Tag: contributions

More Flexibility with Donation Acknowledgements

Managing donation acknowledgements just got more flexible—especially when a donor wants someone else notified about their gift.

When a contribution is made to a fund (for example, a gift to the Cantors Music Fund in honor of a Bat Mitzvah), donors often request that a parent or honoree be informed. Until now, ShalomCloud treated the “donor” message and the “notifee” message as the same description.

This update introduces a simple but powerful improvement: you can now customize the description that appears in the acknowledgement sent to the notifee recipient—without changing what the contributor sees.

The scenario: donor + notify recipient

Here’s a common real-world use case:

  • A donor makes a contribution in honor of a Bat Mitzvah.
  • The donor asks that a parent (or another person) be notified.
  • The system already stores the notifee’s email address with the transaction.

That foundation remains the same. What’s new is the ability to tailor the notification wording for the person being informed.

Bulk acknowledgements still work the same

If you’re processing multiple donations at once, you can continue to send acknowledgements in bulk:

  1. Go to Queries → Financial Transactions.
  2. Filter to the set of contributions you want to process (for example, the ones entered today).
  3. Select the appropriate transactions.
  4. Click Bulk Acknowledge Payments.

This flow supports handling half a dozen—or a dozen—contributions quickly and consistently.

What’s new: an override description for the notifee recipient

You’ll now see an additional description field that’s automatically populated with the description entered when the transaction was created.

  • Default behavior: If you do nothing, the notifee recipient description matches the contributor description.
  • New option: You can override the notify description to better fit the audience receiving the notification.

For example, instead of sending the honoree’s parent a generic description like “Bat mitzvah of Heather Boyle,” you can personalize it into something warmer and clearer—such as “Bat mitzvah of your daughter Heather.”

That small change can make a big difference in how thoughtful and personal the notification feels.

Templates and subject lines: unchanged (and still flexible)

Everything else about the acknowledgement process remains familiar:

  • Choose an email template for the contributor.
  • Choose an email template for the notify recipient.
  • Enter a subject line if desired (if left blank, it defaults to “Donation”).
  • Click the Send Acknowledgements button to deliver messages for the transactions you selected.

Why this matters

This enhancement helps organizations:

  • Deliver more personal, context-appropriate donor notifications
  • Reduce awkward or overly generic wording in honoree/parent emails
  • Keep bulk processing fast while improving message quality

If your donors frequently give in honor of life events—and request that family members be informed—this new notifee description override is a practical upgrade that adds polish without adding extra steps.

See the full video:

Explore the New Annual Installment Billing Feature

Discover the New Annual Installment Billing Feature

With this announcement, we introduce the capability of annual installment billing. While many are familiar with the monthly and quarterly billing cycles, the new annual option offers a strategic advantage for long-term financial planning, especially for significant contributions such as a building fund, or a capital campaign.

What is Installment Billing?

In general, it’s more straightforward to bill once for an entire amount, and then to draw down the amount owed as payments are made. However, some congregations prefer to charge the membership incrementally. Depending on an organization’s policies, installment billing can occur monthly, quarterly, or now, annually.

The New Annual Billing Capability

Previously, many organizations relied on monthly or quarterly billing cycles. The introduction of annual billing offers a fresh perspective for managing long-term financial commitments. For example, if your organization is running a building fund campaign, you can now set a total amount to be billed. By selecting the annual installment billing option, the total amount is divided into yearly installments, facilitating easier tracking and management.

How It Works

Let’s consider an example involving the Goldsmith family, a part of your organization’s financial contributors. Suppose they commit to a total contribution of $5,000 over five years for a campaign like the mikvah campaign. With the annual billing feature, you input the total amount, select the installment billing option, and set the first and last bill date—say, from September 2025 to September 2029. The system automatically divides the total into yearly amounts, aligning each installment with the appropriate fiscal year.

Benefits of Annual Installment Billing

  • Long-Term Planning: Organizations can plan more effectively for future projects with clear, predictable cash flows.
  • Simplified Management: With annual billing, there’s less frequent need to manage and adjust billing cycles, saving time and reducing errors.
  • Enhanced Reporting: Financial reports can now reflect long-term commitments more accurately, assisting in strategic decision-making.

By leveraging the new annual installment billing feature, organizations can enhance their financial management capabilities, ensuring they remain agile and efficient in today’s ever-evolving financial landscape. Embrace this new capability to optimize your organization’s financial strategies and achieve your long-term goals with confidence.

To see this feature in action, please view this video.

Customize Subject Line for Donation Acknowledgements

Background: this article on bulk acknowledgement of contributions.

And this one: bulk acknowledgement of commitments.

The announcement highlights an update regarding the subject lines of email acknowledgements. You now have the flexibility to enter a custom, fit-for-purpose subject line!

It’s not a required field, by the way. If you leave it blank, the emails will have the subject line as “Donation”.

Here’s a brief (3 minutes, 14 seconds) video showing the new subject line field in action.

Track Contributions–Automatically

Now available–accepting and tracking Internet contributions:

ShalomCloud Handling of Contributions from Norman Snyder on Vimeo.

  • Automatically stores information about the contributor–no need to download spreadsheets or copy and paste from emails.
  • Automatically enters financial activity into the system–no need to manually key the entries after the fact.
  • Offers the the option of including card processing fees.