Pending Contributions

Sometimes you need to track a contribution before the money hits your bank account. Read on to learn how Open Collective enables you to manage pending contributions.

There are two types of pending contributions on the platform:

1. The first are automatically generated when contributors use the “bank transfer” payment method and then manually complete payment at a later time.

2. The other are pending contributions created by a Fiscal Host to track expected funds as a consequence of fund-raising efforts by either the Fiscal Host or Collective. Documenting expected incoming contributions will make it easier for you to track them down and reconcile them when they appear in your bank account.

Pending contributions can be found in your Fiscal Host Dashboard > Expected Funds.

Creating a Pending Contribution

When you become aware of expected funds (for example, when notified by a Collective administrator), you can create a new pending contribution. Go to your Fiscal Host Dashboard > Expected Funds. At the top of the screen, click “Create +”

The form is divided into three sections:

1. In the first section, you can indicate:

   1. Which of your hosted Collectives the funding will be allocated towards.

   2. You can decide within the Collective if the funds are supposed to go to the main Collective account or to a project or event. You can also link the funding to a specific contribution tier.

2. In the second section, you can indicate where the money is coming from:

   1. Select an existing Organization or create a new one.

   2. Add contribution-specific contact information (name and email) for this funding. If you provide a contact email address, they will be automatically notified when the funding is allocated to the collective.

   3. If you are interacting with a funder's payment system and have a purchase order number to track, you can add it here.

3. In the third section, you can indicate:

   1. The expected amount

   2. The expected payment method

   3. The expected date for the funds to arrive

   4. The host fees

   5. An internal note to document information related to this pending contribution

Review & Edit a Pending Contribution

When you find a pending contribution (see Searching for Pending Contributions), you can click on its title to review its details.

Click on “Edit Contribution” to modify the pending contribution details.

Finding Pending Contributions

You can search for a pending contribution based on any of the information you’ve entered and you can filter pending contributions for a time period and the amount of the contribution.

Reconciling Pending Contributions

When you’ve found a pending contribution that matches incoming funds, you can reconcile it by clicking on “Mark as Completed" which will display this reconciliation screen.

This screen will be populated with the information from the pending contribution. You can modify the amounts to match the funding that was actually received, payment processor fees and the host fees.

When you click on “submit” the following things will happen:

1. The funds will be credited to the collective (or project or event) and if selected, Tier. Four transactions will be created:

   1. Funds will be debited from the funder account.

   2. Funds will be credited to the Collective.

   3. Host fees will be deducted from the Collective account.

   4. Host fees will be credited to the host.

2. The pending contribution will be marked as completed.

3. The Collective admins will receive a notification letting them know that their funds have arrived and have been allocated to their account.

4. The funder contact (if there is one) will receive an email notification letting them know that the funds have been received and allocated to the Collective.

The reconciled pending contribution will no longer appear under pending contributions. It will now appear as a contribution to the Collective.

Expiring Pending Contributions

The expected dates on pending contributions are informational estimates. When the expected date passes it will be emphasized with a highlight to indicate it may be overdue.

If you no longer expect a pending contribution to be fulfilled, you can mark it as expired.

If for some reason, the funds for an expired pending contribution do arrive, you will still be able to search for it and reconcile it.