Planning Center Giving

Start by configuring the way money flows. Create funds and subfunds (e.g., General, Missions, Building), set default designations, and choose accepted methods (card, ACH, Apple Pay/Google Pay). Enable recurring options, fee coverage, and campus-specific routing if you have multiple locations. Drop the hosted giving link into your website, generate a QR code for bulletins, turn on text-to-give, and connect your accounting categories so deposits land where your books expect them.

Make the donor experience simple and repeatable. In the Church Center app, people pick a fund, enter an amount, choose one-time or recurring, and confirm with a saved card or bank account. They can update payment details, pause or change schedules, and download annual statements without contacting staff. For in-person gifts, staff or volunteers can record cash and check contributions and attach them to the same donor profile, keeping online and offline history together.

Keep finance tasks predictable. Use the live dashboard to spot giving patterns: weekly volume, new contributors, recurring retention, and fund breakdowns. Filter by date range, campus, and fund, then export clean CSVs for deeper analysis. Reconcile faster with automatic batch grouping that mirrors bank deposits. Map funds to accounting classes, push entries to your ledger, and balance to the penny. When needed, issue refunds or correct entries with a clear audit trail. Pull household or individual histories, flag first-time donors for follow-up, and segment lists to thank major contributors or re-engage lapsed givers. Close the year by generating compliant statements in bulk and emailing or printing them in a few clicks.

Run campaigns with confidence. Create a pledge drive with a goal and timeline, invite households to commit, and let donors track progress from their statements and the app. As gifts come in, monitor how close you are to goal by campus, fund, or person. Schedule mid-campaign updates, send reminders to those behind pace, and celebrate milestones with targeted messages. Coordinate with your broader ministry systems: link events to special offerings, route volunteers to serve during pledge weekends, and match worship moments to generosity prompts. With every workflow, donors see clarity, admins save time, and leaders gain the insights needed to plan the next step.