Recurring Offering Templates

Recurrent Offerings in Shepherd's Staff give users the opportunity to automate giving that happens on a set schedule for congregants in their church. Most commonly, this occurs through the use of electronic offering services, where users can set up automatic transfers on a set schedule from their bank account to the church. In Shepherd's Staff, users can create recurrent offering templates that mirror the schedule of these transfers to make entry of this data quick and easy. 

The Year End is a good time to review these recurring offering templates to ensure that these templates are still accurate, and make changes accordingly when you copy the template for the next year.

Note: If you use Vanco for electronic offerings, the fastest option would be to use the Vanco Import feature of the contributions module.

» Adding a Recurrent Offering Template

1. In the Contributions module, under Giving, click "Recurrent offerings" on the left-hand side of the grid. 
2. From the Recurrent Offering Template Grid, click Add. 
3. Start by selecting the contributor/envelope from the drop-down menu.
4. Enter the “Total amount”.
5. Next choose the frequency for this offering. After choosing the frequency, you'll need to choose additional options, depending on the frequency, such as the day of the week the offering should take place on for Weekly and Bi-weekly offerings, the 1st and 2nd days you want the offering to occur on for Semi-monthly, or the day of the month you want the offering to take place on for the Monthly option.
6. Set the dates for this offering. If it’s indefinite, you probably want to set it for the year and then use the copy option to extend it every year’s end. This is so you can check in with the giver to make sure the template is going to be the same for the next year
7. Now choose the funds that are being given to and how much each fund is getting per the frequency setting.
8. When finished, click OK.
9. Any future templates are color-coded with light yellow and past templates are light blue.

»  Copying Recurrent Offering Templates

At year end, if a recurrent offering template is going to continue into the next year, it is important to copy the template to create a new template for the next year. 

1. In the Contributions module, under Giving, click "Recurrent offerings" on the left-hand side of the grid. 
2. Find the offering template you want to copy, and click on it once so it's highlighted
3. Click the "Copy" button along the bottom of the grid
4. A window will appear with all the details of that recurrent offering template. Make any adjustments needed, such as beginning and ending dates.
5. Click "Save" when finished.