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 - see Reconcile a payout to track it once it lands. 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 via Add a donation. Use for offline monetary donations (cash, cheque, bank transfer) and for in-kind donations. See Add a donation. |
| 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. |
Donation type
Independent of source and status, every donation is either a monetary donation or an in-kind donation.
| Donation type | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Monetary | Cash, card, or bank transfer. The donation amount is the money received. The default for every donation through a form, checkout link, or CRM sync. |
| In-kind | Donated goods or services, a discount beyond normal terms, or an excessive payment. The donation amount is the fair value of what was received. |
In-kind donations carry a category (Donated goods, Donated services, Discount beyond normal terms, Excessive payment, Other) and a description. They count toward disclosure thresholds and donor caps identically to monetary donations — see In-kind donations and compliance. In the donations list they carry an In-kind badge, and the summary cards show an in-kind sub-total so cash and in-kind value are never silently conflated.
In-kind donations reach Together two ways: recorded by hand through Add a donation, or synced from NationBuilder where an in-kind payment type is classified automatically.
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
Together sends a donor receipt for the donations it processes itself — when a Stripe payment through one of your donate forms, checkout links, or split donations reaches CONFIRMED. The donor receives one email per donation at that point.
For BECS Direct Debit donations through Together's forms, donors also receive a Direct Debit Request confirmation at submit time — before the debit clears — showing their BSB, the masked account number, and the mandate terms. Together sends this email so the donor sees a single branded touchpoint per donation rather than separate notifications from the payment processor.
Receipts for donations synced from NationBuilder or Raisely are sent by the source-of-record system, not by Together. Imported legacy rows under the older STRIPE source aren't auto-receipted either.
A staff member with EDITOR or above can resend a receipt — or send the first one for a row that never got one — from the donation detail dialog. See Sending and resending receipts. Each send is logged against the donation.
What to do next
- Read the donations list for the live picture: Read the donations list.
- Set up revenue codes to classify FCA-bound donations from each source: Set up revenue codes.