Pledges & Installments

Record offline pledges, manage their installment schedules, and process payments as they arrive.

Understanding Pledges

A pledge is a commitment to give. It's a promise of money that has not yet been collected. Every pledge is an expected revenue record: just the commitment, with no money attached.

A pledge can have many payments, partial fulfillment, missed payments, or be paid in a single lump. The commitment record stays the same regardless.

How a pledge is collected

A scheduled installment plan is the typical collection method. You set the period and frequency on the pledge record, and the system generates the invoices. As each invoice is paid, the system creates a revenue record (money received) that points back to the parent expected revenue.

Other collection patterns work too. A pledge can be paid in a single lump sum, paid early, paid late, or never paid. The installment schedule is the typical collection mechanism, not a defining feature of the pledge itself.

Automatic card charging requires Stripe. Pledges and installments are not available with PayPal-only payment processing. You can still record a pledge and mark payments as they arrive offline, but the system cannot charge a card on the schedule without a connected Stripe account. See Payment Processors.

Example

A pledge for $1,200 with twelve monthly installments produces twelve $100 invoices, one per month. The pledge record carries the $1,200 commitment; the twelve invoices carry the collection schedule.

Pledge kinds

Every pledge has a Kind: Pledge, Grant, or Invoice. Use Grant for a grant award paid in tranches and Invoice for an amount you've billed someone, such as a sponsorship. All three are scheduled, paid, voided, and reported exactly like a pledge; the kind only changes how the record is labelled. You can set it when you create the pledge, change it on the pledge's Overview, show it as a column on the pledge list, and filter the list by it.

Pledge vs Recurring Donation

	Pledge	Recurring Donation
Total amount	Defined up front (e.g. $1,200)	Open-ended; no end date by default
End condition	All installments paid (or cancelled)	Donor cancels, or card fails permanently
Underlying record	Expected revenue + installment schedule	Recurring profile generating new donations
Use case	"I'll give $1,200 over the next year"	"Charge me $50 every month indefinitely"

Pledge vs Donation

A donation is money received right now — its finance records are created and completed in the same moment. A pledge is money committed but not yet received — its Expected Revenue record stays open while the installments are collected. When installments are paid against the pledge, those payments create Revenue records linked back to the original Expected Revenue.

Creating Pledges

Add offline pledges via the Create button on the Pledges page:

• Pledge Details - Enter the pledgor's information, total pledge amount, installment schedule, and payment method
• Contact Linking - Use the contact selector to link the pledge to an existing contact, or search by name/email to auto-suggest matches
• Auto-Creation - If no contact is linked, a new contact record is automatically created from the pledgor details (name, email, address) provided on the form

For a detailed guide to every field, see Creating Pledges.

Accessing Pledge Data

From the Manage sidebar:

• Pledges - View all pledge profiles
• Installment Invoices - View scheduled/unpaid installments
• Installment Payments - View completed installment payments

Pledge Statuses

Status	Description
Active	Pledge is in progress. A fully paid pledge also stays Active — its expected revenue record shows Completed
Past Due	A scheduled charge failed and the schedule is paused. For an offline pledge, an invoice is overdue or a bank (ACH) payment from an e-mailed invoice failed. Once its overdue invoices are recorded as paid, it returns to Active on its own. If a bank payment on it failed, re-enable it yourself.
Voided	Pledge was cancelled before completion (use the Void Pledge action)

The Failed Payment tab isn't a status: it lists pledges whose last charge attempt returned an error.

Viewing Pledge Details

Click any pledge to view:

• Pledgor Information - Name, email, contact details
• Pledge Summary - Total amount, amount paid, balance remaining
• Installment Schedule - All planned payments with dates and statuses
• Payment History - Completed installment payments

Managing Pledges

Add Installment Invoice

Add an unscheduled installment invoice (offline pledges that aren't voided):

1. Open the pledge and go to the Invoices tab
2. Click Add Installment Invoice
3. Enter the amount and due date
4. Save the invoice

Add Installment Payment

Record a payment on the pledge:

1. Open the pledge and go to the Payments tab
2. Click Add Installment Payment
3. In Applies To, choose the invoice this payment settles — choosing one marks it paid. Leave it blank for a payment that isn't settling a scheduled invoice.
4. Complete the payment form:

Contact — pre-filled from the pledge profile. You can change the linked contact or organization for this specific payment.

Payer Details — pre-filled from the pledge profile. Includes display name, first/last name, email, address, and anonymous settings (with hide type: name, amount, or both). These attach to the installment payment record, not the contact record.

