BP 11122023 129pm - Flipbook - Page 139
Payment Processing System Best Practices
September 2023
There are numerous options when choosing a payment processing application. It is the pastor’s
decision which vendor to ultimately use. The Archdiocese recommends using Vanco, Our
Sunday Visitor, and ParishSoft for payment processing and does not provide support to locations
that use other vendors.
Links to recommended providers:
Online Giving & Donations for Churches | Vanco (vancopayments.com)
Online Giving | Our Sunday Visitor (osv.com)
Complete Guide to Online Giving - ParishSOFT
These systems meet the following criteria which should be considered when selecting a payment
processing vendor:
• SSAE & PCI compliant.
• Allows regularly scheduled recurring and one-time gift processing.
• Maintains a user-friendly portal for donor gift management, parish customization of
funds, messaging, etc.
• Offers competitive pricing on monthly fees and transaction processing.
• Formats data for efficiently processing daily, weekly or monthly import into ParishSOFT
Family Suite (frequency to be determined by the parish/location)
• Provides record of gross deposits of individual transactions with separate monthly
invoicing for service fees for proper booking of income and expenses.
• Provides accessible support resource.
• Offers ACH and credit card processing.
Once a vendor has been selected based on the minimum criteria above, the following best
practices should be considered:
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Identify an individual without any conflict of interest to be the account Administrator.
To support the dual control of funds, two parish employees should have access to the
account, which allows for separate verification of statements/reports for reconciling and
recording transactions. If there is a lack of employees available, consider seeking
assistance from a trusted volunteer or a finance council member.
Create the account in the parish name and tax id, not the pastor’s or an employee’s name
and social security number.
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