In-Kind Pickups and Partner Locations

Use pickups when your volunteers collect donated goods from partner stores, restaurants, mosques or drop-off sites on a regular run. Each pickup records the items, the weight and value, the donor’s signature and the receipt, and it logs the volunteer’s hours and mileage for you.

When you’d use this

• You run a food pantry and collect from the same partner stores every week.
• A volunteer needs to record what they picked up and get the donor a receipt.
• A large pickup needs an administrator to approve the receipt before it goes out.
• A partner asks for one document that lists everything they gave you last year.

Pickups are recorded on the web wizard or on the Muin Go phone app. For the phone steps, including Photo AI and barcode entry, see Record an in-kind donation on your phone. For one-off gifts, valuation and acknowledgment letters, see In-Kind Donations.

Set up pickups

Open Nonprofit → In-Kind, then open In-Kind Administration (the hub’s catalog and reports links take you there). If you do not see it, pickup intake is not turned on for your organization.

The Overview tab shows a five-step checklist until you finish it:

1. Seed the Food Pantry Starter Pack. On the Items tab, this adds 8 categories and about 150 common items so the wizard can prefill rows from day one. Use Bulk import to add your own items from a CSV.
2. Add your first partner location. See the next section.
3. Invite your first volunteer driver. On the Volunteers tab. Volunteers sign in with a one-time code by email, so there is no password to set up.
4. Schedule your first pickup. See Schedule a pickup.
5. Run your first report. On the Reports tab, pick a date range and status and press Run report to download an export of pickup sessions.

Partner locations and NFC tags

A partner location is a place your volunteers collect from. Each one has an address, a contact, a geofence radius and an optional NFC tag.

To add a location:

1. Open the Locations tab and press Add location.
2. Enter the Location name, Address, City, State, ZIP, Contact email and Contact phone.
3. Set the Geofence radius (m). This is how close the volunteer’s phone must be for the pickup to count as on site. The default is 100 meters.
4. Add any Special instructions for drivers, such as which door to use.
5. Press Save.

To put an NFC tag on a location:

1. On the location’s row, press Generate NFC tag. Muin creates a tag and copies its link to your clipboard.
2. Write that link to a physical NFC sticker with any NFC writer app on your phone.
3. Stick it where a volunteer can tap it, such as the loading dock. NFC does not read through metal, so use a plastic panel or the door frame on a metal door.
4. Tap the sticker with your own phone to check that the pickup screen opens with the location filled in.

When a volunteer taps the sticker, Muin Go starts the pickup with that location already chosen.

Rotating a tag. If a sticker is lost or damaged, press Generate NFC tag again and confirm Rotate tag. Every sticker programmed with the old tag stops working at once, so replace them all.

Use Copy donor portal link to send a partner the link to their own portal, where they see their pickups and receipts.

Record a pickup on the web

Open Nonprofit → In-Kind and choose an action, or go straight to the wizard. The wizard has three steps.

1. Pickup details. Choose the Partner location and the Pickup date. The volunteer and data-entry person default to you. If the list is empty, an administrator must add a location first.
2. Enter items. Add a row per item with a name, quantity and unit. Pick from the catalog or type a new item. Container units such as cases need a per-unit weight. The running total in pounds updates as you add rows.
3. Review & submit. Add the donor email if the donor wants a receipt PDF, collect the signature, and press Submit pickup.

Muin Go adds two faster ways to fill rows: Photo AI fills rows from one photo, and Barcode adds a packaged item in one tap. Rows that Photo AI is not sure about are marked for review and must be confirmed before you can submit. If Photo AI keeps getting an item wrong, correct the row and save it as a template so the next scan picks the right values.

To receive a walk-in donor instead of a pickup, choose Receive a walk-in donor on the In-Kind hub. Look the donor up by email first: if they have given before, the drop-off attaches to their existing record.

Donor signatures

The signature step has three modes. Pick the one that matches who is in front of you.

Mode	When to use it	What is recorded
Drawn (the default)	The donor is there and signs on the canvas.	The signature.
Attested	A manager or employee signs for the donor. Have them write their name and role on the canvas.	The signature, marked as signed on the donor’s behalf.
Leave at door	Nobody is there to sign. Choose Donor not present, leave at door.	A leave-at-door pickup. The donor’s receipt notes that no signature was captured by prior arrangement.

