Trinity has moved into the modern era of donations, making available a variety of options to support parishioner needs. Below is an explanation of the process pertaining to each available option —
1. Cash or Check
Trinity parishioners have been provided payment envelopes for 2018 to support payment by this method. By using the envelopes, we are easily able to track each family’s donations and provide an annual statement of your giving. If envelopes are not used, it is impossible to track cash payments and difficult for counters to ensure that monies are credited appropriately.
2. PayPal
Since 2016, Trinity has used PayPal for online donations to Trinity (through Facebook and Trinity’s website). PayPal maintains the donation information and notifies Trinity of the monies contributed to Trinity via PayPal. The Trinity Accounting Team transfers the money monthly to our checking account. PayPal does extract fees for this service.
3. POYNT
Since 2017, Trinity has had the option to process major credit card payments – ApplePay and Samsung Pay – via a POYNT terminal. POYNT is offered to Trinity through Univest, Trinity’s cooperating bank. The monies processed via POYNT are deposited directly into our account the same day. Using POYNT provides Trinity donors with greater security, as the information is NOT maintained at Trinity but rather at the bank. Additionally, POYNT’s user fees are less than PayPal, so more of your money stays with Trinity. POYNT is ideal for one-time donations.
4. Online Payments (i.e., Converge)
Since late 2017, Trinity has been able to provide an online banking option for either one-time or recurring payments. For this service, a select group of Trinity Accounting Team members have been provided access to open the portal to the bank to input the parishioner information into the bank website. The process will support payment plans of all kinds for individuals who would rather have the payment made on a specific day of a month or week or other time of year. Similar to POYNT, the payments made via this process are deposited to Trinity’s account the same day and Trinity retains none of parishioners’ payment information (other than amount). Converge is ideal for recurring donations.
5. Personal Bank Electronic Payments
Trinity’s accounts are not able to take payments electronically from other banks. Our experience during 2017 has been that individuals who have set up electronic payment through their bank are actually having paper checks prepared and mailed to Trinity after printing. Trinity is not able to credit any payments to a parishioner’s giving account until the check is deposited at Trinity. Given the mailing delay, this often means a delay of 1-2 weeks from the check date.
As the marketplace continues to expand and move into new forms of payment options, Trinity will continue to investigate options that provide both Trinity and Trinity’s parishioners with security and ease of use.