workflows, you can do just about anything. Keep in mind that the person receiving the alert is set as the workflow initiator.

15 Connection Type

Especially for Follow-up alerts, you might want to create a connection request for the person. Selecting a Connection Type will provide a second field where you can specify the Opportunity that the connection request should be added to. The person receiving the alert will be set as the requester.

16 Send Donor Communication From Template

You can choose to automatically send a communication to the person receiving the alert using the selected template. If you're creating a new alert you might want to wait before using this feature, to ensure the alert is getting generated for the population you intend to target.

17 Send Account Participant Communication From Template

If you have an Account filter set up (see #4 above) you can use this field to send a communication to anyone who is listed as an Account Participant within the Account's configuration, with the Purpose Key of Giving Alerts.

18 Send Bus Event

This setting only applies if you have a Message Bus set up. If you do, and if this is enabled, the alert will trigger an event to be sent.

19 Alert Summary Notification Group

Members of the selected group will receive an email notifying them that a giving alert has been created for the person. By default, the email only provides the person's name and a link to the alert. The system communication used for this is Financial Transaction Alert Summary.

Deleting Transactions

If you delete a financial transaction that triggered an alert, the alert will also be deleted automatically behind the scenes.

Giving Journey

Each person can be thought of as being in a certain stage of a giving lifecycle. Has the person just started giving, or have they been giving for a while, or have they stopped giving? Rock's Giving Journey feature helps you identify which stage a person is in. This gives you insight into where their heart is, and helps you identify the changes in heart that are reflected in giving patterns.

There are six stages in the Giving Journey that a person moves through:

1. Non-Giver
2. New Giver
3. Occasional Giver
4. Consistent Giver
5. Lapsed Giver
6. Former Giver

While a lot of thought and effort went into the configuration that ships with Rock, you can customize the conditions that must be met for a person to be placed in each stage according to what makes sense for your organization.

Keep in mind that a person's current and previous Giving Journey stage are both stored as person attributes called Current Journey Giving Stage and Previous Journey Giving Stage. There's also a person attribute for the date that their stage changed, called Journey Giving Stage Change Date. This makes it easy to create data views, reports, SQL queries and targeted communications based on a person's Giving Journey information.

All changes to the Current Journey Giving Stage are written to the History table for in-depth analysis. Also, you could enable Analytics and Analytics History on the attribute for BI purposes.

To access the Giving Journey settings, navigate to Finance > Giving Alerts and click the icon near the top right corner of the block. A person is evaluated for each stage in the order listed on the page until a match is found.

1 Days to Update Giving Journeys

It takes a lot of number crunching to calculate a person's Giving Journey stage, and the stage is unlikely to change twice in the same week for a person, so you don't need to calculate this every day. The default day is Tuesday, which is typically after most giving from the weekend has been entered into Rock.

2 Former Giver

This stage applies to someone who hasn't given for a significantly long time, where we can confidently say that the person has stopped giving entirely. Out of the box, Rock defines this as someone who hasn't given in over a year and who used to give at least once every 320 days (median frequency).

3 Lapsed Giver

Lapsed givers were likely occasional givers or consistent givers at some point but haven't been giving lately. Someone in this stage might have recently had a change in their lives.

4 New Giver

As you might have guessed, this is someone who has recently given for the first time. New givers should be celebrated, as this likely reflects a change in heart.

5 Occasional Giver

An occasional giver gives somewhat sporadically. They are active givers, but maybe only give once every couple of months.

6 Consistent Giver

Out of the box a consistent giver would be someone who regularly gives at least once a month. This speaks volumes about where their heart is. A consistent giver might be someone with a Scheduled Transaction set up.

7 Non-Giver

A non-giver has never given. This could identify someone who hasn't yet put full trust in God regarding their finances.

Multiple Families

Since Rock allows people to be in multiple families, you can choose which family their giving applies to. This can be set from their Person Profile page by clicking the Edit Individual button, then Advanced Settings. The Combine Giving With allows you to pick a specific family.

Individual Giving

There are situations where even married couples will want their gifts split onto separate giving statements. If you leave the Combine Giving With field discussed above blank, it will mark the individual as giving separate from the family.

Business Contacts

While businesses will be the source of donations and gifts (financial transactions), there will most likely be an individual that links the business to your organization. Being able to manage these relationships is important.

Once a business is saved, you can add contacts to the business from the individuals stored within Rock. These relationships can be viewed on the Business Detail page and also on the Known Relationships section of the Person Profile page of the individual.

Business Contributions

Just as you can view the giving information for a specific person, you can also view the giving information for a business. To do this, simply go to Finance > Businesses and select the business name from the Business List. Rock will display all of the information and contribution history for that business, including yearly contribution statements. Financial transactions can also be entered from the Business Detail screen. Options include either a one-time gift or a new scheduled transaction.

1 Summary of Contributions

Summary of total contributions by year for the business.

2 Add Transaction

Click this button to add a one-time gift from the business.

3 Scheduled Transactions

List of all recurring scheduled transactions.

4 Pledge List

List of financial pledges for the business.

5 Available Contribution Statements

Links to available contribution statements by year.

