CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

We are just launching our first true donation campaign in CiviCRM (v4.5.2) - as opposed to membership dues collection - and are going through the learning curve.

One thing that has hit us as strange is the handling of the "Pay Later" option.  We need/want this, but it doesn't seem right.  If I understand correctly, the workflow for this would be that the donor selects this option, and they get an invoice rather than a receipt.  However the transaction is recorded as a Contribution, just as if payment by card was made.  Then, the donor would write his check and send it in to the office.  The bookkeeper would then use Record Contribution - making sure it was the same amount as "pledged" - and then delete the original contribution(?).  This seems very strange.  Hopefully I am missing something.

It seems to us that a Pay Later option is really a one time, non-recurring pledge, and should be handled that way.  Including reminders, report tracking, and most importantly NOT including it in bookkeeping accounts until it is actually collected.

Or is there another way?

Thanks. That's a bit better than replacing it I guess.  But the question of it really being a pledge still stands.  Seems that would make a heck of a lot more sense.

That's a good point.  Probably there would be consensus of opinion that it would be a pledge for a donation, and not for an event fee.  So "Handle Pay Later as a Pledge" might be a good option to include on the contribution form.

This seems like semantics issue, over what the definition of "pledge" is and when that word is appropriate.  I suggest using the Word Replacements (Administer > Customize> Word Replacements) in Civi to rename features if it makes more sense to you to call it something else.