Giving & Finance

Overview

The Giving module records, tracks and reports every financial gift to your church: cash, cheque, Mobile Money, card and bank transfer. Every gift has an amount, a payment method, a date and a status, and usually a member and a fund (offering category).

Gifts arrive three ways:

Way	Who does it	Where
Manual entry	Staff, for cash, cheque or anything paid offline	Giving → Record Offering
Collect	Staff, charging a member's card or Mobile Money on the spot	Giving → Collect
WhatsApp GIVE	The member, from their own phone, any time	Your church's WhatsApp number

Go to Giving in the sidebar.

Screenshot

📸 [Screenshot: Giving dashboard showing weekly/monthly/yearly stats and recent offerings list]

The Giving Dashboard

The main Giving page shows:

Stat	Period
This Week	Total giving since last Sunday
This Month	Total giving this calendar month
This Year	Total giving this calendar year
Total Transactions	Number of giving records

Below the stats, Donor Insights (see below) and then the Recent Offerings list: 10 records per page by default (you can switch to 20 or 50). Each row shows the giver, payment method and fund, the amount, when it was recorded and a status:

Status	Meaning
✓	Completed. The money has been received (or the offline gift was recorded).
pending	A Mobile Money prompt or payment link has been sent and not yet paid.
failed	The member declined the Mobile Money prompt or let it time out.

Each row has three actions: Edit, Delete and 🧾 Receipt.

Setting Up Funds (Offering Categories)

Before recording gifts, set up the funds your church uses. Common examples: Tithes, Sunday Offering, Building Fund, Welfare Fund, Mission Offering, Thanksgiving, Special Seed.

Go to Settings and open the Offering Categories tab
Enter a name (and an optional description) and click Add
Edit or delete a category from the same list

Categories are shared across all branches. Members see them as the list of funds when they give on WhatsApp.

Recording an Offering (Manual Entry)

For cash, cheque or any offline payment:

Go to Giving
Click + Record Offering
Fill in:

Field	Description
Amount	The amount given, with the currency (defaults to your church currency)
Payment Method	Cash, Cheque, MTN MoMo, AirtelTigo Money, Telecel Cash, Card or Bank Transfer
Category	The fund (optional)
Date	Offering date (defaults to today)
Anonymous	Tick if the member doesn't want their name on the record
Member (for notifications)	Search by name or phone. Leave blank for an anonymous or unattributed gift.
Notes	Optional, e.g. "Thanksgiving for child's graduation"

Click Save

Screenshot

📸 [Screenshot: Record Offering form with all fields filled in]

The gift is recorded as completed straight away and appears in the member's giving history.

If Donation Notifications are switched on (Settings → Notifications), the member receives a thank-you by WhatsApp and/or SMS as soon as the gift is saved, and the receipt can print automatically. You can exclude funds from notifications, for example Welfare.

Editing and Deleting a Gift

Edit opens the same form so you can correct the amount, method, fund, date or member.
Delete asks for a reason (e.g. "Duplicate entry, recorded twice by mistake"). The deletion and its reason are written to the audit log.

Both need the giving.edit or giving.delete permission (see Permissions below).

Collecting by Card or Mobile Money (Collect)

To charge a member's card or Mobile Money wallet while they are with you:

Go to Giving → Collect
Optionally search and select the member (leave blank for an anonymous gift)
Enter the amount and choose the fund; add a note if you like
Choose Card or Mobile Money

Card: click to pay. A Paystack window opens for the card details, and the gift is recorded when Paystack confirms the payment.

Mobile Money:

Pick the network: MTN MoMo, AirtelTigo or Telecel
Enter the member's number (the country code defaults to +233)
Click to send the prompt. The member approves it with their PIN on their phone, and the page waits for Paystack's confirmation.
If MTN asks for a one-time code, a box appears on the page: type the code the member received.
If the member declines or lets the prompt expire, the page says "Payment failed or was declined" and the gift is marked failed.

