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.
NOTE: 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).
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 given 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 with CAF Donate as it saves having to manually record donations.
IMPORTANT: You should not reconcile payouts from CAF Donate as either 'Named Donation' or 'Income Received' as admin fees are charged - 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 support donors manually using the 'mixed income' option
Note: you will need to add CAF Donate as a donation method - click here to find out how to do this.
Reconciling CAF Donate payouts on your bank 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 and then within the popup that appears, select the transaction type as 'Mixed Income'.
TOP TIP: 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 'Enter Mixed Income' 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
IMPORTANT: 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'
Note: where donors give anonymously, you may wish to create a donor called 'Anonymous CAF Donate'
Option 2: Splitting payouts against support donors automatically by uploading payout transactions
Reconciling CAF Donate payouts appearing 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 that appears next to the transaction, and in the popup that then appears, select the transaction type as 'Payout from Payment Processor', and then select your CAF Donate account.
Note: you will need to set up CAF Donate as a payment processor account before you can do this - click here to find out how to do this.
TOP TIP: If the bank statement description contains the letters 'GYE' then the payout from CAF relates to CAF Payroll Giving NOT to CAF Donate!
Note: This will temporarily make your account balance of your CAF Donate go negative (it should have been zero previously).
Downloading CAF Donate transactions
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'
IMPORTANT: Just like 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!).
If you try and select the 'Separate report for each payment we make' and upload this, it won't work (so please select the 'a single report' option).
WARNING: Once downloaded, don't edit or resave the file, or change the file format from .CSV to .XLS/.XLSX, as it may stop the file uploading to ExpensePlus properly.
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 (because the net total of the transactions in the payout report you've just uploaded IN to this account should exactly match the amount paid OUT as the payout went from this account into your bank account).
IMPORTANT NOTE: If your latest account balance within ExpensePlus for your CAF Donate account is not zero we highly recommend you fix this issue BEFORE you reconcile transactions - please see this separate helpguide article.
(If you have both a CAF Donate and a CAF Payroll Giving, chances are that you have wrongly reconciled a bank transaction as a 'payout from payment processor' but 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 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 - but 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 popup and enter the details.
IMPORTANT: 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'
Note: 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 popup 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)
(additional columns can be present but won't be imported).
- The file format should be .CSV
NOTE: 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).