Setting up online giving

Online giving lets your members give tithes and gifts right inside Psalmly — by card or straight from a bank account. You'll find it under Giving in the admin sidebar. Once you're done, gifts flow directly to your church's bank account. Psalmly never holds your money.

The setup itself is short. What takes the time is gathering a few pieces of paperwork Stripe is required to ask for — so it's worth reading the next section before you begin, rather than starting and having to stop halfway.

How giving works, in plain terms

Psalmly's giving runs on Stripe, the same payment company trusted by millions of businesses and nonprofits. When you set up giving, you're creating a secure Stripe account that belongs to your church. From then on:

• Members give through Psalmly, and the money settles into your church's bank account on a regular schedule.
• Your church is the merchant of record — the gifts are yours, and so is the relationship with Stripe.
• Psalmly never touches the money. It moves from the giver straight to your bank; we just make the experience simple on both sides.

Starting setup

Open Giving in the admin sidebar and click Begin setup with Stripe. This is limited to lead admins and to admins a lead has given finance access — other admins don't see the Giving page at all.

You'll be handed off to Stripe's own secure, hosted setup. This is where you provide the details a financial account requires — there's no Psalmly form trying to re-create it, because your banking information should live with Stripe, not with us.

Everything is entered on Stripe's encrypted pages. When you finish, Stripe sends you back to your Giving page automatically. Stripe saves your progress, so you can stop and pick it up again — but it's much less frustrating to have everything ready first.

What to have ready

About the church:

• Its legal name and address, as they appear on your bank account.
• Your EIN. If you don't know it offhand, it's on your W-9 or on the paperwork from opening the church's bank account.
• A phone number givers can use to reach the church.
• The bank account where gifts should be deposited — routing and account numbers.
• A short description of what your church does, and the name that will appear on a giver's bank statement. Your church's name is the usual choice.

About one person — this is the one that catches people out:

Stripe requires a named representative on the account: someone authorized to act on the church's behalf. Usually the pastor, the treasurer, or a board officer. For that person, Stripe asks for their full name, date of birth, home address, and the last four digits of their Social Security number.

That surprises people, so it's worth saying plainly: this is a federal requirement for any organization that accepts money online — not a Psalmly rule. Every giving platform asks the same thing. Stripe uses it to verify that a real, accountable person stands behind the account, and nothing else.

If that person isn't you, it's far easier to sit down together than to start the form and stop partway through.

"It's asking for our website and we don't have one"

Stripe asks every account for a business website, and most small churches don't have one.

You don't need to go build anything. Your Psalmly page already is a real public website, and it works for this. It's your public church site — your handle followed by .psalmly.app. Your Giving page shows you the exact address and gives you a button to copy it, so you can paste it straight into Stripe.

The setup states

Your Giving page always shows where you stand, and it updates on its own as Stripe works:

• Online giving not set up — you haven't started yet. Click Begin setup with Stripe. (Recording cash and check offerings already works in this state.)
• In progress — you've started but a few details remain. Pick up where you left off; Stripe saves your progress.
• Pending review — everything's submitted and Stripe is verifying it. This usually takes anywhere from a few minutes to a day. If it finishes within the first minute or two, the page flips to Active on its own; otherwise, come back and reload your Giving page to see the new status.
• Active — giving is live. Members can now give to your funds. Occasionally Stripe finishes verifying your charging ability before your payout details; if so the page says so plainly, gifts are held safely in your Stripe balance, and payouts start as soon as Stripe clears the rest.
• Action needed — Stripe needs a bit more information to keep things running. The page shows exactly what to resolve, and a button takes you straight there.
• Account disconnected — if you ever disconnect Psalmly from inside your Stripe dashboard, giving pauses and the page offers Reconnect with Stripe. Your history stays safe, but any recurring gifts keep running on your Stripe account, where Psalmly can no longer show or stop them — so cancel them in Psalmly first if you're winding online giving down.

Your giving funds exist from the moment your church does, so you can define them at any point — before, during, or after setup. See Managing giving funds. The same is true of recording cash and check offerings, which never requires Stripe at all — see Recording cash and check gifts.

Your Stripe dashboard

Because the account is genuinely your church's, you also get a full Stripe dashboard of your own. Day-to-day, you'll manage everything inside Psalmly — but the deeper, sensitive tasks live in Stripe, where they belong:

• Changing your payout bank or payout schedule.
• Handling disputes or issuing refunds.
• Updating tax documents and representatives.

Wherever one of those comes up, Psalmly gives you a clear link straight into your Stripe dashboard. You sign in there with the Stripe login you created during setup.

Is it secure?

Yes. Card and bank details are entered on Stripe's own pages and handled under bank-grade security and PCI compliance — they never pass through Psalmly's systems, and neither you nor we ever see a full card or account number. That's the whole point of building on Stripe.

Once you're live, head to Managing giving funds to set up what members can give toward, and Payouts, fees, and where your money goes to understand the money side.