💡 Payout setup required. Card and Mobile Money collection, and WhatsApp giving, only work after your church has completed Settings → Payouts. That is where the money is sent.

WhatsApp Giving (GIVE and TITHE)

Members can give from their own phone without any staff action. The flow is the same for GIVE and TITHE.

What the member needs: to be registered on your church's WhatsApp number, a Ghana or Nigeria church on the Rooted plan or above, and payout setup completed. Otherwise the bot explains what is missing.

The flow:

The member sends GIVE 50 (any amount: GIVE 1,000 and GIVE 50.50 work too)
The bot lists your funds, plus General Offering. The member taps one, or replies with its number (0 for General). A church with no categories skips this step.
The bot asks them to confirm. It shows the exact amount that will be charged and the number the prompt will go to, for example "💰 ₵ 50.00 to Grace Chapel — Building Fund. MoMo prompt will go to 024XXXX567", with three choices:
- YES: send a Mobile Money prompt to that number
- 💳 Pay another way (or reply LINK): receive a Paystack payment link instead, where the member can pay by Mobile Money, card or bank transfer
- NO: cancel. Nothing is charged until the member chooses YES or pays through the link.
On YES, Paystack sends the prompt and the bot replies with the amount, the fund and a payment reference. The member approves the prompt with their PIN.
When Paystack confirms the payment, the gift is recorded as completed, with the member, the fund and the reference. The member can see it with HISTORY.

The member has 10 minutes to finish; after that they start again with a new GIVE.

When the bot sends a payment link without being asked:

The member's number isn't a Ghana Mobile Money number Shepherd recognises (MTN, Telecel or AirtelTigo prefixes)
Paystack asks for a one-time code, which WhatsApp can't take
The church is in Nigeria: direct prompts are for Ghana cedi wallets only, so Nigerian members always pay through the link, in naira

What the member does not get: the bot sends no thank-you message after the payment is confirmed. The gift simply appears in their HISTORY. (A receipt message is planned.)

What staff see: the gift appears in Recent Offerings as pending when the prompt or link is sent, then ✓ when paid, or failed if the member declined or the prompt timed out.

📱 Members can also check their giving on WhatsApp: HISTORY shows their five most recent gifts, and STATEMENT (Growing plan and above) totals this year's gifts by fund. See WhatsApp Bot.

Payment Methods

Method	Code	How it is recorded
Cash	`cash`	Manual entry
Cheque	`check`	Manual entry
MTN MoMo	`momo_mtn`	WhatsApp prompt, Collect, payment link, or manual entry
AirtelTigo Money	`momo_airteltigo`	WhatsApp prompt, Collect, or manual entry
Telecel Cash	`momo_vodafone`	WhatsApp prompt, Collect, or manual entry
Card	`card`	Collect, payment link, or manual entry
Bank Transfer	`bank_transfer`	Payment link, or manual entry

A gift paid through the WhatsApp payment link is recorded under the method Paystack reports: card payments as Card, and Mobile Money of any network as MTN MoMo.

Giving Receipts

Every recorded gift can have a receipt:

In the Recent Offerings list, click the 🧾 Receipt button on the row
Choose A4 (a full-page PDF) or POS (a narrow thermal-printer slip), then Download or Print

The receipt shows your church's name, logo and contact details, the receipt number, date, giver (or "Anonymous"), member ID, amount and currency, fund, payment method, notes, and who recorded it.

Receipt numbers are your receipt prefix followed by a sequence number, for example GCI00045. Set the prefix under Settings → Church Profile; without one, receipts are numbered RCP + date + sequence.

Member Giving Statements

A statement lists everything a member gave in a year, with totals by fund and a line for every gift (date, fund, method, amount), under your church's header. Use it for annual tithe statements and for pastoral giving conversations.

