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Adrienne Wurster
Adrienne Wurster
Rising Star
August 19, 2026

Donations - what amount do you record?

  • August 19, 2026
  • 6 replies
  • 34 views

If a donor donates $50 and pays the NFG fees, do you record that donation as $50, or as $50 plus the fees, i.e. $52.15?

6 replies

rachel moody
rachel moody
Community Manager
August 20, 2026

Hi ​@Adrienne Wurster! I would recommend you record the gift as $50. When a donor opts to cover the transaction feeds, the $50 is their charitable gift. The fee amount ($2.15) is the transaction cost the donor is absorbing on behalf of the org, it’s not part of the gift itself. 

Rachel at Bonterra
    Adrienne Wurster
    Adrienne WursterAuthor
    Rising Star
    August 20, 2026

    Thank you.  That makes sense, but how do you account for the additional amount received in your General Ledger?  Do you record and offset the transaction cost?

    Charles Case
    Charles Case
    Community Manager
    August 20, 2026

    Hi ​@Adrienne Wurster -- good question. Those transaction fees aren’t disbursed to you so you can pay Bonterra Payments, they are taken by BP at the time of the transaction and routed separately.

    I think Exports does a good job of making sense of this. When you go to do an export of donations in the Giving tab, you can export these fields:
    Total Charged (total amount donor paid)
    Total Amount Received (what you are getting/recording/acknowledging)
    Transaction Fee Covered (yes or no)
    Org Transaction Fee (if the donor did not cover the transaction fee, what was taken out of your donation)

    You should not need to account for the additional amount received, because it wasn’t given to you in this case.

    Charles Case (they/he)
      Adrienne Wurster
      Adrienne WursterAuthor
      Rising Star
      August 21, 2026

      Thanks for additional insight.  My confusion comes when the donor pays bia PayPal.  Say a donor makes a donation or buys and event ticket for $25 and pays the NFG transaction fees.  The amount of the donation sent to PayPal is $26.02 and that is the amount deposited in the organization’s checking account.  I am now trying to balance the checking account and I report the $25 as a donation, what do I do with the remaining $1.02?

      Karen Fishburn
      Karen Fishburn
      First Timer
      August 21, 2026

      Hi. At our organization we do count the fee paid as part of their donation. Our logic is they are paying that fee on our behalf, so it’s still considered a donation.  We add this information to their donation letters. And helps us avoid the very situation you are running into.

      Karen Fishburn
        Adrienne Wurster
        Adrienne WursterAuthor
        Rising Star
        August 22, 2026

        Thank you for your input. Do you do this for all donations processed through NFG or only those that pass from NFG to another payment portal, like PayPal.

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