Scope
This issue applies only to annual recurring gifts that staff start from the Console’s Process Gift page, using a giving process where annual recurring gifts are turned on. Portal donors do not run into this issue because the Portal donation form offers monthly recurring gifts only, not annual gifts.
Why This Happens
It helps to separate the recurring gift record from the billing that creates each year’s charge. Creating the recurring gift starts the commitment, while later billing creates the donations after the first one. Because billing and the recurring gift record are separate, a missing recurring gift record does not always mean the donor was never billed.
Warning
When staff select Annually on the Console’s Recurring card, Fundraising saves the gift with one wording for “once a year.” After the first gift is paid, Fundraising tries to create the matching recurring gift record with that same wording. The recurring gift record expects different wording for “once a year,” so it refuses the record without showing an error. No current product form sends the wording that the recurring gift record expects.
The billing schedule that charges the donor each year is created separately from the recurring gift record, so the donor is still billed on schedule. The issue is that Rhythm does not keep a recurring gift record for that annual commitment. The donor’s card or bank account is charged annually as agreed, but Fundraising has no recurring gift to show in recurring gift searches, totals, or the donor’s giving summary. Staff and donors do not see an error message or notification when this happens.
Warning
In some cases, you may see a similar gap even when the recurring gift record was created successfully: after an installment runs, the next scheduled entry is not generated. If a recurring gift stops moving to its next scheduled payment after a successful installment, treat it the same way as a missing record and contact Support. Recreating the recurring gift from scratch is the most reliable way to confirm whether the schedule is working again.
How to Confirm This Is What Happened
- Open the donor’s first gift for this recurring commitment and check its frequency. If it shows a “yearly” value instead of the recurring gift’s own Annually wording, that points to the mismatch.
- Check whether the gift’s linked billing schedule repeats yearly. If it does, billing is working as intended even though the recurring gift record is missing.
- Search for a recurring gift using the same identifier as the first gift. If none exists, the recurring gift record was never created.
What to Do for a Donor Who Wants to Give Once a Year
There is no confirmed way to create the missing recurring gift record after the fact from within the product. In the meantime:
- Let the donor know their annual gift will continue to be billed as agreed because billing is not affected.
- If you need a recurring gift record so the donor’s future annual giving appears in Fundraising’s recurring gift lists and totals, contact Support with the details below instead of trying to recreate it by hand.
- If the donor does not need an annual cadence, consider a monthly or quarterly recurring gift instead. Both create a working recurring gift record today.
- To report on these donors in the meantime, run a Gifts query and add the Recurring Frequency field as an output. This finds gifts marked with the annual recurring frequency even when no recurring gift record exists to search or total against.
When to Contact Support
Contact Support if you confirm that a donor is being billed annually without a matching recurring gift record. Include:
- the donor’s name and the gift that started the annual commitment;
- the giving process used to process the gift;
- whether the first gift’s frequency field reads a “yearly” value;
- whether a billing schedule exists for that gift and repeats yearly.