The Vanco eGiving (EFT) import utility connects to Vanco through a web service and downloads the electronic offerings given within a specified date range.
This import process protects against duplicate postings by analyzing each downloaded offering to see if it has already been posted to Contributions or is sitting in a pending offering batch waiting to be posted.
The import process also flags offerings that have problems preventing them from being posted to Contributions. Problems can include invalid fund numbers, unassigned Vanco giver IDs, failed or rejected credit cards, and “refunds.” (Refunds must be processed separately at this time, as manual entries into Contributions.)
The utility creates a separate batch for each day on which an offering was given. Each batch is then printed and posted just like any other offering batch.
Important: Before you can use this import, you must set up an EFT (eGiving) account with Vanco. Vanco will provide your client ID, user ID, and password.
- In the Contributions module, go to Giving>Batches
- Click the "Import" option at the bottom of the grid, choose "Vanco" and click "Select".
- Enter the date range for which you want to retrieve offerings from Vanco. The maximum range is 180 days.
- Enter the password provided by Vanco. By default, the password must be entered each time you open the Vanco Import utility, but if you would like to save the password so it appears automatically each time you open the utility, check the "Save Password" box. If you check the "Show" option, this will make it so your password is not hidden when you enter it so you can check for typos.
- Enter the Vanco Client ID and Vanco User ID. Note that the Vanco User ID refers to the WS or Web Services User ID. This is a special ID that must be requested from Vanco and is different than the UserID you use to log in to your Vanco account. These fields are saved and will automatically be filled in each time you open the Vanco Import utility.
- Click “Download”. The import utility logs into Vanco using your ID and password, scans the offerings and separates them into various categories. If you have selected “Automatically link envelope numbers during download”, the import tries to link any invalid envelope offerings from Vanco to a contributor in Shepherd’s Staff. It does this by comparing the Vanco giver to the envelope number. If there isn't a match, the Vanco import utility will check against the Vanco ID number and any other ID numbers that a person has on their contributor record.
- Click “Create Batch” to create a batch for each date for the offerings that have not yet been posted or put into a batch.
Offerings downloaded from Vanco are broken up into 4 categories. They are:
- Unposted and not in batch - This category means that these offerings are not yet in a batch. Click the "Create Batch" button to put these offerings into offering batches that you can then post.
- In a batch waiting to be posted - This category means that these offerings have been downloaded and put into an offering batch, but haven't been posted yet.
- Cannot be posted - This category means that these offerings have an issue that is preventing them from being posted, such as an Vanco giver ID number that doesn't match any ID in Shepherd's Staff or an invalid fund number. The status column will reveal what the issue is with each offering so you can work on troubleshooting that issue.
- Posted - This category contains offerings that have already been downloaded and posted within the date range you chose.
You can view more details about an offering record after downloading your offerings by clicking on it and clicking the "View" option. You can export all the offerings in the view that you have selected out to excel by clicking the "Export" option.
