RPIs manage regular giving or membership payments and interact with your payment gateways to automate collections and update supporter timelines.

Built-In Collection Methods

Q1: What collection methods can I use?
Answer: The system includes three built-in Collection Methods, each linked to a specific Payment Method:

GoCardless to Direct Debit.
Stripe to Payment Card.
Standing Order to Standing Order.

Payment Timings

Q2: When do payments start for recurring card payments?
Answer:

The first payment is collected on the day the donor signs up.
The RPI start date is then set to the first day of the next month, and no earlier payments are collected.
Future payments follow the selected frequency (monthly, quarterly, annually, etc.).

Q3: When do Direct Debit (GoCardless) payments start?
Answer:

New mandates take a few days to set up.
The first collection is set to 7 days after signup.
If the 7-day point falls after the 28th of the month, the first collection moves into the following month to keep future collection dates consistent.
After setup, payments follow the chosen frequency and start month.

Timeline Records

Q4: What is added to the Timeline for an RPI payment?
Answer: A verified payment creates a Transaction showing:

The full payment amount requested
One or more allocations based on the RPI setup
Any gateway fees recorded as processing costs
The amount displayed is the full amount requested, not the net amount received into your bank account.

Constituent Status

Q5: What happens if a constituent is archived?
Answer: No further payments are collected, even if the RPI status remains Active.

Payment Errors

Q6: What happens if the wrong amount is collected?
Answer: A Transaction is created for the actual amount collected.
Allocations are automatically prorated.
Example: If £12 is collected instead of £15, allocations of £8 and £4 are created instead of £10 and £5.

Due Payments

Q7: How do I know if a payment will be collected this month?
Answer: Collections are based on Start Month and Frequency:

Yearly: One payment in the Start Month.
Half-Yearly: Start Month + 6 months.
Quarterly: Start Month + 3, 6, and 9 months.
Monthly: Every month.

Donor Statements

Q8: What appears on the donor’s bank or card statement?
Answer: This depends on the payment gateway.
For example, Stripe shows your organisation’s name or a custom statement descriptor.
Refer to your gateway's Knowledge Base article for details.

Missed Payments

Q9: What happens if a payment is missed?
Answer: At the start of each month, the system reviews missed payments and:

Increases Missed Payments by one.
Updates Last Missed Payment.
Updates Consecutive Missed Payments.
The system only attempts each payment once to avoid duplicate gateway fees.

RPI Statuses

Q10: What are the possible RPI statuses?
Answer:

Active – Payments should be collected.
Overdue – Payments missed, but future collections still attempted.
Cancelled – Instruction has been stopped.
Paused – Temporarily suspended (available for some gateways only).

Q11: When does an RPI become overdue?
Answer:

Monthly RPIs: After 3 consecutive missed payments.
All other frequencies: After 1 missed payment.

Manual Payments

Q12: What if a donor misses a payment but pays manually (e.g., cheque)?
Answer:

Add the payment as a Transaction using the same allocations as the RPI.
Add a comment explaining it is a manual payment.
Link it to the RPI using Linked Recurring Payment Instruction.
Open the RPI and:
- If its status is Overdue or Lapsed, click Make Active to reset missed-payment counters.

Tracking Payments

Q13: How do I see what payments have been processed?
Answer:

The History tab on the RPI displays expected payments, gateway reports, and linked Transactions.
In Financial, Recurring Income you can see exceptions and a log of updates.

Creating New Instructions

Q14: How should new RPIs be set up?
Answer:

Best option: Let supporters create them via web widgets, which automatically create RPIs.
If you create one on a supporter’s behalf, use a web widget for reliability.
If added manually on the Timeline, ensure the supporter also exists in the gateway dashboard, and assign the gateway’s customer code to the RPI.