How a Bank Transfer Gift Works

A donor can pay a donation form or checkout link by bank transfer from their own banking app, quoting a reference Together gives them, with no card fee and no direct-debit limit. It is in limited release: Together turns it on for your organisation on request.

Large gifts are where card fees bite and where direct debit runs out: a BECS or PayTo gift caps at $10,000. A bank transfer has neither problem. The donor pushes the money themselves, from the account they already use, and Together matches it to the gift by its reference.

The trade is time. A card gift is done in seconds; a bank transfer is done when the donor gets round to sending it. This page explains what the donor sees at each step, what your team sees while you wait, and what happens if the money never arrives.

Turning it on

Bank transfer is in limited release. Email support@alltogether.giving to ask for it. Once Together has turned it on for your organisation, add Bank transfer to your payment methods - for every form and link at once in Settings -> Engage -> Payment methods, or on one form or link from its own editor. See Set default payment methods.

It is offered on one-off gifts only. A regular gift is never paid by bank transfer.

What the donor sees

On your donation page or checkout link, the donor picks Bank transfer where they would pick card. When they submit, they see the details to pay into:

• the amount
• a BSB and account number, with the account name and bank
• a reference, which they must include on the transfer

The same details arrive by email straight away, subject Complete your bank transfer to finish your donation. The email says plainly that it is not a receipt: the donation is not complete until the funds arrive, and your organisation will email the receipt once they do. It also says the receiving account is Together's, which sends the gift on to your organisation, so the name on the donor's banking app is not a surprise.

The donor then makes the transfer in their banking app, for the amount shown, quoting the reference.

While you wait

The gift is recorded the moment the donor submits, as Pending. A pending gift counts toward nothing: not your totals, not a donor's cap, not a disclosure threshold. It sits on the donor's page under In-progress donations, with the reference, the BSB and account number and the date to transfer by, so anyone on your team can read them out to a donor who rings up.

An EDITOR or ADMIN can also click Resend instructions email there. It can be sent up to five times in 24 hours, counting the original email.

When the money arrives

When the transfer lands, the gift moves to Confirmed and the donor gets their receipt, exactly as a card gift does.

The donation is dated by when the money arrived, not when the donor submitted. That is the date your compliance figures use: a gift submitted on the last day of a disclosure period and paid after it counts in the next period, and any disclosure deadline runs from the day it arrived.

If the money never arrives

A bank transfer that has not arrived 14 days after the donor submitted it lapses. Together cancels it, and the gift moves from Pending to Failed. Nothing was ever counted, so nothing changes in your totals or compliance figures. A transfer sent after that does not reopen the gift: if a donor tells you they paid late, email support@alltogether.giving. If a donor sent only part of the amount, the transfer still lapses and the money they sent is not returned automatically; email support@alltogether.giving.

One open bank transfer per donor

A second bank transfer is refused until the first arrives or lapses; the donor is asked to choose another method. Every other payment method stays available to them.

This is so that when a payment arrives, there is never any doubt which gift it paid for.

On a checkout link

A checkout link is for one gift. While the donor's bank transfer on it is waiting, you cannot change the link's amount, cancel it or archive it - in Together or over the API. The donor is paying that amount against that reference. You can still edit the description and the payment methods.

Once the money arrives, the link is complete like any paid link. If the transfer lapses, the link opens again and the donor can pay it with any method.

Refunding a bank transfer

The refund button does not appear on a bank-transfer gift. The donation detail says Contact Together support to refund a bank transfer. - email support@alltogether.giving and Together's team refunds it for you. Everything else about a refund is the same as for a card: see Refund a donation.

What to do next

• Choose who is offered it: Set default payment methods.
• See every email a donor can receive: Emails your donors receive.
• Send one donor a link to pay: Create a checkout link.