A payout of odd pounds and pence, and a CSV of 212 rows
The platform payout lands in the bank as one figure. To work out what is in it, someone logs into the platform dashboard, downloads the donation report and tries to make the rows add up to the payout. They rarely do on the first try, because some gifts were refunded, fees were deducted differently for different gift types, and a couple of donations from the end of last month were included this time.
Once it balances, the real work begins: typing each donor into the CRM, checking whether they already exist, adding the fundraiser page they gave through, and noting whether they ticked the Gift Aid box. Then there is Enthuse for the challenge events, a text giving provider, and the Facebook fundraiser money. Each one has its own export with its own column names.
Why platform money is so awkward
Giving platforms are built to make giving easy for donors and fundraisers, not to make reconciliation easy for your finance team.
- Every platform names its columns differently and changes the export format from time to time.
- Payouts are net of fees, and fee rules vary by gift type and platform.
- Donations to a supporter's fundraising page need linking to both the donor and the fundraiser.
- Some donors choose not to share their details with the charity, so rows arrive anonymised.
- Refunds and chargebacks appear later, against a gift you already recorded.
- Payout periods do not line up with calendar months.
The deeper problem is that the import is treated as a data entry task rather than as a reconciliation. Without both, either the CRM or the accounts will be wrong.
What the retyping costs
Typing platform rows by hand is slow, and it is where duplicates and misspelt names come from. Fundraisers doing a marathon for you do not get linked to the gifts they raised, so their thank-you is generic. Gift Aid flags get missed or entered incorrectly.
On the finance side, unreconciled payouts sit in suspense and fees are lumped into one line, which makes it hard to see what each platform actually costs you. When your accountant asks for the breakdown at year end, it has to be rebuilt from the dashboards.
How we build the platform import
- We list every platform you receive money through and get the exports or API access for each one.
- An import step reads each platform's format and maps it to one standard structure: donor, amount, fee, date, page or campaign, Gift Aid indication and payout reference.
- Each payout is reconciled: the gifts inside it, less fees and refunds, must equal the amount on the bank statement before anything is posted.
- Donors are matched to existing supporters by email, name and postcode, with uncertain matches held for a person.
- Gifts made through a fundraiser's page are linked to that fundraiser as well as the donor, so you can thank both properly.
- Confirmed gifts are written to your CRM through its API or import, and a summary journal with gross, fees and net goes to Xero or QuickBooks.
- If a platform changes its export, the import stops and says so, rather than loading columns into the wrong fields.
| Check | What it catches |
|---|---|
| Payout total equals gifts less fees and refunds | Missing rows, late gifts from another period |
| Donor matched before creating a record | Duplicate supporters |
| Fundraiser page linked | Challenge fundraisers left unthanked |
| Column headings as expected | A silent change in the platform export |
When a payout does not balance, it is flagged with the difference and the likely reason, so the person investigating is not starting from nothing.
After the platforms are connected
Payouts are balanced shortly after they land. The database officer reviews a small queue of uncertain donor matches rather than typing hundreds of rows. Fundraisers can be sent a thank-you that says how much their page raised, and finance can see the true fee cost by platform when deciding which ones to promote.
Nothing about how donors give changes. The work that changes is all behind the scenes.
Recognise any of these?
- Platform exports are retyped into the CRM row by row.
- Payouts sit unreconciled until someone has time.
- Challenge fundraisers are not linked to the gifts they raised.
- You cannot say what each platform costs in fees.
- Each platform is handled differently by a different person.