A donor makes a pledge payment twice by mistake, or a board member’s assistant charges the wrong card, or a family asks for money back after a hardship. Whatever the reason, refunding a pledge payment in Altru is less straightforward than refunding a ticket order. The difference comes from what a pledge payment is. It’s revenue applied against an outstanding commitment, not a standalone sale.
Below is how to think it through, the decisions you need to make before touching the record, and the places where you should confirm behavior in your own database rather than take anyone’s word for it, ours included.
Why pledge refunds feel different from order refunds
Daily sales and advance sales orders have a refund process built around the order: you pick the order, choose what’s being returned, and the refund is tied back to it. Pledge payments live on the revenue side of Altru. The payment reduces a pledge balance, may already be in a deposit, may already be posted, and probably already triggered an acknowledgment.
So “refund” really means three separate things that happen in three different places:
- The money going back to the donor (through your payment processor, or by check).
- The revenue record in Altru being corrected so your totals and the donor’s giving history are accurate.
- The pledge balance being set to whatever it should be afterward.
Keeping those three apart makes the whole process much less confusing.
Decide what should happen to the pledge
Before anyone edits anything, answer one question: does the donor still owe this amount?
- Duplicate or mistaken payment, pledge still stands. The donor intends to keep paying. After the refund, the balance should go back up by the refunded amount, and future installments stay as scheduled.
- Donor is backing out of the commitment. The payment is refunded and the remaining balance shouldn’t sit on your books as receivable. That usually means a write-off of the unpaid balance once the payment is removed, following your finance team’s policy.
- Partial refund. The donor overpaid or the amount was keyed wrong. You’re correcting the payment amount, not reversing the gift.
Get your finance or development director to agree on this before processing. It determines how the revenue record should be corrected and what the donor’s giving history will show.
Check whether the payment has posted
This is the fork that matters most inside Altru.
Not yet posted to the general ledger
If the payment hasn’t posted, you typically have more freedom: correcting the amount, or removing the payment entirely, is often a matter of editing or deleting the revenue record. Removing the payment should restore the pledge balance. If the payment sits in a batch or a deposit that isn’t committed or closed, you may need to deal with it there first.
Already posted
Once revenue has posted, editing it generally produces an adjustment rather than silently changing history, so your GL entries stay consistent. Expect to supply an adjustment date and reason. Your finance team will want to know the adjustment is coming so their reconciliation matches.
Exactly which edits Altru allows on a posted pledge payment, and how it handles the pledge balance afterward, can depend on your configuration and security rights. I’d strongly suggest running the scenario on a test constituent in a sandbox first, or asking Blackbaud support to confirm the recommended approach for your setup. Don’t experiment on a live donor’s record.
Return the money separately
Correcting the revenue record in Altru doesn’t, by itself, send money back to a card. If the payment was processed by card, the actual refund usually happens through your payment processor’s portal. If it was a check or cash, it’s a check request through accounts payable.
Do the refund and the Altru correction close together in time and note the processor’s transaction reference on the constituent or revenue record. Six months later, when someone asks why the pledge balance changed, that note will save an hour.
Clean up the edges
- Acknowledgments and tax receipts. If the donor already received a receipt for the refunded amount, send a corrected one or a short letter. Year-end giving summaries pull from revenue, so make sure the correction happens before those go out.
- Recognition and soft credits. Refunded amounts can still count toward recognition levels or soft-credit totals until the revenue is corrected. Spot-check the constituent’s giving summary afterward.
- Scheduled installments. If the donor is keeping the pledge, confirm the installment schedule still looks right. If they’re leaving, make sure no reminders go out for a balance that’s been written off.
- Reports and queries. If you track pledge balances in a saved query or report, re-run it to make sure the record shows what you expect.
A short checklist to keep at hand
- Confirm the reason and decide whether the pledge still stands.
- Check whether the payment has posted and whether its batch or deposit is still open.
- Correct the revenue in Altru (edit or delete if unposted; adjust if posted).
- Refund the money through the processor or accounts payable.
- Write off any remaining balance if the donor is withdrawing, per finance policy.
- Note the processor reference and the reason on the record.
- Send a corrected acknowledgment and tell finance.
Quick answers
Can I use the order refund process for a pledge payment?
Order refunds are designed around sales orders. Pledge payments are handled as revenue, so plan on correcting the revenue record instead. If you’re unsure how your version handles it, confirm with Blackbaud support.
Will deleting a payment remove the pledge?
Deleting a payment shouldn’t delete the pledge itself. It should restore the balance the payment had covered. Verify this on a test record first, since the pledge, not the payment, is what you want to keep intact.