6 Transaction List

Filterable list of transactions for the business.

Business Details

At the top of the Business Detail page is the Business Detail block. This block shows details about the business like the name and contact information and allows you to edit those details. It also has a few settings that you'll want to know about.

1 Name

You can change the name of the block if desired. This is typically only visible to administrators.

2 Communication Page

By default, clicking on the email address for the business will take you to the New Communication page that ships with Rock. Here you can set an alternate page that the person will be taken to instead.

3 Badges

Yes, businesses can have badges too! Badges selected here will be displayed under the name of the business.

4 Display Tags

Just like you can tag other entities like people or groups, you can tag businesses. Tagging is a great way to organize and categorize businesses for reporting purposes. If you don't want tags to be displayed for businesses, set this to No.

5 Tag Category

If you are displaying tags, you can set the Category here to only show tags in that category. If specified, all new personal tags will be added with this category. You can maintain your tag categories under Admin Tools > General Settings > Tag Categories.

6 Search Key Types

Rock ships with only one Search Key Type (Email) but you may have added others. This setting lets you limit which Search Key Types can be added to businesses.

7 Business Attributes

Attributes are a great way to track information about a business beyond their name and contact information. The attributes you list here can be edited when the business is edited and will be displayed near the bottom of the Business Detail block.

8 Context - Entity Type

This block is context aware, and this is where you set the entity type. You can read more about using context in our Designing and Building Websites Using Rock manual.

Converting a Person to a Business

While working with transactions, you may realize it would be best for Rock to consider a particular person a business or vice versa. Rock allows you to do this, though you'll rarely need to.

The process of converting a person to a business or a business to a person is simple. Access the Business Conversion screen by clicking the Convert Person/Business button at the top of the Business List screen, located at Finance > Businesses.

Select the person or business you want to convert, double check that the settings Rock will use to convert the person or business are correct and click Save.

Rock won't convert a person with family members to a business because it would result in those family member records being lost. To convert a person with family members to a business, first move the person to their own family.

Merging Business Records

Just like you can merge person records, you can also merge business records. Typically, this is only needed if a single business has more than one record in your system.

You can merge business records directly from Finance > Businesses by selecting the businesses you want to merge and clicking the icon. You can also use the Smart Search to look for businesses with similar names.

If you've ever merged person records before, the page below will look very familiar. The first thing you'll want to do on this screen is pick the master record near the top. This is the record that the others will be merged into. Then, look at each row and ensure that the correct value is selected. If a value isn’t correct on the master record, you can choose to select the data from one of the other records. After you've selected the data to keep, just click Merge Records to complete the merge.

The address displayed at the top of the merge block is shown for reference only. After selecting the primary/master record, you'll still need to pick which address(es) to carry forward.

Finance Security Roles

RSR - Finance Worker: The finance user role is allowed to view and edit basic finance information like batches and transactions. They are not allowed to make modifications to the configuration of the finance features. For instance, they can't add a new account or edit an existing account. Similarly, this role can view businesses but cannot add new businesses or edit existing ones. This role does not have access to any benevolence features.

RSR - Finance Administration: The finance administrator role is allowed to view and edit all finance information including configuration information like accounts.

Areas That Are Secured

The following areas of Rock have been secured to limit access to financial information. Only those in the finance roles will have access to the following:

• Finance Admin Pages: All the pages under Finance on the main navigation.
• Person Details Contribution Tab: The Contributions tab on the Person Profile page.
• Rock Check Scanner: Log-in to use this application.
• Data View Filters: Write data views that report on financial information. (Once the data views are created however, anyone who has permission to view the data view can run them. Be sure to secure the data views you create.)
• Reports: Creating reports. (Once the reports are created though, they can be run by anyone with view access to the report.)

Additional Security Actions

The following can be secured separately from the permissions provided to Finance Workers and Administrators:

• Financial Batch Entity: Only those with security permission will be able to reopen or delete a batch.
• Financial Transaction Entity: Only those with security permission will be able to initiate a refund.
• Filter by Person on Transaction List Block: Only those with security permission will be able to filter transactions on the Transaction List block by person.

Request List

The benevolence features can be found under Finance > Benevolence. The first screen shows a list of benevolence requests that have been entered into the system. This list will quickly grow to be quite long so be sure to use the filters at the top to help you find the specific requests you're working on.

1 Benevolence Types

Click the gear icon to add or manage different Benevolence Types. For instance, you might have a type for "Housing" or "Food Assistance".

2 Benevolence Requests

This is a filterable list of all the Benevolence Requests in your system. New requests can be added by clicking the button at the top or bottom of the grid.

3 Total Results

At the bottom of the screen, you'll see summary totals for each category of assistance you have provided. These totals are for all of the transactions that match the provided filters.

Benevolence Types

Rock lets you create Benevolence Types that can be assigned to each Benevolence Request. This is a great way to categorize requests, allowing you to specify the type of benevolence (e.g., Housing, Food Assistance, Utility Bills) that applies to the request.

You can create or maintain Benevolence Types by navigating to Finance > Benevolence and clicking the button near the top-right of the grid. As described below, there are a few features of Benevolence Types that you'll want to know about.