Payment Information — enter the payment Amount (required) and Payment Date (required, defaults to current date/time).

Revenue Settings — pre-filled from the pledge's expected revenue record. Includes payment method, payment reference, revenue status, payment channel, and payment notes. Revenue splits are calculated proportionally from the expected revenue splits based on the payment amount. You can also add revenue credits, revenue solicitors, and revenue tags.

Custom Fields — if installment-level custom fields are configured, they appear in a separate section.

Send a Portal Link

Email the pledgor a link to the member portal, where they can manage their pledge:

1. Open the pledge
2. Click Actions > Send portal link

Send an Invoice

Email the pledgor an invoice for one installment invoice, with a link to pay it online by card, or by bank account when the pledge is in US dollars. This works on offline pledges that aren't voided, and needs a paid plan — it isn't part of the Free plan or the Pro trial:

1. Open the pledge and go to the Invoices tab
2. On an unpaid or partially paid invoice, open the row's actions menu and click Send Invoice
3. Confirm. The email goes to the pledge's email address and shows the amount still owed on that invoice

Resend Invoice e-mails a new link; the link in the earlier e-mail stops working. The link doesn't need a login. When the pledgor pays, the invoice is marked paid, the payment shows on the Payments tab, the pledgor gets a receipt, and the pledge's Activity shows both the invoice email and the payment. If the pledge is open on your screen, the invoice row updates on its own.

Send Invoice is greyed out when the pledge has no email address, or when the campaign has no payment account connected. Hover over it to see which. On a plan without invoicing it's greyed out with an upgrade note. A link you sent before your plan changed still works.

While a pledgor is paying an invoice online, editing that invoice's amount or sending it again fails with an error; wait a moment for the payment to finish and try again.

The same actions menu, Send Invoice included, is also on each row of Manage › Installment Invoices and on an organization's or contact's invoices list.

The pay link always shows and charges the invoice's current balance, so if you edit the amount or record a partial payment after sending it, the link asks for what's still owed. Once the invoice is paid in full or written off, or the pledge is voided, the link has nothing to pay and asks the pledgor to contact you. If the balance changes while the pledgor has the page open, the page refuses the payment and tells them the invoice changed, so nobody pays an amount that's out of date.

Stripe won't take a payment below its minimum (50 cents in US dollars). If an invoice's remaining balance is smaller than that, the pay page tells the pledgor the amount is too small to pay online and asks them to contact you.

While the payment goes through, the pay page asks the pledgor not to close the window. If the page loses its connection before it can confirm the payment, it doesn't tell them to simply try again: the card may already have been charged, so it asks them to check their e-mail for a receipt first. Closing the window early is safe: a payment that went through is still recorded on the invoice.

A pledge with an online payment on it can't be deleted. Void it instead.

Installment Invoices

Invoice Statuses

Status	Description
Unpaid	Payment not yet received
Partial	Some, but not all, of the invoice has been paid
Paid	Payment has been recorded against this invoice
Written Off	No longer expected to be collected

An invoice that's still Unpaid or Partial past its due date is considered overdue and contributes to moving the parent pledge into Past Due. Overdue isn't a separate stored status — it's derived from the invoice's due date. For an offline pledge, once no invoice is overdue, the pledge returns to Active on its own. If a bank (ACH) payment on an offline pledge failed, it stays Past Due until you re-enable it.

Editing Invoices

1. Select the invoice
2. Click Edit
3. Modify amount or due date
4. Save changes

The amount can't go below what's already been paid on the invoice. Setting it to exactly what's been paid marks the invoice Paid.

Installment Payments

Recording Offline Payments

For check, cash, or other offline payments:

1. Open the pledge and go to the Payments tab
2. Click Add Installment Payment
3. In Applies To, choose the unpaid invoice
4. Enter:
   • Payment amount
   • Payment date
   • Payment method
5. Save

Refunding Payments

1. Select the installment payment
2. Click Actions > Refund
3. Enter refund amount
4. Confirm

Finance Side

A pledge creates an Expected Revenue record (the commitment). As installments are paid, each installment creates a Revenue record linked back to the parent Expected Revenue.

Both the Expected Revenue (pledge) and the Revenue records (installment payments) carry the same finance fields: splits, credits, solicitors, and tags. The splits and credits on the Expected Revenue serve as the expected allocation; when an installment is collected, its Revenue record's splits are calculated proportionally from those of the parent.

Related Articles

• Donations
• Recurring Profiles
• Revenue Basics — concept overview of the finance side
• Expected Revenue
• Exporting Data