Auto Processing

Auto processing in eTapestry makes it easy to collect donations from your most loyal constituents. It takes care of data entry and charges the donor automatically. But, what if a donor's credit card is about to expire? What if a transaction fails? What if a change needs to be made? Good news—there are a few things that you can do to maintain those dedicated donors.

Get Started

You must have a transaction processor linked to your database in order to set up auto processing transactions. If you haven’t already, check out Blackbaud Merchant Services (BBMS).

It is possible to set up both Pledges and Recurring Gift Schedules with auto processing schedules. When a credit card or EFT is scheduled process, it is charged in the early morning hours of that day. The time is based on your organization’s time zone which can be found on the My Organization account under Preferences. After all of the transactions are processed, your organization will receive the Auto Process Report via email. Users tasked with managing new transactions should be signed up to receive this email.

You can find a full list of auto processing rules in our help documentation.

Catch Expired Credit Cards

The Almost Expired Auto Process Credit/Debit Cards standard report can help you stay on top of expired cards. The report shows constituents with credit or debit cards set to automatically process that are about to expire in the current month and next month, based on when you run the report. You can schedule it to run off-hours and return results monthly directly to your email inbox or 0 Drop Box.

From the Reports tab, select eTapestry Standard Reports.
Under Account Reports, select Almost Expired Auto Process Credit/Debit Cards.
Under Query, select Base in the Category drop down menu, then set your Query to All Constituents - A.
On the My Scheduled Items screen, under Schedule, select the tab for the frequency and the day you wish the report to run. For example, you can select the Monthly tab and choose the 1st of the month.
Once you select the frequency, fill in the Valid From dates starting tomorrow and continuing up until one year. For example, you can enter 10/1/2017 to 10/1/2018 to view the report monthly for the year of 2017.
If you wish to get this report via email, enter the email address(es) of the recipients.
Select Update to finish scheduling the report.

Retry Failed Auto Processing Transactions

Now that you’ve signed up for the Auto Process Report, you’ll be notified about successes as well as failures. If a transaction fails, it will appear in the journal with an offsetting transaction to signify that it did not go through. But, did you know there’s a way to retry failed auto processing transactions? Depending on why the transaction failed, you may need to update the credit/debit card or account information in eTapestry before retrying. Try searching Knowledgebase first for advice as each failure message may require a different solution.

After you’ve made any necessary corrections, you can access the Auto Process Failures standard report to retry those transactions.

From the Reports tab, select eTapestry Standard Reports.
Under Journal Entry Reports, select Auto Process Failures.
Choose a query for the time frame you want to search. For example, Constituent Journal Entry Date: This Month – JE.
At the bottom of the page, choose to display results on screen and select Submit.
On the report, click Retry next to each transaction you want to attempt again.

Update Credit Card/EFT Information on Existing Schedules

If a credit card or EFT expires or is no longer valid, you can update the existing schedule so that future transactions will process using the new information. The steps are different depending on the type of transaction.

Recurring Gift Schedule

Pledge Schedule

Stop Auto Processing on Existing Schedules

If a donor wishes to cancel or stop their auto processing transactions, you can edit their schedule depending on the type of transaction.

Recurring Gift Schedule

Pledge Schedule