By enabling the ability to pay by PayPal directly in your form, donors can complete their purchase in just a few clicks. Giving donors a familiar way to pay can lessen abandoned carts and increase funds for your organization.

Pro tip: Adding PayPal to your organization also adds Venmo as a payment option. 

Contents:

• Before You Begin
• Adding PayPal to Your Organization
• Customizing the Authenticated Message in Form Builder
• What Donors See
• Refunds
• Reporting
• Recurring

 

Before You Begin

On which tools is PayPal supported?

PayPal (with Venmo) is available for all organizations based in the US. It is also available in Canada but is only compatible with USD, not CAD.

• PayPal/Venmo is best supported during checkout for:
  • Donation forms
  • Standard events
  • Peer-to-peer registrations
  • Peer-to-peer donations
• PayPal/Venmo is not currently available for:
  • Auction events
  • Givi
• It's important to note that Venmo is not available for recurring gifts, but PayPal is.

Creating Your PayPal Account: 

To add the ability to pay with PayPal, you must have a merchant/business account with PayPal. We recommend you set up your PayPal account before adding PayPal to your organization in Qgiv.

Once you add PayPal to your organization, Venmo will also be available during checkout.

PayPal/Venmo Processing Fees:

Transaction fees are your normal PayPal rates, plus a Qgiv transaction fee of 1.95% per transaction (2.95% for peer-to-peer transactions) for PayPal and Venmo transactions. There are no added cents-per-transaction fees. Your PayPal transaction fees will continue to be handled outside of the Qgiv system by PayPal.

When you're looking at your reports in Qgiv, you'll see “PayPal” as the payment type in the transaction details, but all statements, accounting, settlement questions, etc. would go through PayPal since they're still processing the transactions—we just place it on your form as a payment option! To learn more about packages pricing and fees, check out this article.

 

Adding PayPal to Your Organization

Please note: You’ll need to contact the Customer Experience Team to let them know you’d like to add PayPal/Venmo to your account. Once the Customer Experience Team is notified, the Manage PayPal link will become visible. 

On your organization-level dashboard, look for the Manage PayPal link under Settings.

On the Manage PayPal screen, click Enable PayPal.

You’ll be prompted to log in with your PayPal credentials.  

If you need to set up a new PayPal account, you can create one from this screen. 

When you've successfully connected, you'll see this screen:

Once you’ve authorized Qgiv to use your PayPal account, you will see your Merchant ID, as well as verification that your email is confirmed, payments are receivable, and permissions have been granted. 

If you see a "No" for any of the three verifications:

• Has Confirmed Email: Locate the email sent to you by PayPal and confirm your email address 

• Are Payments Receivable: Contact PayPal support for more information.  

• Have Permissions Granted: Re-do permissions by pressing the button located at the top of the screen. 

And that’s it! PayPal will now be available to donors on your public-facing forms. If you’d like to view what donors will see when they visit your form, you can skip ahead to this section.

But first, we recommend a small customization to your form’s payment details page. 

 

Customizing the Authenticated Message in Form Builder 

By default, donors will see the following message after pressing the PayPal or Venmo button. 

To edit this message, navigate to the Payment Details step in Form Builder. 

 

Click the gear icon in the top right corner of the widget to edit.

 

Scroll down to “Payment Method: PayPal.” From here, you can change the Default Message that appears under the tab.  

 

Please note: Venmo does not support recurring gifts, so if a donor selects the recurring gift option, they will only see the PayPal button. You may want to include that information in the Default Message for the tab. 

 

What Donors See

When a donation or registration is made, PayPal and Venmo will appear as payment options on your form during checkout. To see the donor experience when using Venmo, read the Venmo as a Payment Option article. 

Please note: The Venmo button will not appear for donation forms on iOS devices because of a technical issue on PayPal’s side. The Venmo button will still appear on non-iOS devices and for peer-to-peer and event registrations on iOS devices.

 

Donation Form Transactions

Please note: Venmo does not support recurring gifts, so if a donor selects a recurring gift, they will only see the PayPal button on this page. 

Clicking the PayPal button will trigger a popup where donors can log in to PayPal or create an account or check out as a guest using a debit/credit card to complete their donation. 

When a donor chooses the guest checkout option, a form will appear. They'll complete the form to process the payment on PayPal. They'll then click Continue to return to the Qgiv form and complete the donation. Donors will then select their payment method in PayPal and click Donate Now. 

After logging in and clicking Continue in the popup, the message in the Payment Details section of the donation form will update to the following:

All that's left for the donor to do is click the submit button—voila; donation complete!

 

Peer-to-Peer Transactions

Registering for a Peer-to-Peer Event

After a participant has selected a package and filled out any details required by your organization, they’ll reach the Billing Details step. When participants select PayPal, they’ll follow the steps above to authenticate and complete their transaction. 

 

Making a Peer-to-Peer Donation

To make a peer-to-peer donation by PayPal, donors will select their gift amount and fill out any fields required by your organization. Under the Billing Information, they’ll select “PayPal” and follow the steps above to authenticate and complete their gift. 

 

Purchasing an Item from the Store

Once the participant has added an item to their cart, they’ll navigate to checkout and select “Paypal.” Once PayPal is selected, they’ll follow the steps above to authenticate their account and complete their transaction.   

 

Refunds

PayPal refunds can be managed directly in your Qgiv transaction details, just as they are for other Qgiv transactions.

To learn more about issuing refunds in Qgiv, check out this article.

 

Reporting

In Batches and Settlements, PayPal transactions will show up in the Unfunded column as PayPal transactions. Remember, all PayPal transactions are still handled through your PayPal account.

If you're using the Express Donate feature, check out this article to learn more about what donor information you'll receive.

 

Recurring

If a donor has set up a recurring donation through PayPal, the payment will be processed based on their selected frequency. You can modify the recurring payment frequency within your Qgiv control panel.