How to reconcile CAF Donate Income
This help guide article covers how to reconcile CAF Donate Income. For details on how to reconcile CAF Payroll Giving (CAF GAYE), please switch to this separate help guide article.
CAF Payroll Giving (CAF GAYE) and CAF Donate are kept separate by CAF, with separate monthly payouts and transaction statements that contain different information, and which are not formatted the same.
ExpensePlus is able to handle both. However, each needs to be set up separately as its own payment processor account in ExpensePlus (you can't upload a CAF Donate statement to your CAF Payroll Giving account or vice versa).
In this article:
The two options for reconciling CAF Donate income
Option 1: Splitting payouts against donors manually using the 'mixed income' option
Option 2: Splitting payouts against donors automatically by uploading payout transactions
The two options for reconciling CAF Donate income
Within ExpensePlus there are 2 choices for how to reconcile CAF Donate income (you will need to pick the one that will work best for you):
- Option 1: Splitting payouts against donors manually using the 'mixed income' option - This is typically the best and quickest option where you have only a few people who give via CAF Donate, since it involves manually recording the different donations that make up the payout received each time.
- Option 2: Splitting payouts against donors automatically by uploading payout transactions - This option is typically best where you have more than 5 people giving via CAF Donate, as it saves having to manually record donations.
You should not reconcile payouts from CAF Donate as either 'Named Donation' or 'Income Received / Other income'. CAF Donate charges admin fees, so recording the net amount that arrives in your bank account simply as income is incorrect from an accounting perspective. Instead, choose one of the above options - both of which enable you to ensure the gross amount of income collected via CAF Donate is recorded as income, and the CAF Donate transaction fees are correctly recorded as expenditure.
Option 1: Splitting payouts against donors manually using the 'mixed income' option
You will need to set up CAF Donate as a donation method - click here to find out how to do this.
Reconciling CAF Donate payouts on your main bank account statement
When reconciling your uploaded bank transactions, select the payout from CAF Donate on the left-hand table of your match transactions screen, click the + button, then, within the pop-up that appears, select the transaction type 'Mixed Income'.
If the bank statement description contains the letters 'GYE' then the payout from CAF relates to CAF Payroll Giving NOT to CAF Donate!
Within the next screen, enter the details for the transactions in the CAF Donate payout:
- Named Donations - for any named donations;
- Less Expenditure - for the total of the fees deducted.
When reconciling CAF Donate donations:
(1) You should always ensure the 'donation method' is set to 'CAF Donate'.
(2) You should not record any donations as 'GASDS Donations'.
Where donors give anonymously, you may wish to create a donor called 'Anonymous CAF Donate'.
Option 2: Splitting payouts against donors automatically by uploading payout transactions
Reconciling CAF Donate payouts on your main bank account statement
When you reconcile your uploaded bank transactions, select the payout from CAF Donate on the left-hand table of your match transactions screen, click the + button, then, in the pop-up that appears, select the transaction type as 'Payout from Payment Processor', then select your CAF Donate account.
You will first need to set up CAF Donate as a payment processor account - click here to find out how to do this.
The bank statement description should NOT contain the letters 'GYE'. If it does, then the payout from CAF relates to CAF Payroll Giving NOT to CAF Donate!
This will temporarily make the balance of your CAF Donate account go negative (it should have been zero previously).
Downloading CAF Donate transactions (from CAF Donate)
Click here to sign in to your CAF Account.
From the Dashboard, click 'Payment Reports'
Then select 'Direct Giving' -> 'A Single Report' -> your date range -> 'Search Now'.
At Step 2, you should avoid selecting and uploading the 'Separate report for each payment we make' option, as it won't work. Instead, you should select the 'a single report' option.
At Step 3, as with bank transactions you download, it's important you don't select a date range that overlaps with a previously downloaded report - otherwise you will end up with duplicates!
Once you have downloaded the CSV file, don't edit or resave the file, or change the file format from .CSV to .XLS/.XLSX, as it may stop the file uploading properly to ExpensePlus.
Importing CAF Donate transactions
Within the bank reconciliation screen, select your CAF Donate account and click 'Upload transactions'.
The upload process works similarly to a regular bank account, except that each line on the statement will show as two transactions within ExpensePlus - one relating to the income and the other to the transaction fee deducted.
Once payout transactions are uploaded, your CAF Donate account balance should return to zero. That's because the net total of the transactions, in the payout report you've just uploaded into this account, should exactly match the amount paid out, since the payout went from this account into your bank account.
If your latest account balance for your CAF Donate account within ExpensePlus is not zero, we highly recommend you fix this issue BEFORE you reconcile transactions - please see this separate helpguide article.
(If your balance is incorrect and you have both CAF Donate and a CAF Payroll Giving, it's likely that when you reconciled a bank transaction as a 'payout from payment processor', you selected the wrong CAF account. If this is the case, unmatch the bank transaction and rematch it correctly.
Reconciling CAF Donate transactions
The bank matching process for CAF Donate transactions works similarly to a regular bank account - with the ability to remember and quick-match transactions.
This means that once you have reconciled CAF Donate transactions for the first month, you won't need to manually enter transactions for future months - instead, you can simply click the 'quick match income' button at the top of the match transactions screen.
Where transactions haven't been previously reconciled and auto-remembered:
Named Donations
(1) select the transaction in the left-hand table of the match transactions screen;
(2) click the '+' button to the right of the transaction;
(3) select the 'Named Donation' option in the pop-up and enter the details.
When reconciling CAF Donate donations:
(1) You should always ensure the 'donation method' is set to 'CAF Donate'.
(2) You should not record any donations as 'GASDS Donations'.
Where donors give anonymously, you may wish to create a donor called 'Anonymous CAF Donate'.
Card/Payment Process Fee
To reconcile CAF Donate fees:
(1) select the transaction in the left-hand table of the match transactions screen;
(2) click the '+' button to the right of the transaction;
(3) select the 'Card/Payment Processor Fee' option in the pop-up and enter the details.
Why is my CAF Donate statement not uploading?
- Donor Name (each transaction must contain a donor name)
- Campaign Code (each transaction must contain a charge type, even if this is blank)
- GiftAidAmount (each transaction must contain a charge type, even if this is zero)
- DonationAmount (each transaction must contain a charge type, even if this is zero)
- Charge (each transaction must contain a transaction fee, even if this is zero)
- ObjectDateTime (each transaction must contain a transaction date).
Note that:
- Additional columns can be present but won't be imported.
- The file format should be .CSV
CAF Payroll Giving (CAF GAYE) and CAF Donate are kept separate by CAF, with separate monthly payouts and transaction statements that contain different information, and which are not formatted the same.
ExpensePlus is able to handle both. However, each needs to be set up separately as its own payment processor account in ExpensePlus (you can't upload a CAF Donate statement to your CAF Payroll Giving account or vice versa).