Emails and notices about your giving

Psalmly tells you when something about your giving needs you, and stays quiet when it doesn't. Each message below exists for one of two reasons: there's a fact you'd want to know, or there's a step only you can take.

Where they arrive

Most of these reach you two ways — an email to the address on your account, and a note in your Updates inbox, behind the bell. Tapping the note takes you where it can be dealt with, usually your Giving page.

Giving notes never buzz your phone. Money news lands quietly and waits for you.

These aren't a subscription you can switch off — they're about your own money, so they always reach you. The church emails you can choose, like announcements and the weekly bulletin, are covered in Your account and profile.

When you set up a recurring gift

A new recurring gift gets a confirmation email — once, for that gift. Its first charge may be days or weeks away, so this is your proof the gift is really set up.

It lists the amount, what it supports, how often it repeats, the payment method, and the date of your first gift. If it's a gift to a drive, it names the date of the last one too. Expect it within a few minutes of setting the gift up, or a little later if your bank still has to confirm the first payment.

A one-time gift doesn't get one of these — it gets a receipt once the money settles, which is covered in Receipts and tax statements.

When a payment doesn't go through

Cards expire, banks decline, balances run short. When a recurring gift's payment fails, you hear about it rather than finding out months later that your giving quietly lapsed. There are two kinds, and they ask for different things:

• "Your recurring gift needs attention" — the payment was refused. Open your Giving page and change the card (or bank account) the gift uses. That charges the missed payment to the new one straight away, so the gift is caught up as well as fixed. See Recurring gifts.
• "Your bank needs to verify a payment" — nothing is wrong. Your bank wants you to approve this particular payment. The note links to a secure page where you confirm it, and the gift carries on.

On your Giving page, the gift is marked Past due until a payment goes through. If it's a gift from your bank that's simply still clearing, it reads Processing instead — that one needs nothing from you.

You hear once about each payment that fails, not once for every attempt — Stripe, the payment processor behind church giving, usually retries over the following days on its own. One failed payment doesn't end a gift.

When a gift goes on hold or stops

If those attempts all fail, the gift either goes on hold or stops, and you're told which.

• On hold — nothing is being collected, and nothing else has changed. Change the card or bank account it uses and it picks back up.
• Stopped — it has ended. The note says why: its payments didn't go through, one of them was disputed, your church couldn't accept gifts for a while, or it was cancelled somewhere other than Psalmly.

Either way, the gifts you already gave stand, and your receipts and statements are untouched.

A stopped gift is never restarted behind your back. Instead the note offers to set it up again, with the church, fund, amount, and schedule already filled in the way they were.

Other notices about a recurring gift

• The fund it supported was retired. If your church archives a fund, the recurring gifts supporting it move to another fund rather than stopping, and you're told where yours went. The amount, the schedule, and the payment method stay as they are.
• You removed the card paying for it. Psalmly says what will happen before you confirm the removal, and your Giving page tells you if a gift had to stop. Your saved payment methods has an order of operations that avoids this entirely.
• Your church disconnected its payment account. Psalmly can then no longer see or manage your gift, and the email says exactly that instead of guessing — it may still be charging you. Two things settle it: ask your church, who can stop it, and check your card or bank statement for the amount.

One-time gifts and refunds

• A gift that didn't go through gets its own note. A card is usually refused while you're still on the screen, so you'll know already — but a gift from your bank can bounce days after you were thanked, and that's the one this catches. Nothing was taken. You can give again from your Giving page.
• A refund gets a note too, so a receipt never sits in your inbox for a gift that no longer stands. Refunds are issued by your church.

What sends no notice at all

• Anything you did — setting up, pausing, resuming, editing, or cancelling a gift. You were there.
• A drive gift reaching its last gift. It's meant to stop, so it stopping isn't news. The date was shown to you before you confirmed and sits on your Giving page. See Giving to a drive.
• A paused gift, while it stays paused. Nothing is being collected, so there's nothing to report.