Donation statuses and sources
What each status and source label means, and which combinations are normal vs. surprising.
Every donation in Together has both a status (where in its lifecycle) and a source (where it came from). Reading these correctly is the difference between trusting your reconciliation and chasing ghosts.
Statuses
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| PENDING | The donor's intent is recorded but payment hasn't completed. Common for BECS / PayTo (1-3 business days to clear). Card pending should be transient. |
| CONFIRMED | Payment settled. Money is in your Stripe balance and will payout to your bank in the next Stripe cycle. The default and most common state. |
| FAILED | Terminal failure. Card declined, BECS dishonoured, PayTo cancelled, or Stripe rejected. The donation row stays for audit; no money moved. |
| REFUNDED | Money returned to the donor in full. The donation still counts as historical activity but is excluded from current totals and compliance returns. |
A donation moves PENDING -> CONFIRMED in normal flow. PENDING -> FAILED if the bank rejects. CONFIRMED -> REFUNDED is an explicit admin action (or a Stripe-side dispute resolution).
The donations list filter groups statuses for the common case:
- Settled = CONFIRMED + REFUNDED (both represent money that landed, even if it later went back).
- Pending = PENDING.
- Failed = FAILED.
Sources
| Source | Meaning |
|---|---|
| STRIPE | A donor paid through a donation form (/donate/<slug>). The most common source for orgs running active campaigns. |
| CHECKOUT_LINK | A donor paid through a checkout link (/c/<code>). Used for major-gift conversations and one-shot asks. |
| NATIONBUILDER | Synced from a NationBuilder donation. Together pulls these via the NB OAuth integration; the original transaction was processed elsewhere (NB's own Stripe or otherwise). |
| RAISELY | Synced from a Raisely campaign. The original transaction was processed through Raisely's Stripe. |
| GATEWAY | Donations recorded via a generic gateway path (custom direct ingest). Less common; if you don't know what this is, your org probably doesn't use it. |
| MANUAL | A donation logged by hand from inside Together. Use for cash, cheques, and bank transfers that didn't flow through any electronic channel. |
| OTHER | A catch-all for legacy imports that don't fit the buckets above. New donations should never have this source; if you see it, the record is from a historical import. |
Source + status combinations to watch
| Source | Status | Normal? | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| STRIPE | PENDING | yes | BECS or PayTo in the bank network. Should clear within 3 business days. |
| STRIPE | FAILED | yes | Card decline or BECS dishonour. Worth scanning for spikes (Stripe config issue). |
| MANUAL | PENDING | no | Manual donations don't have a payment processor to wait for. If you see this, the record is mis-typed; edit to CONFIRMED. |
| NATIONBUILDER | PENDING | no | NB only sends settled donations to Together. PENDING from NB means the sync caught a partial state; should resolve on next sync. |
| CHECKOUT_LINK | CONFIRMED | yes | BECS / PayTo links take time to clear. The Date is when the donor confirmed, not when money settled. |
Receipts
Receipts are sent automatically when a donation reaches CONFIRMED. The trigger is the status change, not the source:
- A STRIPE donation that goes PENDING -> CONFIRMED triggers a receipt.
- A NATIONBUILDER donation synced as already-CONFIRMED also triggers a receipt (one-time, when first ingested).
- A MANUAL donation triggers a receipt when you save it as CONFIRMED.
What to do next
- Read the donations list for the live picture: Read the donations list.
- Set up tracking codes to classify FCA-bound donations from each source: Set up tracking codes.