A pledge tracks a promise to give over time. Rhythm updates two parts of the pledge automatically: the amount counted as paid and the pledge’s status. Collect’s billing activity drives both updates, so you do not set them directly.
How Progress Is Tracked
Each time Rhythm collects a payment toward a pledge, it records that payment as a payment gift and adds the amount to the pledge’s amount fulfilled. The amount fulfilled stops at the full pledged amount. If the donor overpays, Rhythm keeps the extra amount on the payment gift, but the pledge’s fulfilled amount does not increase beyond the amount pledged.
Warning
Refunding or voiding a pledge payment does not reduce the pledge’s amount fulfilled. If a donor’s payment is refunded or voided later, the pledge still shows that amount as paid because refunds and voids do not change pledge progress. Do not use the pledge’s fulfilled amount by itself to confirm that every payment behind it is still valid. If that distinction matters for your reporting, check the payment gifts directly (see How Pledge Payments Become Gifts).
When a Pledge Becomes Paid
When the amount fulfilled reaches the full pledged amount, Rhythm marks the pledge as paid, regardless of its previous status. A cancelled or paused pledge can become paid when a payment completes it. Because refunds and voids do not reduce the fulfilled amount, a pledge that is already marked paid stays paid even if one of its payments is later refunded or voided.
For reporting, remember that a pledge payment’s Order Date, or Purchase Date, can still show the original pledge’s entry date. Its Gift Date shows when that specific payment was actually made. If a payment appears to share a purchase date with the original pledge, check the Gift Date for the real payment date.
Status Follows the Billing Schedule, Not Manual Changes
If a pledge is billed on a schedule, Rhythm updates the pledge’s status each time that schedule changes:
| The schedule is | The pledge's status becomes |
|---|---|
| Actively billing | Open |
| Finished | Paid |
| Suspended, erroring, or the payment declined | Paused |
| Cancelled | Cancelled |
This sync does not check the pledge’s current status first, so a schedule change can move a pledge in either direction. That includes reopening a pledge that was cancelled or paid when the billing schedule says it is actively billing. A status you or a donor set by hand also does not stay in place after the schedule changes, because the schedule’s status overwrites the manual status. If a pledge you or a donor cancelled shows as open again, the most likely reason is that its billing schedule is still active. In that case, change the schedule instead of the pledge record.
Warning
In some cases, an older pledge does not automatically charge a donor’s stored payment method on its billing schedule the way a newly created pledge does, so staff still need to process its installments manually. If an existing pledge’s installments are not being billed automatically, check whether it predates the pledge’s usual automatic processing before assuming the schedule is broken.
What Happens When the Order Behind a Pledge Is Cancelled
A pledge is tied to the order that created it, so cancelling that order changes the pledge:
- Only some of the order's fundraising lines are cancelled. Rhythm reduces the pledge by the amount of the cancelled lines. Payments already collected for that cancelled portion are not reversed, so a reduced pledge can show more fulfilled than its new, smaller pledged amount.
- Every fundraising line on the order is cancelled. Rhythm removes the pledge instead of reducing it.
Cancelling a pledge’s order changes only the pledge record in Fundraising. Whether Collect’s billing schedule for that pledge is also adjusted is separate, because that adjustment happens in Collect and this article does not cover it.
Related
See the related articles to learn what a pledge is and how one is created, how each pledge payment becomes its own gift, how to review a pledge, how to edit, cancel, or delete a pledge, and how pledge fields, statuses, and save rules work.