1 Show Financial Results

If this is disabled, then you will not be able to add a Result Type to the request. The Results Summary and Next Steps Provided fields can still be used. See the following sections below for more information.

2 Active

You can make each Benevolence Type Active or Inactive. You might make a type Inactive if it's no longer being used or is only used certain times of the year.

3 Request Lava Template

The template you provide here will appear on the Benevolence Request view screen, below the person's contact information and above the request details. You can personalize this content using Lava. This is a powerful way to add more detail to the request, or to provide buttons or links that the person working the request can click.

4 Maximum Number of Documents

Here you can specify how many documents can be uploaded for each request of this type. If "0" is chosen, then documents can't be attached.

5 Workflows

Workflows can be automatically launched for the Benevolence Request using triggers that you define. You can also select Manual to have a button added to the request page that the person can click to launch the workflow. In this example, the workflow is launched when the request's status changes from Pending to Approved.

Benevolence Request View

The screen pictured below is what you'll see when you access a specific Benevolence Request from the request list. This page lets you view all the details surrounding the request and allows for adding Result Types if Show Financial Results is enabled for requests of this type. Let's break down what you can see and do on this page.

1 Person Information

Near the top of the page, you can see the requestor, their contact information, who the request is assigned to and the age of the request.

2 Available Workflows

In this case a Manual workflow has been added to the Benevolence Type of this request. A person viewing the request can click this button to launch the workflow.

3 Request Lava

If you've provided a Request Lava Template (see section above) then the output will be displayed here. Each Benevolence Type has its own template.

4 Description of Request

The details about the request itself are shown here. This is typically where you'll see why the person is making a benevolence request.

5 Custom Attributes

This is where attributes with an entity type of Benevolence Request will be displayed. Using custom attributes lets you collect data beyond the items that ship with Rock. In this example we've added an attribute to track whether this is the person's first benevolence request.

6 Related Documents

A link is provided to access any documentation associated with the request. Documents can be added to a request by editing the request.

7 Results Summary

If a summary of the result of the Benevolence Request has been provided it will be displayed here.

8 Next Steps Provided

If a description of any next steps is provided, then it will be displayed here.

9 Result Type

You'll see this section as long as Show Financial Results is enabled for requests of this type. You can add a row here to indicate the actual assistance that was given, as well as a dollar amount and any other relevant details. You can add (or remove) new Result Types under Admin Tools > General Settings > Defined Types > Benevolence Result Type.

10 Edit

Click the Edit button to add or edit details for this request. We'll cover editing a request in the next section below.

11 Notes

Person Notes can be added directly from the request detail page. By default, the Note Type is "Benevolence Request: Benevolence Request Notes" but this can be changed in the Notes block's settings.

Edit Benevolence Request

Adding a new request or editing an existing request lets you provide specifics of the request as well as the results of the request. Note that in many cases you will be selecting a person in the database that the request is for. Since some requestors may not be in the system, you can also simply enter in their name and contact information here. This keeps you from having to enter a new record in the database for them. It's up to you if you would like to have a record or not.

1 Request Type

As described in a prior section above, each request can be designated as being of a certain type. The Request Type can't be changed after the request has been saved.

2 Request Status

This is the current status of the request. You can manage the options that are displayed in this dropdown under Admin Tools > General Settings > Defined Types > Benevolence Request Status.

3 Assigned To

This is the person who will be working with the individual to determine need and what the response should be. This is helpful if there is a team of people working on these requests. The values in this dropdown come from the group members of the 'RSR - Benevolence' security role. You can change this to use a different group in the settings of this block.

4 Person

The person record to tie the request to. Selecting a person here will automatically enter the contact information below and set the campus for the request if one is not already present. Note that campus fields are disabled if you have only one campus.

5 Contact Information

You can also choose not to tie the request to a record in the database and simply enter the person's name and contact information instead.

6 Description of Request

This is where you'll document what the person is seeking in terms of help.

7 Request Attributes

If you've added custom attributes to your benevolence request, they would display here. For our example we've added a single attribute. This won't be in your database. We'll cover how to add custom attributes to benevolence requests below.

8 Related Documents

Here you have the ability to attach documents to the request. You can add up to 6 documents. These documents are stored in the database. If you'd prefer to use a different storage medium be sure to update the file type for the 'Benevolence Request Document'.

9 Result Summary

This field allows the person working the request to enter notes about what was given, including background information on the decision.

10 Provided Next Steps

Often times the results of a benevolence request will have associated next steps. For instance, you may suggest they take a specific class. You can keep these notes in this field.

Benevolence on the Person Profile

Those with access to view benevolence information will see a Benevolence tab on the Person Profile page. The requests shown here are summarized for the entire family. So, if Ted Decker makes a benevolence request, it will also show on Cindy Decker's profile.

Benevolence Security

The benevolence pages are secured to only allow those in the 'RSR - Benevolence' security group access to them. Be sure to add the appropriate people to this group to enable this feature.

Adding Custom Attributes

Adding custom attributes to benevolence requests is simple using the steps below.