Never sign the canvas yourself with the donor’s name. If the donor is not there, use leave at door.

Your organization’s default mode is under Settings → Signature & mileage on the administration page.

What happens after you submit

• The pickup appears on the History tab within seconds, with its session code, weight, value and status.
• If you entered a donor email and the pickup is below your review threshold, the receipt PDF is sent right away.
• If the pickup is at or above the threshold, it waits in the receipt approval queue.
• The volunteer’s hours for the session are logged as pending volunteer hours.
• The mileage from the start of the route is logged as a volunteer mileage expense.
• If you were offline in Muin Go, the pickup is saved on the phone and syncs when you are back online.

Approve high-value receipts

A pickup valued at or above your review threshold does not send its receipt until an administrator approves it. The default threshold is $500, which matches the IRS Form 8283 line. Change it under Settings → Valuation rules on the administration page.

1. Open the Overview tab. The Receipt approval queue lists each waiting pickup with its session code, value, weight and date. The Pending approval tile shows how many are waiting.
2. Open the session from History if you want to check the items, photos, signature and audit trail first.
3. Press Approve to queue the receipt for delivery, or Void to reject the pickup.

Voiding asks for a reason, which is recorded in the audit trail. A voided pickup cannot be restored: its weight and value leave your totals, the receipt is withdrawn, and the donor and the driver are notified. Use void for spoiled goods, a shipment counted twice or the wrong donor, not to edit a pickup.

Above a second threshold (default $5,000), the IRS expects a qualified appraisal. Muin flags those items as needing an appraisal so you can attach one before the donor files Form 8283.

Unusual pickups (anomalies)

Muin compares each pickup’s total weight with that partner location’s past pickups. If it is far above normal, the pickup’s audit trail shows Anomaly flagged. A location needs at least 5 earlier pickups before it is checked.

An anomaly is a signal to look, not an error. When you see one, ask:

1. Was this a real special event, such as a holiday drive?
2. Do the photos match the number of rows?
3. Was a unit entered wrong, such as cases typed as cans?
4. Was a category picked wrong, giving the wrong value per pound?

How sensitive the check is comes from Settings → Anomaly + geofence. The default of 3 standard deviations flags only very unusual pickups. A higher number flags fewer.

Schedule a pickup

To book a one-off pickup:

1. On the In-Kind hub, choose Schedule a corporate pickup.
2. Pick the Location, then the Pickup date and the Start hour and End hour the donor can hand goods over.
3. Assign a volunteer and confirm.

Partners can also book a pickup themselves. In their portal, the Donation Partner tab has Schedule new pickup, where they choose a location, the earliest and latest pickup time, and an optional note. Their Scheduled pickups list shows every pickup that is booked or in progress, and Recurring schedule lists any standing pickups set up for them.

Donor year-end summaries

Partners usually need one document in January that lists everything they gave the year before. In their portal, the Donation Partner tab has a Year-end summaries section with one Download PDF per year. The PDF is built from your live pickup records when they press the button, so it is always current.

If a partner says a pickup is missing from their summary:

1. Check Scheduled pickups in their portal. A pickup that has not been completed is not on the summary yet.
2. Check whether the pickup is waiting in your receipt approval queue.
3. Open the pickup’s audit trail on the History tab to see every status change.

When it goes wrong

• “Pick a partner location to continue.” Choose a location in step 1. If the list is empty, add one on the Locations tab.
• “No categories yet. Seed the Food Pantry Starter Pack first.” Seed the starter pack on the Items tab.
• “Each row needs a name and a quantity.” Fill in or remove the incomplete row.
• “One or more container-unit rows still need a per-unit weight.” Enter how much one case, box or bag weighs.
• “Tag does not match any partner location.” The sticker belongs to a rotated or unknown tag. Pick the location by hand and replace the sticker.
• The donor did not get a receipt. Check that a donor email was entered and that the pickup is not waiting in the approval queue.

Next step

Set the receipt template, valuation rules and signature mode on the Settings tab, then record what later happened to donated property in Charitable Dispositions.