Giving

Accept online giving for your church and decide where gifts go.

How do I connect my church's Stripe account?

Psalmly uses Stripe to process gifts. Stripe securely handles every card detail and pays your church directly — Psalmly never sees or stores card numbers.

To start accepting gifts:

Open Giving from the admin sidebar, then Set up giving (or the "Connect Stripe" banner at the top of the Giving page).
On the Setup page, select Connect with Stripe.
You'll be taken to Stripe to create (or sign in to) a Stripe account and provide your church's details — its legal name, address, and a bank account for payouts.
When you finish, Stripe returns you to the Giving → Setup page. (An expired or returned link lands there too, so you never hit a dead end.)

Once Stripe finishes reviewing your details, the Setup page shows a green Connected status and your church can receive gifts.

What the statuses mean

Not connected — you haven't started. Select Connect with Stripe.
Setup unfinished — you started but didn't complete Stripe's form. Select Finish Stripe setup to pick up where you left off.
Stripe is reviewing your account — you completed the form and Stripe is verifying your details. No action is needed; the status updates on its own.
Connected — your church can accept gifts. Payouts go straight from Stripe to your church's bank account on Stripe's own schedule.

Select Open Stripe dashboard any time to see payouts, update your bank details, or download reports directly from Stripe.

Who can connect Stripe?

Only church admins and owners can connect or change the church's Stripe account. Other members never see the Giving & payments controls.

How do I create and manage funds?

A fund is a designation a gift can go toward — "General Fund", "Missions", "Building Fund". Every gift is recorded against one fund, so givers can choose where their money goes and you can see totals per designation.

To manage funds, open Giving from the admin sidebar.

Create a fund

Select New fund and fill in:

Name — what givers see in the fund list (up to 80 characters).
Description — an optional sentence explaining the fund, shown on the give page.
Default fund — tick this to pre-select the fund on the give page. Only one fund can be the default; marking a new one moves the default off the old.

Select Create fund and it appears in your funds list right away.

Edit, archive, and restore

The funds list has two tabs: Active (the default) and Archived (with a count). Each fund row has an actions menu:

Edit — change the name, description, or default flag.
Archive — hides the fund from the public give page and moves it to the Archived tab. Past gifts to the fund keep their record. Archiving is reversible.
Restore — on the Archived tab, brings a fund back to Active so people can give to it again.

Funds are never permanently deleted — because gifts are tied to them, a fund always stays on record. Archiving simply takes it out of sight; givers only ever see Active funds.

How do people give to my church?

Once your Stripe account is connected and you have at least one active fund, your church's public website has a Give page at /give (for example, yourchurch.psalmly.app/give). Anyone can use it — a member or a first-time visitor, no sign-in required.

On the give page a person:

Picks an amount — a quick-pick button ($25, $50, $100) or a custom amount.
Chooses which fund the gift goes toward.
Enters an email address for their receipt.
Selects Give and is taken to Stripe's secure checkout page to enter their card details.

Card details are entered on Stripe, never on your church's site or Psalmly — this keeps your church out of scope for card-security compliance.

If you haven't finished connecting Stripe, the give page shows a friendly "not accepting online gifts yet" message instead of the form.

What happens when someone gives?

When a gift goes through:

Stripe charges the card and the money goes to your church's Stripe account — Psalmly never holds it and takes no cut of giving.
The gift is recorded against the fund the giver chose and appears in the Transactions table on your Giving page.
The giver lands on a thank-you page and Stripe emails them a receipt.
Stripe pays the gift out to your church's bank account on its normal payout schedule.

If a gift is refunded from your Stripe dashboard, the gift's record updates to show the refund automatically.

Can people give on a recurring schedule?

Yes — for signed-in givers. On the give page, a signed-in member can choose Monthly or Weekly instead of One-time. A recurring gift sets up an automatic payment that repeats on that schedule until it's canceled — Stripe charges the card each period and each payment is recorded as its own gift against the chosen fund.

A signed-out visitor can give one-time without an account, but recurring giving requires one: the give page shows them a quick "Create an account" prompt so they'll have a member portal to manage or cancel the gift later.

Signed-in members also get a Giving section in their member portal, where they can:

Make a one-time or recurring gift.
See their recurring gifts and cancel any of them at any time — a canceled gift simply stops at the end; nothing is clawed back.
Review their giving history for any of the last few years, with a yearly total.

A member can manage only their own recurring gifts. Cancelling one stops all future charges immediately.

How do I see who has given?

The Giving page in the admin area shows everything in one place:

A summary across the top — how much you've received this month, how many gifts, and how many active recurring gifts.
A Transactions table — every gift, with the date, the giver, the fund, the amount, and whether it was received, partly refunded, or refunded. Use the fund filter to narrow it to a single fund.
A sidebar with your funds, your recurring gifts, and your payouts.

The Dashboard also shows a Giving this month widget — the running total, a day-by-day chart, and a breakdown by fund.

How do giving statements work?

A giving statement is a year-end PDF summarising everything a person gave — the kind of record people attach to a tax return.

A member downloads their own statement from the Giving section of the member portal — pick a year and select Download statement.
An admin can download any member's statement from the Transactions table: select the giver's name on one of their gift rows.

The statement lists one line per gift, the fund, and the year's total, under your church's name.

Where does the money go (payouts)?

Gifts settle into your church's own Stripe account, and Stripe pays them out to your church's bank on its normal schedule — Psalmly never holds the money.

The Payouts list on the Giving page records each payout Stripe makes: the amount, its status, and when the funds arrive. For a full breakdown of which gifts make up a payout, open your Stripe dashboard.