Virtual Terminal

The Virtual Terminal is not enabled by default in your Fundraise Up account. To start using this feature:

1. Navigate to Dashboard > Settings > Virtual Terminal.
2. Select Enable Virtual Terminal.
3. Press T on your keyboard from anywhere in the Dashboard to open the Virtual Terminal.

Once enabled, you can disable Virtual Terminal at any time from the Virtual Terminal settings page.

When you enable Virtual Terminal, your organization's networks and computer systems become part of PCI compliance requirements. Review your device management plan to ensure proper security measures are in place.

All but one user role in Fundraise Up can access the Virtual Terminal and use it to process donations. Review the user roles below:

Important:

• Audit user permissions regularly to minimize PCI compliance scope.
• Up to 3 devices can access Virtual Terminal simultaneously.

Configure Virtual Terminal settings in Dashboard > Settings > Virtual Terminal to match your organization’s needs.

Control which campaigns appear in Virtual Terminal to make donation processing efficient. You have two options:

1. Show all campaigns with a preselected default
2. Show only selected campaigns

The second option helps reduce errors by limiting campaign choices for Virtual Terminal operators, ensuring they only see relevant campaigns.

Enable Make supporter's email required to ensure Virtual Terminal operators collect email addresses during donation processing. This guarantees supporters receive their donation receipts.

Enable Show additional notes to display essential information for your operators in Virtual Terminal, such as:

• Call scripts
• Common questions and answers
• Processing instructions

Your Virtual Terminal is a single-page checkout that contains all the necessary information and fields for your operators. Based on the choice of campaign, some fields and properties further along may be shown or hidden.

In Virtual Terminal, you can choose the campaign, designation (if enabled), the donation amount and frequency, and more.

When selecting any donation frequency other than “Once,” you can set specific limitations on each recurring plan created through the Virtual Terminal. Set a cut-off limit for any new recurring donation plan by:

• Max plan amount: The total maximum aggregate donation amount for the recurring plan.
• Max plan installments: The maximum number of installments that will be made.
• End date: The date on which the recurring plan will be canceled.

When you add a limit, the full Installment plan will appear on the right-hand side. If multiple limits are set for a recurring plan, the plan will be canceled as soon as any one cut-off condition is met.

The Donation section also includes the option to cover transaction costs. By default, the fee coverage amount is automatically calculated, but the amount can be edited by the Virtual Terminal operator.

As a best practice, we recommend verbally confirming the fee coverage option with a supporter when processing an in-person or over-the-phone donation.

The Supporter section contains fields for collecting supporter information. Using the search function, you can autofill information for your existing supporters. This functionality is shown by default when you enable Virtual Terminal, but it can be disabled if required by your organization's security policies. Similarly, you can configure the autofill functionality to be available to all user groups or you can exclude users with the Virtual Terminal Specialist role.

Depending on the settings you have in place for the selected campaign, you might see additional fields, including On behalf of for attributing a donation to an organization, as well as fields for comments and tribute giving.

For campaigns with marketing consent set up, Virtual Terminal displays the Supporter consents to marketing communication checkbox, unchecked by default. Checking this box means the supporter gives general permission for all types of communication. Learn more about marketing consents in your campaigns →

Unique to the Virtual Terminal, an email address is not required to process a donation. This functionality is useful for accepting donations from supporters that do not have email addresses.

If there are multiple languages enabled in your campaign, you will see a Language field in the Virtual Terminal where you can select a supporter’s preferred communication language. This preference applies to emails and the default language of their Donor Portal. Supporters can change their language preference later in the Donor Portal.

The language selector shows only the languages that you have enabled in your campaign. If no additional languages are enabled, this option will be hidden. This feature is particularly helpful for organizations in multilingual countries, such as Canada, as it allows them to proactively accommodate their supporters’ language preferences.

You can process a Virtual Terminal donation using any of the following types of payment methods:

• Card
• ACH Direct Debit
• Bacs UK Direct Debit
• SEPA Direct Debit
• BECS
• Canadian PAD
• Saved payment methods

For card-based payment methods, you can opt to process the donation without the card's CVC/CVV security code. This option is configured from the settings page for the Virtual Terminal in the Dashboard.

You will only see a saved payment method if the supporter already has an existing recurring donation that's being processed through Fundraise Up.

Saved payment methods

When supporters make a donation, their payment details are tokenized and securely stored in Stripe. These saved payment details can be reused for future donations in Virtual Terminal, so supporters won't need to provide their information again.

Compatible payment methods:

• Cards
• PayPal
• Apple Pay
• Google Pay
• Bank debits

Before using a saved payment method, you'll see a warning to confirm the details with your supporter. This helps prevent charging the wrong payment method and reduces refunds.

If custom fields exist for the campaign selected in Virtual Terminal, they are displayed in the Custom fields section, and the Virtual Terminal operator can input values for each field.

By default, supporters receive emails for donations processed using the Virtual Terminal. For one-time donations, the “One-time receipt” email is sent. For recurring donations, the “Plan receipt” email is sent if the recurring plan is set to process its first installment immediately. Alternatively, the “Plan scheduled” email is sent if the recurring plan is scheduled to begin on a later date.

There are two conditions under which emails are not sent to supporters:

• If no email address for the supporter is entered in the Virtual Terminal.
• If the Don’t send email option is selected at the bottom of the Virtual Terminal.

The Virtual Terminal is designed to help users process donations quickly and at high volume. This functionality is useful for call center environments, events, telethons and other live fundraising activities.

We strongly recommend notifying us in advance of any high-volume events where the Virtual Terminal will be used to process donations. This enables us to whitelist the IP addresses you will use for your event so that Fundraise Up’s anti-fraud tools do not flag your network and block traffic to the platform.

By default, Fundraise Up can process 200 real-time transactions per second, which is 25 times the processing demand of even the busiest days of the year. As needed, this processing capacity can be scaled to 1,000 transactions per second.