An email lands in the finance inbox: Blackbaud has new banking details, please update your vendor record before the next invoice. Or a letter arrives with a different remit-to address than the one on file. Before anyone touches accounts payable, stop and confirm it. Vendor payment-change notices are one of the most common ways nonprofits lose money to fraud, and a well-known software vendor’s name makes a fake notice more convincing.
We can’t tell you whether Blackbaud has changed its remittance details at any given moment. That changes over time, and only Blackbaud can confirm it. What we can do is lay out how to check a notice safely, and what “remittance” can mean for an Altru organization, because there are two different money flows people mix up.
Two kinds of remittance
Money you send to Blackbaud
This is your subscription and services invoice. A “remittance change” here means Blackbaud is asking you to pay to a different bank account, lockbox, or mailing address. Your finance team or business office usually handles it, not the Altru administrator, but the admin is often the person who gets asked “is this real?”
Money Blackbaud sends to you
If you process cards through Blackbaud Merchant Services, your ticket, membership, and donation card revenue is deposited to your bank by Blackbaud. Changes on this side might involve deposit timing, how fees are taken, how deposits are grouped, or what the deposit reports look like. These changes matter to whoever reconciles Altru revenue and batches against the bank statement.
Figure out which one you’re dealing with first. The verification steps overlap, but the people who need to know are different.
How to verify a notice before acting
- Don’t use the contact details in the notice. No reply, no calling the number in the email, no clicking a link to “confirm.” If the notice is fake, every contact path in it leads back to the fraudster.
- Reach Blackbaud through a channel you already trust. Log in to your Blackbaud customer account by typing the address yourself, open a support case, or call the number on an older invoice or contract you know is genuine. Ask plainly: “Has our remittance information changed, and can you confirm the new details?”
- Compare against your current invoices. Pull the most recent invoices from your accounts payable files and check whether recent legitimate ones already show the new details.
- Look at the sender closely. Check the actual sending address, not just the display name, and watch for lookalike domains, urgency (“update before Friday to avoid service interruption”), and requests to keep it quiet.
- Use your normal vendor-change control. Most organizations require a second person to approve any change to a vendor’s bank details. If yours doesn’t, this is a good reason to start.
If anything feels off, forward the message to your IT or security contact and to Blackbaud support before deleting it. If a payment has already gone to the wrong account, call your bank immediately; the window for recalling a transfer can be short.
If the change is real: paying Blackbaud
- Update the vendor record in your accounting system, and record who verified the change, how, and when.
- Check for any scheduled or recurring payments still pointed at the old details.
- Tell whoever approves invoices, so the next invoice with new details doesn’t trigger a false alarm (or so a later, different “change” does).
None of this touches Altru itself. Your Altru data, forms, and transactions don’t change because Blackbaud’s billing details did.
If the change is real: deposits to you
Changes to how card revenue reaches your bank can affect reconciliation, so involve whoever closes the books each month.
- Read the notice for what exactly changes. Timing of deposits, how fees are deducted, or how transactions are grouped into a deposit each require different adjustments.
- Do a test reconciliation. After the change takes effect, match one full deposit against the Altru revenue behind it: daily sales, online sales, memberships, and donations for the same period. Confirm the totals and fees line up the way you expect.
- Revisit your batch and posting routine. If deposit timing shifts, the date ranges you use when committing batches or running revenue reports may need to shift too, or month-end will look out of balance.
- Update your written procedures. Reconciliation steps tend to live in one person’s head. Write the new steps down while they’re fresh.
If you’re not sure how a particular change shows up in Altru reports or in your merchant account reports, ask Blackbaud support to walk through one example deposit with you. That’s faster than guessing for a whole month.
Quick answers
Do I need to change anything in Altru if Blackbaud’s billing address changes?
No. That’s an accounts payable update. Altru configuration isn’t involved.
Who should own verification?
Finance owns the vendor record. The Altru administrator is often the person with a working Blackbaud support relationship, so it helps to make that check together.
What if we can’t reach Blackbaud quickly?
Hold the payment until you can confirm. A slightly late invoice is easy to fix. Money sent to the wrong account often is not.
