Prefacing this with an apology--I'm not a developer and am only posting here because the authorize.net help guy said it would be the best/fastest way to get this question answered:
Can authorize.net and Raiser's Edge work together to seamlessly process recurring donations without information being manually entered directly into RE?
More info:
My organization uses authorize.net to process donations. We also use a Blackbaud NetCommunity online donation form, which sends donor information into Raiser's Edge.
We would like to have the recurring donations submitted on our website be automatically processed from RE.
However, that isn't happening right now. Currently, since the credit card information is encrypted by authorize.net, when someone makes a recurring donation on our site, we call the person and get the credit card information and the date the donation should be withdrawn each month. We then manually enter that information into Raiser's Edge.
Blackbaud says we are stuck with this manual process as long as we're using authorize.net because authorize.net does NOT support Multiple Cards Not Present transactions (batch) which is necessary for Raiser's Edge to automatically process monthly recurring gifts. They informed me that in order for the recurring gift feature to work with our current NC donation form and RE, we need to use either Blackbaud Merchant Services or iATS.
When I asked authorize.net if that was accurate, the response was to send me information about the Automated Recurring Billing (which we do NOT currently have set up). I then asked if that is the answer: if we set up ARB, will authorize.net then be able to support batch transactions? However, the answer is that I should just forward the ARB documentation to the Blackbaud Raiser's Edge people and have them figure it out.
Can someone tell me if ARB allows authorize.net to handle Multiple Cards Not Present (batch) transactions so Raiser's Edge can automatically process recurring donations submitted online through our NetCommunity donation form?
Thank you!
Solved! Go to Solution.
06-27-2013 01:35 PM
What you need to do probably is have your web site set up the recurring billing itself without going through Raiser's Edge. It's possible with either the ARB (if you just want fixed recurring billing and don't care about credit card data passing through your site) or CIM API's. The Authorize.net mobile SDK for Android does support ARB and CIM, but the one for iOS does not seem to, so if you're using Raiser's Edge from an iPhone, it's going to be impossible for them to help you there. And not really much point if people are signing up through your site.
See the API support here:
06-27-2013 04:19 PM
What you need to do probably is have your web site set up the recurring billing itself without going through Raiser's Edge. It's possible with either the ARB (if you just want fixed recurring billing and don't care about credit card data passing through your site) or CIM API's. The Authorize.net mobile SDK for Android does support ARB and CIM, but the one for iOS does not seem to, so if you're using Raiser's Edge from an iPhone, it's going to be impossible for them to help you there. And not really much point if people are signing up through your site.
See the API support here:
06-27-2013 04:19 PM
Thanks for the fast response!
So, recurring billing can happen with authorize.net, but the solution is separate from RE and not iPhone friendly. Therefore, if my development department wants to keep all donations going through RE (and/or if we're planning mobile outreach with the hopes of attracting recurring donations), then authorize.net is not the way to go.
Much appreciated!
06-28-2013 09:57 AM