Camp registration opens in February, families want to lock in a spot, and few want to pay the full fee for every child months before camp starts. A deposit fixes that for the family. For the person reconciling revenue in Altru, it creates a new job: tracking who owes what until June, and actually collecting it.
Deposits are workable in Altru, but there isn’t one obvious “camp deposit” button, and the right setup depends on how you’ve built camps in the first place. Below are the decisions to make, the common ways organizations structure it, and the reporting you’ll want before the first balance comes due.
Decide the policy before you touch configuration
Most deposit headaches come from policy that was never written down. Settle these first:
- Flat or percentage? A flat amount per camper (say, $100) is far easier to price, explain, and reconcile than a percentage.
- Refundable or not? Many organizations make the deposit non-refundable after a set date because it holds a capped seat. Whatever you choose, put it on the registration page and in the confirmation email.
- When is the balance due? A single due date (for example, four weeks before the first session) is much easier to chase than “two weeks before each child’s session.”
- What happens if it isn’t paid? Release the spot to the waitlist, or keep it and keep calling? Decide the cutoff now so staff aren’t negotiating case by case in May.
- Do members get a different deposit or price? If so, figure out where the discount applies: to the deposit, the balance, or both.
Three ways organizations structure deposits in Altru
1. Deposit as its own item, balance as a second item
Create a deposit item (or price type) for each camp and a separate balance item. The family pays the deposit at registration and buys the balance later. It’s simple to sell online and at the desk, and revenue reports show deposit and balance income separately.
The downside: Altru doesn’t know the two purchases belong together. You’ll need a query or naming convention that ties a camper’s deposit to their balance, or you’ll end up with families who paid a deposit and never got asked for the rest.
2. Full registration with a payment balance
Some camp setups in Altru, particularly ones built on event registration or reservation-style transactions, can record a registration where part of the amount is paid now and part remains outstanding. If your camps are configured this way, the balance lives on the registration itself, which makes “who still owes” a cleaner question.
Whether this works for you depends on how your camps are built and which version and options you’re running. Test it in a sandbox (or with a dummy constituent you delete afterward) before opening registration: register a camper, pay a partial amount, then confirm you can see the outstanding balance, apply a second payment, and process a refund. If you’re not sure the workflow is supported for your setup, Blackbaud support can confirm.
3. Deposit online, balance invoiced
Families pay a deposit through your normal online registration, and staff send a payment request for the balance closer to camp. This keeps the public registration flow short, which matters when spots are going fast, and moves the balance conversation to a direct message the family is more likely to act on.
The risk is the handoff: if the balance payment doesn’t post back to the right constituent and the right camp, you’re reconciling by hand.
Build the “who still owes” list on day one
Whatever structure you pick, create a query before registration opens, not in May. At minimum it should return:
- The paying constituent (usually the parent or guardian), with email and phone.
- The camper’s name and the camp or session.
- Deposit amount and date paid.
- Balance due and the balance due date.
- Whether the balance has been paid.
Run it weekly once deposits start coming in. If option 1 above is your setup, this query is the only thing connecting deposits to balances, so test it with a few fake registrations first.
One more check: confirm the household setup. Camp payments often come from one parent while the camper is linked to another. If constituent records and households aren’t clean, your balance reminders will go to the wrong inbox.
Collecting the balance without a phone campaign
- Send reminders on a schedule: once at 30 days out, again at 14, and a final notice a few days before your release cutoff. Each should state the exact amount owed and how to pay.
- Make paying easy: a direct payment link beats “log in and find your registration” or “call us during business hours.”
- Enforce the cutoff: release unpaid spots to the waitlist on the date you published. Doing it once teaches families that the date is real.
Refunds and cancellations
Plan for these before the first one comes in. Know whether a cancelled registration with a non-refundable deposit should leave the deposit as recognized revenue, and work out the steps with your finance team so the general ledger mapping matches. If you’ll offer credit toward a future camp instead of refunds, decide how you’ll track that credit in Altru, since a note on the constituent record alone is easy to miss.
Where Social Good fits
Most of the above comes down to Altru configuration and a reliable query. If balance collection is where things stall, Link2Pay lets staff send a branded pay-by-link for a camp balance or deposit, and the payment posts to Altru, so the family can pay from a link instead of calling in.
Quick answers
Can a family pay the deposit online and the balance at the front desk?
That generally works, as long as desk staff know which item or registration to apply the payment to. Write that down for them, and test the desk workflow before registration opens; this is where mismatched balances tend to come from.
Should the deposit be tax-deductible?
Generally no. Camp fees are payment for a program, not a gift. If a family wants to add a donation, record it as a separate gift. Check with your finance team or tax advisor for your specific situation.
