One-Time Donations

When someone makes a one-time donation, the transaction is sent to Authorize.Net and the donation is recorded in the Platform with the Authorize.Net transaction code. You need to batch that donation with other donations of the same type according to the Authorize.Net settlement reports for that day.

Recurring Donations

When someone makes a recurring donation:

• Authorize.Net authorizes the card to make sure it's valid and has available funds (they don't charge it until the first donation in the recurring series).
• Authorize.Net creates an Automatic Recurring Billing (ARB) subscription and assigns an ARB subscription code to the series.
• Authorize.Net tells MinistryPlatform that the authorization was successful and gives the ARB subscription code. As such, the message is driven by Authorize.Net.
• Based on the gift's end date, MinistryPlatform calculates the dates of each donation in the series and creates all Donation records for the series in the database. Each Donation record has its own ARB subscription code on its record so you can easily reconcile it at the appropriate time. If you decide at some point to discontinue Authorize.Net, your recurring donations that are set up as ARB entries will stop.