1. Head to the Entity Attributes page under Admin Tools > System Settings > Entity Attributes.
2. Click the add button to add a new attribute.
3. The first thing you'll want to do is set the 'Entity Type' field to 'Benevolence Request'. You can leave the qualifier fields blank as they are not needed.
4. Complete the attribute setup as you would any attribute. Note though that enabling 'Show in Grid' will display the attribute on the benevolence request list block and allow you to filter on it.

Account Type

This groups or categorizes Accounts by their usage. It’s provided for you specifically to help with reporting and is not used by Rock for any specific purpose.

Benevolence Request Status

Benevolence requests can have a status assigned to them, to indicate where they are in the process. Rock ships with three values (Pending, Approved, Denied) but you may wish to add others to reflect different stages in your benevolence process. For more information see the Benevolence chapter above.

Benevolence Result Type

The Benevolence Result Type indicates the outcome of a benevolence request. Some values that ship with Rock include Provided Financial Assistance, Referred to Counseling or Unable to Make Contact. You may wish to add new values for different outcomes of a benevolence request. For more details see the Benevolence chapter above.

Credit Card Type

This defined type determines which credit card types your organization will accept. Each card type also has several configuration options. These include:

• Regular Expression Pattern: This pattern helps Rock determine if a given card number matches this type of credit card. The default values should not be altered.
• Batch Name Suffix: Many times, accounting teams want online transactions to be placed in batches specific to the credit card types when they are downloaded from the payment gateways. The suffix is what helps group the cards into batches. If all the cards have the same suffix, they will all share a batch (default setting). If you'd like all the Visa transactions to be in their own batch, then you'd change the suffix to something like Visa.

Currency Code

This defined type lists codes that reflect a given country and the type of currency used by that country. For instance, the code "USD" indicates "United States Dollars". It's unlikely that you would ever need to make changes or additions to this defined type. It's primarily used by the Organization Currency Code global attribute. For more information see our Rock Admin Hero Guide.

Currency Type

Determines the method (Cash, Check, Credit Card, etc.) a person used to make a financial transaction. Currency Type is used to help describe the payment source for a transaction and is also used in determining how batches are created.

Non-Cash Asset Types

This defined type only applies to the Non-Cash Asset Currency Type. Rock ships with values for Property, Stocks and Bonds, Vehicles and Other. You can add your own values for other types of non-cash assets.

Recurring Transaction Frequency

This defined type determines which frequency types you want to offer your guests. These options must be supported by your payment gateway to work, so don't add new ones and wonder why they don't show up.

Refund Reason

This defined value is used to specify why a refund was granted. The values that ship with Rock should cover a variety of scenarios, but additional values can be added if needed.

Transaction Source

This value helps determine where the transaction took place. This is helpful in reporting. Many of the transaction entry blocks allow you to pick this value, so by all means add additional items that make sense to your organization. For instance, if you run multiple websites with their own giving pages, you may want to make a new source type for each site. This will help you determine which is most effective in generating donations.

Transaction Type

The Transaction Type helps describe the purpose of each transaction to Rock. For instance, all transactions of type 'Contribution' tell Rock that these are contributions and should be shown on Contribution Statements. You should not create new types that replace the ones that come out of the box. You can, however, rename the existing ones. For instance, you could rename 'Contributions' to 'Offerings' if you prefer.

Available Payment Gateways

Currently Rock supports the following payment gateways:

• NMI
• Payflow Pro

See our Rock Shop for additional options.

You might be wondering which one you should select? Here are some factors to consider:

• Do you already have a gateway? If you already use one of the gateways above, then it makes the most sense to keep using it.
• PCI: PCI is a credit card process standard to ensure the security of credit cards. Compliance with PCI is a very time-consuming process. The NMI gateway drastically reduces your PCI compliance requirements by ensuring that a visitor's credit card information never touches your server.
• Fees: Of course, fees are a huge consideration when looking at gateways. You'll want to consider the fees and rates of each before selecting a gateway.
• Location: Are you located outside the United States? For countries outside the continental US, please contact Carolyn Irwin directly at cirwin@gotnp.com.

While Rock has a built-in gateway with NMI and MyWell as well as internal tools for your use, we realize that every church has unique needs. We've also worked with several giving vendors (see our Sponsors page) that offer integrations with Rock and a variety of tools and information that may be customized to your situation. If you elect to use one of our Rock sponsors for your giving solution, their tools may replace the Rock financial tools, or they may be used in conjunction with them. Because each giving vendor offers different packages, you'll want to discuss your needs with all of them to determine the best fit if Rock's out-of-the-box giving tools are not what you're looking for.

Configuring a Gateway

Payment gateways can be configured under Admin Tools > System Settings > Financial Gateways. There you will notice that there are actually three options: Payflow Pro, Network Merchants (NMI), and a Test Gateway. We created the Test Gateway as a way to allow Rock to come pre-configured in a way that allows an organization to sample Rock's tools without having to configure an actual payment gateway. Below is a screenshot of the various settings for the Payflow Pro gateway.

1 Name

The name of the gateway.

2 Description

Description of the gateway. Useful if you plan to use multiple gateways of the same type.

3 Active

Set the status of the gateway.

4 Gateway Type

The type of gateway to use.

