Processing a Payment Manually

WeGive's Virtual Terminal allows you to process payments on behalf of donors directly from your dashboard. You can either charge a donor's saved payment method in real time or record an offline payment (such as a check or cash gift) that was received outside of WeGive.

Accessing the Virtual Terminal

There are two ways to start a manual payment:

From the Payments page: Click the Charge Donor button at the top of your Payments list. This opens a donor search modal where you can look up the supporter by name. Once you select a donor, you'll be taken to the Virtual Terminal form for that individual or company.

From a donor record: Navigate to the donor's profile and use the charge option to go directly into the Virtual Terminal with that donor pre-selected.

Choosing a Payment Type

The Virtual Terminal supports two distinct modes depending on how the payment is being received.

Live Payment (Charge a Payment Method)

Use this option when you want to process a card or bank account transaction in real time. You can select from the donor's saved payment methods — credit/debit cards or bank accounts — or add a new one on the spot. When you add a new payment method, it is saved to the donor's profile for future use.

Offline Payment (Record a Check or Cash Gift)

Use this option to log a donation that was received outside of WeGive, such as a physical check or cash. Offline payments are recorded in WeGive for tracking and reporting purposes, but no actual charge is processed. When recording an offline payment, you'll see the "G" symbol on the transaction to indicate it was an offline donation.

Filling Out the Payment Form

Required Fields

Donor — A supporter must be selected before you can proceed. The Virtual Terminal will not submit without one.

Amount — Enter the dollar amount of the payment.

Payment Method

For live payments, select an existing card or bank account from the donor's profile, or add a new one. For offline payments, choose Check or Cash as the payment type.

If you select Check, two additional fields appear:

• Check Number — Required for all check payments.

• Check Image — Optional. You can upload a photo or scan of the check. The image is attached to the transaction record after it's created.

Frequency

Choose whether this is a one-time payment or a recurring donation. If you set up a recurring payment, you'll also need to provide:

• Start Date — Required and must be a future date.

• End Date — Optional. If left blank, the recurring plan continues indefinitely.

Recurring payments can only be set up for live payment methods (cards and bank accounts), not for offline check or cash entries.

Fee Coverage

For live one-time payments, you can toggle the Cover Fees option. When enabled, the processing fee amount is calculated and added on top of the donation amount so the organization receives the full intended gift. Fee coverage is not available for offline payments, since no processing fees are incurred.

Designations and Fund Allocation

You can assign the payment to a specific fund or designation. If your organization uses fund allocations, you can split the payment across multiple funds. When splitting across funds, the total of all allocations cannot exceed the payment amount — the form will validate this before submitting.

Campaign and Fundraiser

Optionally associate the payment with a campaign and/or a specific fundraiser within that campaign, including peer-to-peer fundraisers. You can also link the payment to a checkout form, a pledge, or an event registration if applicable.

Tribute Information

To record the payment as a tribute gift, enable the Tribute toggle. This reveals fields for:

• Tribute Name — The name of the person being honored or memorialized.

• Tribute Message — An optional message from the donor.

• Tribute Email — An email address to send a tribute notification to.

Additional Options

• Fair Market Value — Record the fair market value if the donation involves goods or services.

• Tax Deductible — Mark whether the payment is tax-deductible.

• Anonymous — Flag the donation as anonymous.

• Notes — Toggle on the notes field to add internal notes to the transaction.

Submitting the Payment

Once all fields are filled out, how the payment is submitted depends on the payment type:

For live payments, clicking submit sends the charge request to the payment processor. The donor's card or bank account is charged in real time, and a transaction record is created. If fee coverage is enabled on a one-time payment, the fee is added to the total before charging.

For offline payments, clicking submit creates a transaction record in WeGive without processing any actual payment. For check payments, the transaction status is set to whatever status you selected in the form. For cash and other offline types, the status defaults to processed. If you uploaded a check image, it is attached to the transaction after the record is created.

After a successful submission, you'll see a confirmation and can navigate back to the donor's profile or the Payments list.

Check Payment Statuses

When recording a check payment, you can select the payment status to reflect where the check is in your processing workflow. This allows you to track whether a check has been received, deposited, or is still pending.

Things to Keep in Mind

• You must select a donor before filling out the form. The "Charge Donor" flow always starts with a donor search.

• Fund allocations are validated at submission — if you split across multiple funds, the total allocations cannot exceed the payment amount.

• Check number is required for all check payments and will be flagged if missing.

• Recurring payments require a future start date. The form will not submit if the start date is today or in the past.

• Check images upload asynchronously after the transaction is created. If the upload fails, the transaction itself is still recorded — you may need to re-upload the image separately.

• Offline payments do not include fee calculations. The amount you enter is the amount recorded.