CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

I've got some questions and concerns around manually entered transactions (those entered by a privileged user in CIVICRM from the contact page contribution tab)

 1) Record an Offline transaction
/civicrm/contact/view/contribution?reset=1&action=add&cid=1&context=contribution
This form is for merely recording, not processing a transaction.
the url is confusing, it should follow more of a civicontribute pattern like the other form, something like
/civicrm/contribute/offline?reset=1&cid=1 (which is used for the live contribution form, as indicated below)

It has more options than the form for processing a live transaction, including:
"Additional Details"
notes
non deductible amount
"Premium Information"
selected premium
date fulfilled

 2) submit a credit card transaction
/civicrm/contribute/offline?reset=1&cid=1
This form states "A LIVE transaction will be submitted"

The url for this form is confusing, this is not an offline transaction, this is an online transaction, just one entered by an admin (of sorts) rather than the end user.  it should probably be /civicrm/contribute/live?reset=1&cid=1

It requires some basic information like how to process the transaction, the amount, meail address, send a receipt y/n
credit card information,  credit card security code is required
billing name and address

why does this live processing form not have the same extended fields as the offline processing form?

It doesn't make much sense to me that these forms are ANY different (really) than the contribution form presented to the user when they donate, or at least, that should be an option (use this contribution for for back end entries too).

That form 2 requires a credit card security code is also a stumbling block since most paper contribution forms DO NOT ask for this information.  the whole point of this field (which is basically pointless) is that it cannot be gotten from an impression of the card, and on most cards appears on the back.  The only place where it is supposed to appear in the same place at the same time is on the card.  it is intended to verify that the person giving the credit card info (over the phone, or entering it into a form) actually has possession of the card.  Therefore asking for it on a paper form probably wouldn't fly well with users/members.
This field should be optional on the manual entry forms.  indeed it should be optional on the civicontribute forms because it is not actually a mandatory requirement of payment processors (like authorize.net).


Neither of these forms allow you to select a particular receipt, or customize before sending
neither allow you to, at the same time, create a membership, nor split a contribution between membership dues and donation (or two memberships for that matter.  i see in http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php/topic,1300.0.html that these receipts are set in a tpl file, and in that thread i have suggested using message templates for these and other receipts so that end users can easily update them.