A donation is a gift, not a purchase, and WBAMS treats it as one. Donations have their own workspace, their own lifecycle and their own paperwork. They never acquire a due date, a payment reminder or a late fee, because none of those things mean anything to a gift.

Donations can be switched off entirely.

It is a module, not a fixture: an installation that declined it at setup has none of its tables, and one that switches it off under Management levels keeps every gift it has recorded and only loses the way in.

The donation lifecycle

A gift moves through a short, deliberate set of states. Nothing here mirrors the invoice states used elsewhere in billing.

Pending
Recorded, awaiting payment. The donor has an invoice reference for payment but sees it as a donation.
Received
Payment settled. The donor receives a Donation Receipt rather than a paid invoice.
Processing
A payment workflow has started and the outcome is not final.
Declined
The gift was refused or the payment failed and will not be retried.
Refunded
Money was returned. Reconcile the gateway transaction alongside the donation record.
Canceled
A recurring commitment was ended. Existing received occurrences are unaffected.

Giving opportunities and groups

A product group is either a catalog of things you sell or a set of giving opportunities. The group carries a group_type and a donation_frequency, which decides whether the opportunity is offered one-time, monthly, or both. Create donation groups from the Products/Services page using Donation Groups, then add opportunities to them the way you would add products to a catalog.

One opportunity, many donors.

An opportunity is not stock-controlled and has no quantity. Several donors give to the same opportunity at different amounts and frequencies.

The donations workspace

The ledger lists every gift with donor, opportunity, frequency, amount, status, invoice reference and next donation date. Filter by client, opportunity, frequency, status, or creation date. The counters above the ledger report matching donations, active monthly commitments, paid occurrences and gifts awaiting payment for the current filter, not for all time.

Acting on a donation

  1. Create a gift against an existing client, or enter the details of a donor who is not registered yet.
  2. Accept or decline a pending gift. Accepting settles it and issues the receipt.
  3. Edit the amount, opportunity, frequency or donor note while the gift is still pending.
  4. Refund a received gift. Reconcile the gateway transaction in the same pass.
  5. Resume a canceled monthly commitment to restart its schedule.
  6. Invoice or email the donor directly from the record when a receipt needs re-sending.

Recurring giving

Monthly gifts schedule their own next occurrence. They are not carried by the service renewal pipeline, so a change to billing cycles or renewal settings elsewhere in the product does not alter a giving commitment. The scheduler creates the next occurrence when it runs; if the automation is not running, recurring gifts stop advancing.

Recurring giving depends on the scheduler.

Confirm the daily automation is running before you rely on monthly commitments. See Automation and scheduler.

Donor choices on the giving page

Each giving opportunity decides, in the product builder's Donation section, which of these the donor is offered. The giving page shows only what is switched on.

Dedications
With Allow dedications, the donor can give in honor of or in memory of someone. The name is required once a dedication is chosen, and it is printed on the donation line, so it appears on the donation page, the receipt PDF and the emails.
Anonymous gifts
With Allow anonymous gifts, the donor can ask not to be named. The gift still counts towards the goal and the donor still gets a receipt; wherever the cause lists its supporters, the gift shows as Anonymous.
Covering fees
With Cover processing fees and a percentage, the donor is offered to add that share, and the page shows the total before they continue. The fee is a separate line on the donation invoice, is charged again on each monthly gift, and never counts towards the campaign goal.
Recent supporters
With List recent supporters, the donation page names the latest donors whose gifts have been received, by first name and initial, marking monthly givers.
Thank-you message
Shown on the donation page to a signed-in donor whose gift to the cause has been received, and used as the closing line of the Donation Receipt email through the {$donation_thank_you} merge field. {$donation_dedication} is available there too.

The giving page also holds the donor to the Minimum gift, and closes once the Campaign ends date has passed. A gift an administrator records is not held to either: a late cheque is still a gift. Administrators can set the dedication and anonymous choice when creating a gift and change them while editing it; a paid gift keeps the wording it was paid with.

What the donor sees

The donor sees “Donation #N” and a “Donation Receipt” PDF, with donation-specific email templates rather than order and invoice wording. Nothing in the donor-facing flow refers to an order, a service, or an overdue balance.

Permissions

Donations are governed by their own administrator permission. Grant it to the roles that already administer billing. Without it the workspace is hidden and the client account’s Donations tab does not appear.