This guide will walk you through migrating your recurring donors who are not currently billing in Stripe. While not all payment processors accommodate this process, it never hurts to ask! If they are willing to export this information for you to a Stripe account, you can then move those recurring donors to Givebutter.
Click & Pledge, Safesave (Donor Perfect), and NeonPay are systems that have supported this process in the past.
Notify your current payment processor 📫
You can send your current payment processor’s support the following email:
Hi there,
We are in the process of moving our recurring donors. In order to start this process, we will need our recurring donors' payment tokens released to a Stripe account.
Can you confirm the next steps we need to take to start this process?
Thank you!
Once they confirm they can start this process, you will need to create a new Stripe account. This is independent of your Givebutter Stripe Express account.
Migrate donors to Stripe ✉️
Stripe will need you to fill out a migration form in your new, intermediary account and then they will start the process. You can use the following example as a guide:
Stripe’s migration support should contact you after you submit this form. You can connect them with the contact from your payment processor’s support team that was assigned to help you with the process.
Your payment processor and Stripe will work together to transfer that data to Stripe. Once they have confirmed that this process is complete, the donors can be migrated to Givebutter – business as usual!
Begin the migration to Givebutter 🌟
Now that these donors live in your intermediary Stripe account, you can navigate to the Customers tab and run an Export. Make sure to have the Customer ID, Name, Email, and Description boxes checked.
After you export that file, save a copy. We will use that later! You can modify the original copy and remove all columns, except the Customer IDs. Then delete the header row so there are values only in one column down starting with ‘cus_’:
If there are any that say ‘guest’, you can delete those from the file. Then, Save As or Export it to a CSV. Then, you will navigate back to your intermediary Stripe account and to the Customer dashboard again.
Click Copy customers.
In the Copy Method field, click Upload from file.
Select the CSV file of customer IDs from their computer.
After selecting the correct file, click Continue. To handle errors, refer to Handle upload errors.
Enter the account ID (format: acct_xxxx) of our recipient account below. You will receive a message stating that the recipient needs to authorize your request before the copy occurs.
Givebutter's account ID is acct_17qVRFEBuKNYj3GG
Click Confirm.
After successfully sharing your data, you will see the pending copy request at the top of the Customers page.
You can submit this intake form after you have sent a copy of your donors through Stripe so our migration team can retrieve the Stripe file you will need.
Export your recurring donors 🔁
Next, you will want to export a recurring donor report from your old donor management system. When creating that export, make sure it includes all of the required columns (shown in green in our template).
Prep your recurring donor import 📝
Between this file and the one that will be sent to you once the donors are copied to our Stripe account, you will have the beginning details needed for our recurring donor template. The remaining data will come from our Stripe account. Here is a breakdown of how this information comes together:
Givebutter’s Stripe File
This file has the unique Stripe IDs needed to add to our importer so your recurring donors can bill with your account.
Intermediary Stripe Account File
Lists the Stripe Customer IDs and who they belong to. This will help you identify which ID belongs to which donor.
Old System’s Recurring Export
Gives you the final pieces needed to know how often and when each monthly donor is billing, as well as their email and full address.
After your import file is complete, you will finish the remaining steps to import, validate, and activate these plans.
You will need to coordinate with your old processor to cancel your plans so no one is missed or double-charged.
Upload your import spreadsheet ➕
Navigate to Transactions, and then Recurring Plans in your Givebutter Dashboard.
Click the Import button, then select Recurring plans import and choose the import file from your device.
Click Upload file (we do not recommend manually entering data for recurring donation imports.)
Review the data mapping. When you're finished, toggle through some of the records to spot-check for completeness and click Continue.
You will receive an email confirmation from Givebutter. If that status is failed, follow the directions provided in our email to reconcile any errors.
Validate the recurring plans ✅
Once you receive the email confirmation from Givebutter that your import is complete, navigate to Settings and then click Imports under the Settings header.
Click the Recurring Plans tab and choose Validate Plans.
Shortly after clicking Validate Plans, you will receive an email confirmation from Givebutter. Each Recurring Donation is validated individually. Follow the directions provided in our email to reconcile any errors.
Activate the recurring plans 💳
Now it’s time to cancel or disable your recurring gifts while suppressing any "your monthly donation has been canceled" emails on your legacy platform if you can.
🚨 Your recurring plans will not automatically be canceled once they have been imported into Givebutter! It is your responsibility to ensure no one is double-charged.
Once you've completed that step, return to the Imports tab in your Givebutter dashboard. Click the three dots next to each plan and select Activate Plan.
Admins can also edit the plan amount and the next bill date by selecting the (...) menu next to any imported plan before you activate it.
You're all set! 🎉 These recurring donations will begin processing in Givebutter.
Good to know 🌟
While our best-in-class support team is available to guide your way, data migrations can be a challenging and time-consuming process if not well-organized. The state of your data will determine your migration experience.
Givebutter is not able to analyze, structure, or organize your data for you. You are the leader of your migration and will need to cancel your plans on your old platform.
Timing is important. You'll need to coordinate canceling your existing subscriptions and the import to ensure no payments are missed or duplicated.
FAQ 🤔
What payment methods can be migrated over?
The supported payment methods Stripe can migrate between accounts include:
Cards stored as Card objects
Cards stored as Source objects
Cards stored as Payment method objects
US ACH records stored as Bank account objects
Stripe can’t copy Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), BACs, or ACH records stored as payment method objects at this time. Link by Stripe is not a supported payment method for migrations. You can read more about this here.
The file we received from your implementation team has multiple source_ids for the same customer, which should I use?
If the file you receive from our team has multiple source_ids for the same customer, this usually means that the customer had multiple payment methods or profiles in your old Stripe account. We advise using the most recent source_id, which will be the one closer to the bottom of the file we provide you from Stripe.
My plans failed validation, why?
Typically, this happens due to adding in the wrong source_id to your import template file. Make sure you use the ids reflected in the new column. The validation will also fail if the payment method was Link by Stripe, as this isn't a supported payment method.
To fix this, you will need to delete the plans you have imported and redo the import with the correct new source_ids.
I can no longer modify my plans in Givebutter, what happened?
This means you have already activated your plans. Once this is done, the plans cannot be modified within your Givebutter dashboard anymore.
If you need to modify a plan after activating it, you can cancel it in your dashboard and then re-import it with the correct details.
My plans have started charging through Givebutter but some have failed, what do I do?
Try not to panic if some plans fail initially. This is likely due to card changes since your donors were last charged, or their bank flagging it as an unrecognized charge since the merchant is now Givebutter.
Your donors will be notified by email that their charge failed. A link to update those billing details is included for them as well.