Lesson 7.2 – Website Donation Integration

Welcome to Lesson 7.2! In today’s digital landscape, accepting online donations is critical. FastFund Raising streamlines this process through a seamless integration with its strategic partner, EFT Corporation.

When donors make a contribution on your website using a credit card or bank draft, EFT Corporation processes the payment and automatically imports the transaction directly into your FastFund database. This eliminates manual double data entry, reduces errors, and ensures your web revenue is perfectly synced with your accounting and donor histories.

In this lesson, we will cover how to enable the EFT integration, map your online donation forms to your FastFund database, and process your daily transaction imports.

1. Enabling the EFT Integration

Before FastFund can receive data from your website, you must establish your account with EFT Corporation and enable the connection within your system.

Steps to Enable the Integration:

1. Click the Gear Icon (Company Administration) in the top right corner of the FastFund window.
2. Under the ADMINISTRATION section on the left, click Integrations (APIs).
3. Select EFT Corporation from the list of services.
4. Enter your unique EFT Client ID (provided by EFT).
5. Check the Daily Import Enabled box to instruct FastFund to automatically create transaction batches from your daily web receipts.
6. Click SAVE.

2. Mapping Your Web Forms (Appeals and Gifts)

When a donor gives online, FastFund needs to know exactly how to categorize that money. To ensure transactions import successfully, your EFT donation forms must contain the specific internal ID numbers from your FastFund database.

You must provide EFT Corporation with three pieces of information for every designation on your website:

• Appeal ID: The unique system number for the event or drive.
• Gift ID: The unique system number for the specific gift designation.
• Transaction Type: Classify the receipt as either a Cash Gift (for tax-deductible charitable donations) or a Cash Receipt (for non-deductible payments like merchandise sales or event tickets).

The Appeal/Gift Relationship Report: To easily gather all of your IDs, navigate to your EFT Corporation API setup screen and click the Appeal/Gift Relationship Report link. You can also download the EFT Website Donation Setup template, which provides a formatted spreadsheet to organize your Appeal IDs, Gift IDs, and Transaction Types to send to your web developer.

3. Processing Daily Imports (Batches)

Once your web forms are mapped and live, EFT Corporation will automatically upload all processed transactions to FastFund on a daily basis. These do not post to your general ledger immediately; instead, they are held in a staging area for your review.

Steps to Review and Post Web Donations:

1. Navigate to Transactions on the Main Menu, and under the ACTIVITIES section, click Batch Processing.
2. The Batches window will display all unposted imports, listing the Transaction Type, Import Date, and a Description (e.g., “CashGift import from EFT Corporation”).
3. Click on the Transaction Type to open the batch.
4. Review for Errors: The Batch Details screen lists every imported transaction. If any transaction contains invalid data (such as a donor name that the system could not confidently match), the line will appear in red with a hint explaining the error.
5. Correct Errors: Click on the red transaction line to open the details. If the donor is missing, you can select the correct name or use the quick-add feature to build their profile on the fly, then click SAVE.
6. Post the Batch: Once all errors are resolved, select the transactions by checking their boxes (or using Select All), click the Selected drop-down menu, and choose Post Selected.

4. Automatic New Donor Creation

One of the biggest time-saving features of the EFT integration is how it handles brand new donors.

If an individual makes a donation on your website and they do not currently exist in your FastFund database, the daily import will automatically create a brand new constituent record for them using the name, address, phone number, and email address they provided during checkout.

To help you track these web-acquired donors, FastFund automatically creates a Note on their new profile. The Note Title will be “Added by EFT Corporation Import”. Tip: You can use the Custom Queries/Reports Builder to filter for this exact Note Title, allowing you to instantly generate a list of all brand new donors acquired through your website.