5 Batch Schedule

You can choose to have Rock create batches either daily or weekly on a specified day.

6 Batch Time Offset

By default, online payments will be grouped into batches with a start time 12:00:00 AM. However, if the payment gateway groups transactions into batches based on a different time, this offset can be specified so that Rock will use the same time when creating batches for online transactions.

7 Login Information

The various login criteria needed to work with the gateway.

8 Mode

Determines whether this gateway is set to live or test mode. Only available for Pay Flow Pro.

Transferring Gateways

As mentioned earlier, transitioning to a new payment gateway is difficult due to the way the payment gateway providers control the credit card details. Once you set up your new payment gateway, you have two things to consider.

1. You need to prevent people from setting up new giving transactions using the old gateway.
2. You want users with scheduled transactions tied to the old gateway to transfer to the new gateway.

The first item is easily accomplished by changing the block setting on the Give Now page to use the new gateway. The second item is a bit trickier.

There are some block setting options on the Manage Giving Profiles page that will assist your users with transferring their scheduled transactions to the new gateway. Consider adjusting these settings from the Scheduled Transaction List Lava block:

• Gateway Filter: Setting a particular gateway here will cause only those scheduled transactions using this gateway to show up in the output list.
• Transfer-To Gateway: When set, the Edit button becomes a Transfer button if the scheduled transaction's gateway does not match the transfer-to gateway. When users press the Transfer button, they will be taken to the Give Now page with many details from their existing transaction copied onto the form. Once the new transaction is completed, their old scheduled transaction is automatically deleted.
• Transfer Button Text: This setting lets you control the text that appears on the transfer button.

Configuring the NMI Gateway

There are a couple of unique settings for the NMI gateway. Let's look a few of them over and discuss their meaning.

1 Account Information

Once your account is complete MyWell will provide the details for the Security Key, Admin Username and Admin Password.

2 Prompt for Name On Card

This determines if the payment screens should prompt for a name on the card.

3 Prompt for Billing Address

Finally, provides the billing address for credit cards, if prompted.

Unique Scheduling Notes

NMI supports One Time, Weekly, Biweekly, and Monthly schedules. Notice there is no support for "twice a month". Givers who want a twice a month schedule can set up two separate monthly schedules. For example, one on the 1st of the month and one on the 15th of the month.

Transaction Downloads

Whenever the transaction download job runs and queries transactions from NMI, it will download all of the transactions that were added or updated during a certain time period and that are associated with a scheduled transaction. This includes transactions that may not have "settled" yet, or transactions that failed.

The transaction download job handles these transactions differently. For each transaction, it will first look for any existing transactions in Rock with the same “transaction code” and totals their amount. It considers this the “Existing Rock Amount”. Then it considers the status of the transaction that was just downloaded to calculate a “Processed Amount”. If the transaction downloaded is a failure (i.e., declined), the processed amount is 0.00. If it’s not a failure, the processed amount is the total amount of the transaction. If the “Existing Rock Amount” and the “Processed Amount” are different, a new transaction will be added to Rock with an amount equal to the difference between these two values. If this amount is negative, the transaction is created as a reversal.

Other Notes

Below are a few other notes to consider when using the NMI gateway.

• Saved accounts are supported for repeating schedules.
• Reactivating a scheduled transaction is supported.
• Updating a scheduled transaction is supported, except the credit card cannot be changed.
• Querying for the status of a scheduled transaction (i.e., active or not) is supported.

Setup

You can set up a new account at the address:

https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/payflow-payment-gateway

A couple of things to keep in mind:

• Although the Payflow Pro service is run by PayPal, this is not a traditional PayPal account. Payflow Pro is a service that PayPal purchased from Verisign many years ago.
• Be sure to sign-up for the Payflow Pro not the Payflow Link account.

At the time of writing this manual, the costs for a Payflow Pro account were:

• Setup: $99
• Monthly: $25
• Gateway Fee: $.10 per transaction
• Recurring Billing: $10 per month

Unique Scheduling Notes

While most of the schedules like weekly, monthly, etc. are pretty obvious, there are a couple of notes you should consider about Payflow Pro's scheduling.

Configuring Reference Transactions

By default, PayPal does not allow reference transactions. However, when a user selects to save their credit card information as a saved account in Rock, the next time they use that account, Rock processes it as a reference transaction. To support that functionality, you need to adjust your PayPal settings. You can find the setting to allow reference transactions under Account Administration > Manage Security > Transaction Settings.

Configuring Email Confirmations

Payflow Pro can be configured to send email confirmations when each scheduled transaction occurs. This email is set inside the PayPal Manager under "Service Settings > Recurring Billing > Customer Email".

Installing the Statement Generator Software

Installing the statement generator software is easy. It does require a Windows machine running Windows 7 or better to run. To install, follow the steps below:

1. Download the setup application under Admin Tools > Power Tools > External Applications > Rock Statement Generator.
2. Run the setup. The statement generator setup is a breeze with just three quick screens.

Using the Statement Generator Software

Once you have it set up, it's pretty simple to operate the statement generator software.