Open the statement page at /dashboard/giving/statements/<member id>, where the member id is the last part of the address of the member's profile page (/dashboard/members/<member id>). Pick the year with the buttons at the top, then click Print. It needs the giving.export permission.

caution

There is no button that opens a member's statement yet; the page has to be opened by its address. A link from the member's profile and from the giving list is planned.

Donor Insights

Shepherd analyses your giving data and shows three figures on the Giving page:

Insight	What it means
First-time givers	Members whose first ever gift was this month
Lapsed givers	Members who have given before but not in the last 90 days
Consistent givers	Members with four or more gifts in the last 90 days

Shepherd also sends WhatsApp messages to these members automatically, once a day: a thank-you to a first-time giver, a gentle re-engagement message to a lapsed giver (at most once every 30 days), and a stewardship update to a consistent giver (at most once every 90 days).

Exporting Giving Data

Go to Giving
Click Export and choose CSV or Summary

The CSV has one row per gift: date, member (or Anonymous), amount, payment method, category and notes. The Summary groups the same gifts by fund and by payment method.

caution

Both exports cover only the rows on the current page (10, 20 or 50). To export more, switch the page size to 50 and export page by page. An export of all records is planned.

Branch-Level Giving

In multi-branch churches the Giving page follows the branch you have selected: the stats and the Recent Offerings list show that branch's gifts. The export covers the rows on the page, so it follows the branch too.

Anonymous Giving

If a gift is marked anonymous:

The list shows "Anonymous" instead of the member's name
The receipt and the CSV export say "Anonymous"
The amount still counts in all totals and reports
If a member was chosen, they are kept on the record (for the thank-you message) but not shown

Pledges

Members' giving commitments (for example GHS 200 a month to the Building Fund) are tracked under Pledges. See Pledges.

Paystack Payouts and Fees

Online gifts are collected by Paystack and paid into your church's own account:

Go to Settings → Payouts
Click Set Up Payouts
Choose your bank or Mobile Money provider and enter the account number
Shepherd registers a Paystack sub-account for your church. Every online gift is routed to it.

Fees. The member pays exactly the amount they typed. From each gift, Shepherd keeps a 2% platform fee, and Paystack's processing fee comes out of the church's share. For a GHS 100 gift the church receives about GHS 96: GHS 2 to Shepherd and about GHS 2 to Paystack. The Payouts page shows the same breakdown.

Online giving is available for churches in Ghana (cedi) and Nigeria (naira). Members of a church elsewhere are told online giving isn't available yet and invited to give in person.

Permissions

Giving actions are controlled by permissions, which are grouped into roles (see Roles):

Permission	Allows
`giving.view`	See the Giving page, stats, insights and pledges
`giving.record`	Record Offering and Collect
`giving.edit`	Edit a gift; create, edit, cancel and record payments on pledges
`giving.delete`	Delete a gift (with a reason)
`giving.export`	Export CSV and Summary; open member statements

Payout setup is a church settings action for administrators.

Tips

✅ Set up your funds first so members and staff pick the right one
✅ Complete payout setup before announcing WhatsApp giving. Without it, members see "Giving isn't set up yet"
✅ Tell members about GIVE: it is the most convenient method for regular givers and works around the clock
✅ Watch pending gifts. A gift that stays pending was not approved; the member can simply try again
✅ Print receipts right after collecting, in A4 or thermal format
✅ Export monthly for your accounting records (page by page for now)
✅ Check Donor Insights; the automatic messages do the first follow-up for you

Overview​

The Giving Dashboard​

Setting Up Funds (Offering Categories)​

Recording an Offering (Manual Entry)​

Editing and Deleting a Gift​

Collecting by Card or Mobile Money (Collect)​

WhatsApp Giving (GIVE and TITHE)​

Payment Methods​

Giving Receipts​

Member Giving Statements​

Donor Insights​

Exporting Giving Data​

Branch-Level Giving​

Anonymous Giving​

Pledges​

Paystack Payouts and Fees​

Permissions​

Tips​