Recording offline gifts

Cash and check gifts never touch Stripe, so someone has to type them in. Scout records them one at a time on a form called Record Donation, and once saved they sit in the same donor history, the same report and the same export as the gifts that came in online through Stripe.

What you need first

Two permissions: View giving data and Record offline donations. The seeded Admin, Pastor and Finance roles hold both. The seeded Staff role holds neither, by design, so a staff member can't open the Giving page at all and lands on a page reading "You don't have access to this". An admin can add both permissions under Settings → Permissions, or move a bookkeeper to the Finance role. See How roles work.

You also need one active fund. Fund is required on the form, Scout creates none when your church is set up, and the save button stays disabled while the fund list is empty. Go to Giving → Funds (/giving/funds) and click New Fund. On the empty state, Create General Fund opens that same form pre-filled with the name General, a description, and Set as default fund already ticked, so all you do is click Create Fund.

Record a gift

1. 1

   Open the form

   Go to Giving and click Record gift in the top right. On a phone the label is hidden and the button shows as a plus icon. The screen it opens is titled Record Donation.

2. 2

   Enter the amount

   Amount is required, in dollars and cents.

3. 3

   Check the fund

   Fund is required, and Scout preselects your default fund (or the first active fund, if no default is set). Change it when the gift was designated somewhere else.

4. 4

   Choose the method

   Method is a three-way control: Cash, Check, Other. Those are the only offline methods Scout accepts.

5. 5

   Set the date

   Date is optional and pre-filled with today. Change it to the day the gift was received when you're catching up, so it counts in the right week.

6. 6

   Find the giver

   Donor is optional. Type at least two letters of a name and pick the person from the results. The box searches people who are already in Scout, so a name it can't find comes back as No results.

7. 7

   Add a note

   Note is optional and takes the check number or the memo line.

8. 8

   Save it

   Click Record Donation. The button is disabled until Amount and Fund are both filled in.

The confirmation reads Donation Recorded with the amount and method, and offers Record Another and Back to Giving. Record Another clears the amount, the note and the donor and resets the date to today, while keeping the fund and method you picked, so a stack of checks to one fund takes an amount and a name each time.

Scout has no batch screen and holds no running total against a deposit, so reconcile the offering against your deposit slip yourself.

If the giver isn't in Scout yet

The form has no create-person control. Add them under People with Add Person, then come back and record the gift.

You can also leave Donor blank. The gift saves and reads as Anonymous in the Recent gifts table and in the CSV export. It counts toward your totals and it belongs to no one, so it never appears on anybody's profile.

Read it back before you save

Scout has no control for editing or deleting a gift once it's recorded. A wrong amount, fund or donor stays wrong, and the form rejects a negative amount, so you can't post an offsetting correction either. Check the fields before you click Record Donation. If a bad gift is already saved, email support@scout.church.

Stock and crypto

Scout has no Stock method. Record a stock or crypto gift as Other, at its US dollar value on the date your church received it, and put the security or asset, the share count and the broker or wallet in Note. Your accountant sets the value.

Scout stores the number and your note. It writes no non-cash contribution language and issues no receipt, so any acknowledgement letter carrying IRS wording is yours to write.

Where the gift shows up

• The Recent gifts table on the Giving page, with Donor, Fund, Method, Amount and Date.
• The giver's profile, in the Giving section of their record, visible to anyone with View giving data.
• The giving report. Click Open giving report on the Giving page, which appears once your church has at least one gift recorded.
• The CSV from Export CSV on that report, with the columns Date, Donor, Fund, Method, Type, Amount, Note. Offline gifts read as One-time under Type. Exporting needs the Export data permission on top of View giving data.

Year-end

Scout generates no donor statements and emails none. What you get at year end is a gift-level export covering online and offline gifts together, which is what a bookkeeper builds statements from. Year-end giving records covers that export and what it leaves out.