Pre-authorized debit in Canada

Enabling PAD (pre-authorized debit) allows supporters to connect directly to their Canadian account online and approve immediate bank-to-bank transfers. These will appear in Stripe and will be fully compliant with Canadian requirements.

Please note that PAD will not appear as a payment method in the Donor Portal for any supporters.

It will not appear as a payment option for any supporters outside of Canada. It will not be shown to supporters donating in any currency other than the Canadian dollar, even if they are in Canada.

Processing fees

Fees for PAD donations are 1% + 0.40 CAD, with a 5 CAD cap. An additional 1 CAD is added if instant verification (whereby the supporter logs into their online banking service to confirm the payment). There is a 5 CAD fee for failures and disputes.

Step 1: Enable PAD in Stripe

Begin by working out whether PAD is already enabled in your Stripe account.

1. Go to your Stripe dashboard.
2. Click the gear icon in the top-right corner of the screen and click Settings.
3. In the Payments section, select Payment methods.
4. Scroll down and see whether PAD is marked as Active in the Bank redirects section.

If it is active, you can move on to step 2. If it’s not marked as active, click Turn on.

Step 2: Enable PAD in Fundraise Up

If your Fundraise Up account is connected to a Canadian or US Stripe account, the Payment Methods screen will provide options for you to enable PAD. You can enable PAD in Fundraise Up by following these steps:

1. Go to the Fundraise Up Dashboard.
2. Click your name in the top right, and choose Settings from the dropdown menu.
3. Click Payment methods in the left hand menu.
4. Click on PAD (CA Direct Debit).
5. Click the Enable PAD button.

Step 3: Disable Stripe's PAD emails

Stripe has a series of emails to assist with account verification and payment confirmation, which are unnecessary if you're using our PAD solution as we allow you to customize versions of those emails from Fundraise Up. If you don’t disable the Stripe PAD email set, supporters will receive two sets of emails that will contain differing content.

1. Go to your Stripe dashboard.
2. Click the gear icon in the top-right corner of the screen and click Settings.
3. Scroll down to Business settings and, in the Your business block, click Emails.
4. In the Customer emails section, toggle off Send Canada PAD mandate, debit initiation, and micro deposit verification emails.

Step 4: See how supporters pay with PAD

Checkout form

When a supporter gets to the Payment Options screen in your Checkout modal or Campaign Page, as long as their donation is $14 CAD or more, they'll be see a Bank transfer button.

If they click Bank transfer and their donation is in CAD (or no other ACH options are enabled), they'll be taken to the PAD connection screen with two options for how they can pay for their donation with a bank account:

• by clicking Agree and logging into their bank.
• or by clicking Manually verify, providing their account details, and then verifying their bank account using microdesposits.

If the supporter chooses to log into their bank, they'll be able to pay by authorizing their transaction immediately, which will save a significant amount of time.

If the supporter chooses to provide their account number and use micro-deposit verification, they'll be emailed each of the Bank Verification email templates (if set to Send) that include instructions and a button to verify their transaction, once the micro-deposits land in their account in the next 5 business days.

PAD in the Virtual Terminal

When making donations using the Virtual Terminal, PAD is available as a payment option. The key restriction to keep in mind is that, as the supporter cannot provide you with their bank login details, the only verification method available is micro-deposits.

As such, you can enter the supporter’s bank account details when entering a donation for them, and they will be sent the appropriate bank verification email templates, provided those emails are enabled.

Step 5: Customize confirmation and verification emails

When supporters make PAD donations, they will receive emails from Fundraise Up. These emails can be managed and customized from your Fundraise Up account. They can be adjusted both centrally from the Emails section of your Dashboard Settings, and on a per-campaign basis using the controls in each campaign's Emails tab.

If a supporter logs into their bank to authorize a PAD donation, they'll by default receive the "Donation in progress" email. Once their donation has successfully gone through, they'll then be sent the applicable "Receipt" email template.

If a supporter using public checkout chooses to verify their PAD donation manually — or if their PAD donation was entered via Virtual Terminal where manual verification is the only option — Stripe will send micro-deposits to their bank account, and they’ll receive the following emails:

• the standard "PAD Bank Verification" email template will arrive immediately.
• two days later, if they haven't verified yet, they'll receive the "PAD Bank Verification Instructions" email.
• every four days after that, until they complete verification or the donation fails, they'll get the "PAD Bank Verification Reminder" email.
• and, once their bank account is verified, they'll get the "Donation in progress" email.

For PAD supporters, the "Donation in progress" email includes legal text (sourced from Stripe) below their agreement, outlining what the supporter is entitled to with regards to their PAD payment. To see this text, go to the Emails page of you main Fundraise Up Settings, click Donation in progress in the left hand menu under the Donations dropdown, and click the Preview button.

Receipt delivery timeframes

Supporters will only receive the applicable "Receipt" email templates once their donation has been marked as Successful, which can only be done once Stripe lets Fundraise Up know that the donation is past the window where Stripe could have been sent (and passed along) any notifications of payment failure.

As such, for new donations and first installments of new recurring plans, receiving the "Receipt" email can take up to 10 business days. For subsequent installments of recurring plans, receiving the "Recurring installment receipt" email can take up to 7 business days, because the initial authorization is already complete.