Start by launching it and logging in. Users must be a member of one of the groups below to log in with this software:

• RSR - Finance Administration
• RSR - Finance Worker
• RSR - Rock Administration

If you need to change the Rock URL, you can do so from the Statement Generator screen pictured below by clicking the Tools button in the upper-left corner and selecting Options.

To generate statements, click the Start button.

Step 1: The Who Needs a Statement screen lets you select whether you want to generate statements for All individuals with transactions and/or pledges, filtered by a dataview, or for a specific individual.

There are several options to consider when selecting All individuals with transactions and/or pledges.

• Exclude inactive individuals: Select this option if you don't want to generate statements for people with an inactive status.
• Include Businesses: This option, which is selected by default, allows you to generate statements for businesses.

If you select Single individual, you'll be prompted with a search box where you can type in a person's name. If more than one person is listed in the grid, click on the person you want to generate the statement for. Press Next to go to the next step.

Step 2: Select the template you want to use for the statement output. Rock ships with a default template, which you can customize with your own logo, wording, etc. You can also create your own. The Statement Generator templates are located in Finance > Financial Settings > Contribution Templates.

Step 3: The Statement Date Range screen is where you specify the date range of the statements you want to generate. The generator defaults to the current year-to-date.

Step 4: The Individual Save Settings screen is where you can optionally choose to save statements to the person's profile under the Documents tab. You can control things like the name of the document, and which members of the family (technically, the Giving Group) should have the document added.

Step 5: The Report Settings screen allows you to choose the location where you want to save the statements, designate a base Filename Prefix to use when saving, and determine how the statements will be sorted. You can also choose how the statements are broken up into chapters by entering the number of statements you want to include per chapter in the Max Statements in Chapter field. These settings and others can be updated by clicking the icon, described below. You can also choose to Save Settings so the configuration you choose will be set up for you the next time you generate statements.

You can access the settings described below by clicking the icon shown above. How you configure these settings determines how the PDF statements will be created.

You might want more than one report. Often it can be useful to have one for mailing, sorted by zip code, and one for internal or auditing purposes, perhaps sorted by Last Name. You can create as many reports as you need, each with its own settings and sort order.

1 Primary Sort

This is the highest level of sort order for the statements. For instance, if Postal Code is selected then the PDFs that are generated will be sorted in order of people's zip code, which is ideal for mailing statements. Sort options include:

• Postal Code
• Last Name
• Page Count

2 Secondary Sort

This is the sort order that's used after the Primary Sort. This lets you order the statements by Postal Code (Primary Sort) and then by Last Name (Secondary Sort).

3 Destination Folder

This is where the generated PDF statements will be saved. If you are creating multiple reports, then you can save each of them to a different location.

4 Filename Prefix

All of the files that are generated will have a name that starts with the value you enter here. Especially when you have multiple reports, this can help you identify which files belong to which report.

5 Split Files on Primary Sort Value

If you have this enabled, then you'll get a new PDF file every time the Primary Sort value changes. For instance, if you have a Primary Sort of Postal Code then you'll get separate PDF files for each zip code, which is helpful for mailing.

6 Max Statements in Chapter

This is the maximum number of statements that should be included within a single PDF file. The Split Files on Primary Sort Value setting respects this setting. For instance, if you split files on zip code while setting Max Statements to 100, and if you have more than 100 statements in the same zip code, you'll get more than one file.

7 Prevent Splitting

This setting will keep the Primary Sort values from being split across PDF files. When this is enabled, it could mean that more statements are in a file than the Max Statements in Chapter setting allows.

8 Minimum Contribution Amount

This is the minimum dollar amount a statement must have in order for the statement to be generated. For instance, you can choose to print statements only for those who have given $10.00 or more. This can help save on mailing costs by reducing the volume of statements generated. You might set this to a lower value for reports you'll only be using internally.

9 Include International Addresses

Determines if individuals with international addresses should have statements generated. Addresses with countries that are the same as the organization’s address (Global Attribute) or addresses with blank countries will be considered local. You might not mail statements internationally, but you may want to include these for your own internal purposes.

10 Do Not Include Incomplete Addresses

If this is enabled, then statements will only be generated if the associated address has at least an address line and a zip code. You'll want this enabled if you're generating statements to be mailed.

11 Opted Out

If an individual has opted out, then a statement will not be generated for the family if this option is enabled. Like the setting above, you'll probably want this enabled for statements that you're mailing but you might not need it if you're generating a report for internal purposes.

The statement generator will start to process the statements after you press Generate Statements. When the process is complete, the generator will display a summary with the number of statements generated and related details.

An additional file called @Summary of Results will be saved along with the generated statements. This file contains all of the run information pictured in the screen above.

Online Contribution Statements

Your website visitors can get access to their contributions online from the Giving History page. Statement links will be available for years in which they gave. The Transaction Report block settings allow you to pick which accounts to consider (by default all tax-deductible accounts are used). The output is all customizable using Lava, so feel free to change it.

The resulting contribution statement is shown below. This is produced using the Contribution Statement Generator block.

Contribution Statements on the Person Profile Page

You can view the same contribution statement above on the Person Profile page. You'll find a listing of contribution statements on the 'Contributions' tab.

