Accepting Payments on Forms

Summary: Forms are a great way to handle event registrations, ticket sales, or any other scenario where you need to collect money. This guide walks you through setting up the payment field, choosing your payment processor, and correctly managing transaction fees and fund designations.

Before You Begin

• Online Giving Requirement: Online giving needs to be enabled and fully verified first. If you have not enabled online giving, you will receive an error message when trying to process payments on a form. Additionally, if using ChMS People Giving, you must have "Transfers" enabled.

• Fund Settings (Tax Deductibility): If your form is collecting payments in exchange for goods or services (like a t-shirt or a camp registration), these are considered Non-Tax Deductible contributions. You will want to ensure you have created a Non-Tax Deductible Fund to assign to your form so that ChMS People reports them accurately. Make sure the tax-deductible checkbox is unchecked when creating this fund. (Note: ChMS People does not include non-tax deductible payments on Contribution Statements by default, though you can customize your statements later to include them if desired).

Step-by-Step Instructions

Adding and Configuring the Payment Field

1. Navigate to Forms.

2. Click Create New Form.

3. Select Registration as the type of form you want to create (this template includes a payment field by default).

4. Click the Payment field to modify the amount. You have three options for how the amount functions:

   • A numeric amount (e.g., $10). Note: Ensure only the total payment amount is entered here. Avoid adding any extraneous text/information in this specific box to prevent form malfunctions.

   • Blank, which will prompt the submitter to type in their own amount.

   • 0 (Zero), which will completely bypass the payment section. This is helpful if you are including multiple payment options on the form and one of them is "Pay Later".

5. To modify which fund the payment should go into or which processor is used, click Go to Settings in the bottom left, then click Show More Options.

1. Make your changes and click Update Form.

How to Confirm Proper Functionality

Before publishing, preview your form. If a payment option is set up correctly, the submission button will display "Submit & Pay [amount]". If the button merely reads "Submit", this indicates a potential issue with your payment setup.

Supported Payment Processors

Depending on your location, different payment processors are available for your forms.

Troubleshooting & FAQs

• How do I handle transaction fees? Can the donor cover them?

  ChMS People Forms do not currently offer a built-in option for the donor to automatically cover the processing fees (2.9% + $0.30). To ensure you receive the full intended amount, we recommend calculating the fee and adding it directly into your total ticket/registration price. You can use the Payment Title or a Section Description on the form to let the customer know their payment already includes the transaction fee.

• How do I view the payments that have come through my form?

  Payments collected through forms are grouped by each specific form. To review these payments, navigate to Giving > Batches.

• Do people receive an automatic email receipt when they pay?

  Unlike standard Web or Text giving, people paying through a form will not automatically receive a confirmation of payment. You must edit your Form Settings to send a confirmation email, and be sure to include the [ENTRY_DETAILS] mail merge tag so they have a record of how much they paid.

• Why does the form go blank after someone pays with PayPal?

  When a form is submitted using PayPal, the submitter is taken to a secure PayPal page to complete the transaction. Once finished, PayPal routes them back to a blank version of your form. This is expected behavior, but it can cause confusion. We highly recommend adding a "Section Description" right above your payment field explaining this redirect process to your users beforehand.