--- schema_version: "1" id: 691f3c78ad9babe19ada03b9c76dcc76c002b7990fa04ab875ef8d333421abc3 title: Manage Donations in Salesforce collection: admin version: current locale: en-us portal_url: https://docs.salesforce.com/admin/current/en-us/sfdo/264-0-0/npsp_manage_donations_in_salesforce.md canonical_url: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sfdo.npsp_manage_donations_in_salesforce.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 source_site: help.salesforce.com content_type: documentation content_hash: b4f3a4671b89168c54914442da772d733fc62e0d7c30f288a1d4b7c19440af35 description: Learn fundamentals of gift entry and donor management in the Nonprofit Success Pack. products: - Nonprofit release: "264" --- # Manage Donations in Salesforce Learn fundamentals of gift entry and donor management in the Nonprofit Success Pack. - **[About Donation Management](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sfdo.npsp_manage_donations_in_salesforce.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5)** Chances are you've managed donations in another database, accounting system, or with spreadsheets. The same concepts you're familiar with apply to Salesforce and the Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP). You just need to know what things are called and where to click. - **[How to Get Donations Into Salesforce](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sfdo.npsp_manage_donations_in_salesforce.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5)** NPSP is designed to handle all the different kinds of donations you receive, such as single donations, matching gifts, recurring donations, tributes, and more. Learn the most efficient way to enter different kinds of donations. - **[Credit Where Credit is Due](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sfdo.npsp_manage_donations_in_salesforce.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5)** Soft credits let you track people who contributed to getting a donation in the door. For example, you might attribute a soft credit to a board member who influenced their friend to donate to your organization. - **[Nonprofit Financial Accounting](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sfdo.npsp_manage_donations_in_salesforce.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5)** Use General Accounting Units to designate a donation to specific funds, and Accounting Subledger to bridge the gap between accounting and other departments. ## About Donation Management Chances are you've managed donations in another database, accounting system, or with spreadsheets. The same concepts you're familiar with apply to Salesforce and the Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP). You just need to know what things are called and where to click. Donations are called Opportunities in Salesforce. An Opportunity is a specially-designed Salesforce record for recording revenue by the amount, date, and person or organization that revenue is from. Businesses use Opportunities to track sales deals–nonprofits use Opportunities to track donations. We use the terms Donation and Opportunity interchangeably throughout the product documentation. For help with Salesforce terms you aren't familiar with, check out the [Donations Glossary](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sfdo.npsp_donations_glossary.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Common fundraising terms and how these concepts relate to records in NPSP."). ## How to Get Donations Into Salesforce NPSP is designed to handle all the different kinds of donations you receive, such as single donations, matching gifts, recurring donations, tributes, and more. Learn the most efficient way to enter different kinds of donations. ### Enter Single Donations or a Collection of Donations Use the NPSP Gift Entry tool to enter one-off single donations, or a collection of donations in a batch. To learn about Gift Entry, see [Enter Gifts in Gift Entry](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sfdo.npsp_enter_gifts_in_ge.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Enter donations, donors, and their related records in one form as a batch or one at a time."). ### Enter Pledges NPSP uses Opportunity and Payment records to manage pledges–a donor’s agreement to donate a set amount of money in installments. For example, to track a pledge of $400 paid in $100 installments every quarter for one year, NPSP creates one Opportunity of $400 and four related Payment records of $100 each. To learn more about Pledges, check out [Manage Pledges](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sfdo.npsp_manage_pledges.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Track and manage pledges for gifts with multiple payments."). ### Issue Refunds Refund donations on an Opportunity’s Payment record. To learn more about refunds, see [Refund Donation Payments](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sfdo.npsp_refund_donation_payments.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Document refunds from Payment records in NPSP."). ### Enter Recurring Donations NPSP handles recurring donations by creating Opportunity records based on the installment schedule. You can specify a monthly, quarterly, yearly, or custom installment schedule. To learn how to enter recurring donations in NPSP, see [Create a Recurring Donation](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sfdo.npsp_create_a_recurring_donation.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Learn how to create open-ended and fixed-length Recurring Donations. Choose monthly, quarterly, yearly, or a custom installment schedule."). ### Collect Donations Online Salesforce.org Elevate is a powerful app that accepts and processes donations online, and automatically sends the donation data to NPSP. To learn more about Elevate, see the [Elevate Product Documentation](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleview?id=sfdo.elevate.htm&type=5). ### Import Your Data Import your contacts, accounts, and donations into Salesforce with the Salesforce Data Import Wizard or another import tool of your choice. For more information about importing your data, see [How the Import Process Works](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sfdo.npsp_how_di_works.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Use NPSP Data Importer for regular data import and custom integrations. It's also the engine that powers Gift Entry and Elevate."). ## Credit Where Credit is Due Soft credits let you track people who contributed to getting a donation in the door. For example, you might attribute a soft credit to a board member who influenced their friend to donate to your organization. Soft credits let you track people who contributed to getting a donation in the door. For example, you might attribute a soft credit to a board member who influenced their friend to donate to your organization. You can assign soft credits manually, or configure NPSP to assign soft credits automatically based on criteria you choose. To learn more about soft credits, see the [Soft Credits Overview](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sfdo.npsp_soft_credits_overview.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Soft credits are a fundraising concept that represent recognition of credit for donations. Soft credits help you to better understand a donor's history and their level of influence."). ## Nonprofit Financial Accounting Use General Accounting Units to designate a donation to specific funds, and Accounting Subledger to bridge the gap between accounting and other departments. ### Designate Specific Funds for a Donation To designate a donation (or portions of a donation) to specific funds or programs, NPSP uses General Accounting Units (GAUs). GAUs often map to an organization's chart of accounts or accounting classes. To learn more about GAUs, see [Allocations Overview](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sfdo.npsp_create_and_manage_donation_allocations.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Allocate donations into General Accounting Units (GAUs) if you want to set funds aside for specific purposes."). ### Bridge the Accounting Gap Accounting Subledger is a Salesforce app that helps bridge the gap between accounting and other departments. Accounting Subledger generates debits and credits from Salesforce records—automatically formatted for export to your accounting systems. To learn more, see the [Accounting Subledger Documentation](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleview?id=sfdo.accounting_subledger.htm&type=5).