Contribution Statement Templates

Rock ships with a default template that’s used by the Statement Generator to create statements. This template is also used by the web versions of the statements, like those accessed from the Person Profile page. The settings on the template drive what goes into the statement and how it looks. You can create a template of your own under Finance > Financial Settings > Contribution Templates to customize the statement to your needs. For instance, you’ll probably want to change the logo at a minimum.

1 Name and Description

Each template you create should have a clear name and a description that indicates how it will be used. When you’re using the Statement Generator, only the Name of the template will be visible.

2 Accounts

You can restrict which accounts get pulled into the statements by either selecting All Tax Deductible Account or by providing a custom selection of which Accounts to show. This ensures you’re including or excluding the data you want.

3 Currency Types for Cash Gifts

Here you’ll select which types of currency count as cash gifts. The default configuration is typically all you’ll need, but if you’ve added other currency types that should count as cash gifts you can select them here.

4 Currency Types for Non-Cash Gifts

Select the types of currency that represent non-cash gifts, like vehicles or property. By default, these are grouped together under the Non-Cash Asset currency type. Non-cash gifts appear separately from cash gifts on the contribution statement.

5 Transaction Filter Settings

These settings let you filter out refunded transactions or transactions that were backed out on the same day they were applied. In most cases you’ll want to exclude these types of transactions from statements that get sent out to people, but you may want to see them for internal purposes.

6 Transaction Types

By default, only contributions will be shown, but you can also include payments for events.

7 Accounts for Pledges

Pledges are not shown on the contribution statement by default. If you want to show pledge information on the statement, select the accounts for pledges here.

8 Pledge Filter Settings

These filter settings only apply to pledges. You can set whether or not gifts to child accounts of the selected accounts should count toward the pledge, and whether or not non-cash gifts should be included.

9 Report Template

If you’re creating your own template, then you’ll most likely want to start by copying the default template that ships with Rock before making any changes. This is an advanced setting that lets you control exactly how the statement looks and what kind of information it displays.

10 Footer Template

This is another advanced setting that lets you control the footer information of the contribution statement. By default, it includes the Salutation (e.g., “Ted & Cindy Decker”) and the page number.

11 Logo

You’ll want to replace the default logo with your own. The logo size should be 240 x 80 pixels.

12 PDF Settings

These settings let you control the margins and page size of the PDF documents that will be generated. You typically won’t need to change these.

Basic Settings Tab

The Basic Settings tab is where you’ll likely do most configuring. Some of the options on this tab relate to options in the Advanced Settings tab, though, so be sure to check out those as well. In the meantime, here are the options available on the Basic Settings tab.

Account Header Template

This Lava-enabled field allows you to dynamically label the Account Amount inputs with whatever name you want. The default setting uses the Account Public Name, or {{ Account.PublicName }}. In most cases, this is probably what you’ll want to use, but there may be times when a different label is better suited. For example, if you use the Transaction Entry block for fundraising, you may want to use a simple text label, such as Donation Amount, instead.

Scheduled Transactions

This dropdown provides the option of setting up scheduled transactions. When using the Transaction Entry block for regular giving, you’ll probably want to leave this set to “Allow”. This lets your regular givers set up automated giving. There may be instances when scheduled transactions don’t make sense, though, such as when used for a limited-time fundraiser. In such cases, set this field to “Don’t Allow”.

Connection Status and Record Status

Every transaction must be associated with a Person, even if the giver is anonymous (i.e., not logged in). When an anonymous person gives, Rock automatically creates a Person record behind the scenes. The Connection Status and Record Status options set here determine the connection status and record status of that new record. The default Connection Status is “Prospect”. The default Record Status is “Pending”.

Payment Comment Template

This Lava-enabled field allows you to create a comment to include with the transaction when sent to the payment gateway. It will also be stored as the Summary in Rock’s copy of the transaction. Like any Lava-enabled field, you have a lot of options when it comes to what you can include in the comment. It may be as simple as “Online Contribution” or “Fundraiser”, but you can create a more elaborate comment using Lava merge fields. Keep in mind, though, some payment gateways may limit the amount of text that can be included in the comment.

Enable Comment Entry

This option allows the giver to enter additional text to include in the payment comment, which is then sent to the payment gateway and stored in Rock as the summary of the transaction.

Enable Business Giving

When enabled, this option allows the person to give as a business. If the person is logged in and has a business associated with their profile, the business name will be listed. They can either select that business or create a new business record and associate it with their profile.

Enable Anonymous Giving

This option allows the giver to give “anonymously”. Because every transaction must be associated with a person, it won’t truly be an anonymous transaction. Finance administrators will be able to see the person’s name and address, and the transaction will be included with the person’s giving statement. But this option does allow the option of hiding the person’s name and address in certain situations, such as fundraising, when a giver may wish to remain anonymous to the recipient and the public.

Advanced Settings Tab

Now let’s take a look at the options available in the Advanced Settings tab.

