When you accept online donations, processing fees are an unavoidable fact of life. Every time someone gives with a card or initiates an ACH bank transfer, there will be a fee.
The good news is that we're on your side fighting to minimize those fees! Planning Center makes $0 from processing fees, no matter how many online donations you receive.
Today, we are introducing a few new features which we hope will contribute to a clearer picture of how processing fees impact your donations.
Equation: We added a new equation at the top of the donation table used throughout Giving. This equation shows you how much money was given, how much was refunded, how many donations failed, how much was paid in processing fees, and how much makes it to the bank.*
Fee Column: The new fee column in the donation table will show you the exact amount of fees garnered from each donation. We will strike out the fee if it was refunded by Stripe.**
CSV Addition: All CSV exports now contain more information about processing fees and the net amount given.
We hope these updates give you a better picture of what is going on. As always, if you have any questions, click the “?” in the top right hand corner of your screen to contact us!
❤️ Team Giving
* The new equation isn't present on the donation tables for Stripe Payout Reports. Since that report has always shown "net" totals and a breakdown of Stripe fees, it functions differently than the other donation tables.
** For Stripe accounts created before September 2017, Stripe will likely refund processing fees when donations are refunded. For newer Stripe accounts, Stripe no longer refunds processing fees.