Falaah Falaah AI

Collecting a Payment

Send someone a link to pay you once, set up a recurring charge on a saved card, or split a total into installments, and see what a payer sees on a verification link.

Collect is where you ask someone for money without building a page: a link you send, a recurring charge on a card they have already saved, or a fixed total split into installments.

When you’d use this

  • You need to collect one payment and want a link you can text or email.
  • A donor wants to give monthly and already has a card on file.
  • A family owes a known total and wants to pay it in six parts.
  • You want to know what a payer sees when they open a verification link from you.

Where it lives

Sidebar → Smart Payments → Collect. You need permission to view recurring and scheduled payments, or permission to view the payment capture terminal.

Three tabs: Payment Links (the default), Recurring and Payment Plans.

This screen does not take a payment in person. Card readers and tap-to-pay live under Smart Payments → Terminals; see Card Readers and Hardware.

A payment link is a one-time, shareable URL. The payer needs no account.

  1. Press Create Payment Link.
  2. Enter the Amount. The minimum is $0.50.
  3. Choose the Payment type. This is required and decides how the payment is treated, including whether it is a charitable gift: donation, general payment, invoice payment, membership dues, event ticket, or pledge payment.
  4. For a donation, pick the fund and campaign if you want the gift attributed.
  5. Add a Description the payer will see.
  6. Set Expires In (days), between 1 and 365.
  7. Press Create Link.

Press Copy on the row to copy the URL. Revoke kills a link that should no longer work.

The table shows Description, Amount, Status, Payer, Source, Created and Expires, filterable by Active, Expired and Revoked.

A link for a large amount asks you to re-confirm your identity before it is created.

Choose the payment type carefully. It is what decides whether the payer gets a charitable tax receipt or an ordinary payment receipt. A donation collected under “general payment” will not produce a tax receipt.

Recurring

A recurring schedule charges a card or bank account the payer has already saved, on a cadence.

  1. Press Create Schedule.
  2. Pick the person.
  3. Pick the saved payment method. If they have none, Muin says so: “This person has no saved payment methods. Add one from their profile first.”
  4. Choose the frequency: Weekly, Every 2 weeks, Monthly, Quarterly, or Yearly.
  5. Set an optional end date.
  6. Submit.

Row actions are Pause, Resume and Cancel. Cancelling warns that it stops all future charges and cannot be undone. Use Pause when the donor wants a break rather than an ending.

For donor-facing recurring giving, where the donor manages their own plan, see Recurring Donations.

Payment Plans

A payment plan splits a known total into a known number of installments.

  1. Press Create Plan.
  2. Pick the person.
  3. Enter a plan name of at least 3 characters.
  4. Enter the total amount.
  5. Set the installment count, between 2 and 60.
  6. Choose the frequency, and link an invoice if the plan pays one.
  7. Submit.

Plan actions are Modify, Cancel payment plan and Record payment. Record payment registers money you already received, such as a check: “Records money already received… This does not charge anyone.”

The payer verification page

Some flows send a payer a verification link. Opening it confirms their identity and needs no sign-in; the link itself is the credential, and it is good for 30 days.

What the payer sees:

  • While it loads: “Verifying your identity…”
  • On success: Identity Verified, with a confirmation naming the donation amount and the email on file.
  • On failure: Verification Failed: “This verification link is invalid or has expired. Please contact the organization for assistance.”

Every failure shows the same message, whether the link expired, was already used, or never existed. That is deliberate, so a link cannot be probed.

A donor’s formal tax receipt lives in their donor portal, where they can download it at any time. See Donor Tax Receipts and Recurring Gifts.

What it affects

  • Every link, recurring charge and installment produces a payment transaction, tagged with where it came from, visible under Smart Payments → Transactions.
  • Those transactions flow into reconciliation, reports and payouts like any other payment.
  • The payment type on a link decides the receipt the payer gets and, for a donation, how it reports in giving.
  • Revoking a link stops it working immediately. Payments already made through it stand.

When it goes wrong

“Failed to create payment link.” Nothing was created. The usual causes are an amount below $0.50 or no payment type selected.

You are asked to re-confirm your identity. Links above a high-value threshold require it. Complete the step and the link is created.

“Failed to revoke payment link.” The link is still live. Retry.

A payer says the link does not work. Check its status in the table. An expired link needs a new one; a revoked link was deliberately killed.

“This person has no saved payment methods. Add one from their profile first.” A recurring schedule charges a stored method. Open the person’s profile, add a payment method, then come back.

“Installment count must be 2-60.” A plan needs at least two installments. One payment is a payment link.

“Plan name must be at least 3 characters.” Give the plan a name the payer will recognize on their statement.

A payer’s verification link shows “Verification Failed”. The link is expired, already used, or not valid. Links last 30 days. Send the payer their receipt directly, or point them at the donor portal.

Next step

For a full branded page rather than a bare link, see Payment Pages. To watch the payments arrive, see Managing Transactions.