Allow Account Options In URL

This option allows you to bypass the Accounts settings (in the Basic Settings tab) and present accounts according to parameters listed in a URL. You may find this option handy when the guest arrives at a giving page from a different page on your website, or when they’re sent to a giving page by a third party. Valid URL parameters are:

• Comma-delimited lists of AccountIds (e.g., 1, 2, 3, etc.)
• Comma-delimited lists of AccountGlCodes (e.g., 40100, 40110, etc.)
• Default amount to give for each account (e.g., 35.00, 50.00, etc.)
• Whether or not the giving amount is editable (i.e., true or false)

Here's how the parameters appear when included in URLs:

http://…?AccountIds=1^50.00^false,2^25.50^false,3^35.00^true

http://...?AccountGlCodes=40100^50.00^false,40110^42.25^true

Only Public Accounts In URL

This option works hand-in-hand with the Allow Accounts in URL option. This field lets you decide if only public accounts should be displayed via URL. If the Allow Accounts in URL is active, this option will ensure that only public accounts are presented to the guest, even if non-public account ids are specified in the URL. This acts as a safety measure to help minimize the chance of a private account being displayed in the URL.

Invalid Account Message

If the Allow Accounts in URL option is enabled, you can use this field to customize an error alert message (in text or HTML) to be displayed if an invalid AccountId or GlAccount is passed in the URL. This message may be useful if you want the giver to know the reason some of the accounts specified in the URL aren’t shown.

Account Campus Context

This option allows you a lot of flexibility when it comes to displaying accounts according to campuses. Depending on the option you select, you can limit which accounts are presented based on the person’s campus.

• If “Only Accounts with Current Campus Context” is selected, only the accounts associated with that campus are displayed.
• If “Accounts with No Campus and Current Campus Context” is selected, and “Allow Accounts in URL” is not configured, the Accounts setting (on the Basic Settings tab) determines which accounts will be displayed, then limits them by campus.
• If “No Account Campus Context Filter Applied” is selected, accounts will not be filtered by campus.

Transaction Type

In most cases, the transaction type you’ll use is “Contribution”. There may be times, though, when you’ll want to use the Transaction Entry block for another purpose. You can create additional transaction types for each purpose in the Transaction Type Defined Type Detail screen (Admin Tools > General Settings > Defined Types > Transaction Type). Those additional transaction types are then listed in this field and available for use in the Transaction Entry block.

Entity Id Param

This field allows you to set the Page parameter that will be used to set the EntityId value for the Transaction Detail Record. This parameter works with the Transaction Entity Type. See Transaction Entity Type below to learn more.

Transaction Entity Type

In Rock, you can associate transactions with entities, including entities from plug-ins. This allows you to track transactions by entity type. The Transaction Entity Type field lets you associate an entity based on the Transaction Entity type and Entity Id Param settings. In order for this to work, both must be configured, and the EntityIdParam must be included in the URL as a parameter. For example, when using the Transaction Entity Type for a specific fundraising participant, you would do the following:

• Set the Transaction Entity Type to “Group Member”.
• Set the EntityIdParam to “GroupMemberId”.
• Include both the Transaction Entity Type and EntityIdParam in the URL as a parameter.

For example:

http://...?GroupMemberId=10

In this case, when the transaction is saved, the FinancialTransaction.EntityId is set to “10” and the FinancialTransaction.EntityType is set to “Group Member”. As a result, the transactions associated with the entity type can be tracked on a fundraising progress page.

Transaction Header

This Lava-enabled field allows you to display content prior to the Amount entry field. This will be the first thing the guest sees when they visit the transaction page. While you can leave this field blank, you could also use this space to present the guest with specific information. In fact, using Lava here, you can do some really cool things. For example, in a fundraising page, you can use Lava in this field to show how much money has been raised so far, and how much is left to raise. (Remember, like any Lava block, a Lava developer can use the ‘Lava’ | Debug command to view all of the available merge fields.)

Additional Transaction Entry Block Functionality

There are a few other tips and tricks you might be interested in related to transactions and the Transaction Entry block.

AccountLimit

You can set a limit on the amount people can contribute by using the AccountLimit parameter in the URL. For example:

http://...?AccountLimit=150.00

In this case, guests will not be able to contribute more than $150.00. This may come in handy for fundraisers, where you set a maximum contribution amount.

Transfer

You can transfer a scheduled transaction to a different transaction as its basis using the “Transfer” and “ScheduleTransactionId” parameters in your URL. This may be useful if you want to give people the option to specify a different amount or payment method than they regularly use for an existing scheduled transaction.

Attribute

You can specify attributes and their values in the URL in order to apply them to the Transaction Record. This requires you first set up the FinancialTransactionEntity attributes. When using the attributes and values in the URL, use the “Attribute_” format. For example, if a transaction has the attributes “FavoriteColor” and “LikesMovies”, the URL would be formatted:

http://...?Attribute_FavoriteColor=Red&LikesMovies=True

Set Schedule Frequency in URL

You can set two different scheduled giving options in the URL using the Frequency parameter or the Frequency Start Date.

Below is a URL example with the following format: Frequency=DefinedValueId^UserEditable (where DefinedValueId is the value of the frequency of the recurring transaction and UserEditable is whether or not the user can change the value).

http://...&Frequency=133^false

Here is a URL example with StartDate={Date} format.

http://...&StartDate=2022-03-21