Most Common User Questions From Greater Giving Clients—Answered!
At Greater Giving, we offer free technical help to our users from day one. We love that we get to be your first line of support, so we can be a part of your success.
To help you get off on the right foot, we sought out the most common user questions, and compiled our support team’s collective knowledge to answer them.
Event Night Solutions & Credit Card Payments
Q: What is Go Time?
Go Time is an interface in our online software designed to manage your event check-in and registration, sales entry, and checkout. Go Time is user-friendly, intuitive, and easy for volunteers and staff to learn.
Q: What is the terminal?
The credit card terminal is a standalone device, allowing you to accept credit cards at your event, with or without a computer. The terminal is compatible with the PC, or offline version, of our event software, but doesn’t require it.
Terminals can be programmed in Express Pay mode to track bidder purchases by bid number, or in Retail mode to capture individual sales.
Q: What is the card reader?
The card reader is a simple USB device that links directly with our software to capture and store bidder payment information at your event. The card readers can be used with both online and PC event software solutions, but do require a computer at registration.
Q: What is the mobile card reader?
The mobile card reader is the tablet equivalent of our card reader device, allowing you to accept payments at your event on the go. It plugs into the audio port on an iPad or supported Android tablets. With the help of our free app, and access to the Internet, the mobile card reader connects to Go Time to help you run your event.
Mobile Bidding
Q: Can I open up Mobile Bidding prior to the event?
A: Absolutely! One of the benefits of Mobile Bidding is that you can open bidding before the live event, to help drum up excitement and enthusiasm for the auction.
Q: Can I open the bidding to people who can’t attend the event?
A: Another huge benefit of Mobile Bidding is allowing both guests who are present at the event, and those who are not present, to participate in the auction. This document on Remote Bidders will walk you through how to open your auction to non-attending guests.
Event Software and Online Payments
Q: I’m having trouble logging in to my event software. What should I do?
If you receive an error while attempting to log in to Greater Giving Online, double-check that you are entering your username and password correctly. If you’ve forgotten one or the other, just click the Forgot Username or Password link, and the software will walk you through resetting your password.
Tip: Be sure to use the email address associated with your Greater Giving login when trying to reset your credentials.
Q: How do I add images to my Online Payments web pages?
Greater Giving only accepts images in JPEG, GIF, or PNG format, and limits file size to 300KB. Images are restricted to no more than 1170 pixels wide, with no limit on height. If you’re having trouble uploading an image, make sure your image isn’t too big.
For detailed instructions on how and where to upload your images, please see Using the Image Manager.
Q: How do I create a copy of an Online Payments page?
This is a simple way to copy a donation page you’ve already created for a past year or campaign, and update it for this year.
First, log into your Online Payments account, and visit My Pages, where you’ll find a list of existing web pages. To copy a page, check the box next to that page in the list, and click the Copy Page link that appears.
Before copying your page, check that all the settings are correct. Under the Copy Page tab, where it says Specify Modules, select Copy to make sure all your desired features copy to the new page.
Under the Permissions tab, make sure editing is turned on for administrators, so you can customize your new page. When you’ve checked all the settings for accuracy, click Add Page.
Accounting
Q: How do I submit a refund?
To issue a credit card refund to any of your supporters, please visit Accounting.
You’ll find four options for refunds. Simply select how the credit card was originally processed—event night terminal, card reader, or a transaction through your Online Payments website—and fill out the form.
After issuing your refund, please be sure to visit your Greater Giving Event Software account and record the refund as a payment. (If you don’t, your printed reports and financial statements won’t match.) When you create the refund payment, be sure to enter the refund as a negative dollar amount.
Q: How do I reconcile a deposit statement for Online Payments transactions?
First, log in to your Greater Giving Online Payments account. If you’re not sure where to log in, just check the Welcome Email you received when you signed up with Greater Giving.
Next, go to Run a Report, and select Settled Transactions. Enter the date range for the deposit statement and then run a Basic Report. You’ll see a list of itemized transactions that make up your deposit statement.
We hope we could answer some of your questions, and be sure to bookmark this page for later!
Have any more questions? Add them to the comments section!
Readers also liked:
How long do you keep credit card copies? We have them on a spreadsheet for future reference but was not sure on the retention for credit card copies and check copies.
Thank you.!
It is recommended to keep signed encrypted receipts for 1-2 years in a secure location; however it is highly recommended to never store donor’s credit card information on a spreadsheet for any period of time.
If you have more specific questions about this topic, please reach out to Greater Giving Client Services via Chat, phone (866) 269-8151, or email support@greatergiving.com.
Thank you!
How do you send an email blast to previous attendees? Is it only accessible for users at specific admin levels?
Please call or email asap.
Could not find helpful, step-by-step, instructions on your website.
Thank you!
Margo – 512-751-5210
Hi Margo, thanks for the question. We went ahead and contacted our support department for you and they should be reaching out shortly. For future questions, don’t hesitate to reach out directly by phone 866-269-8151, or email support@greatergiving.com.
Is it best practice to upload all of our area donors as supporters for an upcoming event even if they have not confirmed attendance? I understand I can assign supporters as bidders night of the event but is it common practice to import all potential attendees. I don’t want to add too much extra data to the dashboard but curious as to what’s recommended.
Thanks for the question Shakira. Typically we say yes, because it helps builds your donor/supporter database, eliminates the need to re-enter data from year to year and builds a history for reporting/analytical purposes.
You are correct, you can mark them as active each year based on attendance, sales, donations etc. Thanks again, hope that helps!
Is it possible to sort items by solicitor so we can pull a list of what our procurement team did last year?
I will be traveling out of the county the day after we put tickets up for sale. What do I do once I get a ticket registration? (I need to know if I need to train someone or if it is something I can handle 5 days later when I am back in the country).
Hi Anne,
While you do have to import each registration into the software, it does not require immediate attention and can hold off the 5 days while you are away. However, we do recommend you give yourself as much time before your event to perform the import i.e., night before your event is not a good idea. If you should have any further questions, feel free to reach out to us directly at Client Services (866) 269-8151 or https://online.help.greatergiving.com/hc/en-us.
And enjoy your vacation!
I would like to use font styles that match our event promotional material on the website. Is there a way to add font styles for use? I have three font families that I would like to add.
Thank you!
Thanks for the question Sarah. Most of our pages have a predefined font list. You do, however, have the option of using HTML for further customization. Feel free to reach out to our support team for further assistance Phone (866) 269-8151, Email support@greatergiving.com. Thanks again for reaching out!
Can Go Time and card readers be used for multiple days over the course of a single project? For example, if our school is soliciting donations ahead of time for an event, can we use a card reader and Go Time at several different locations before the actual event? The people we are asking for donations from are less likely to go to the event website, but if we are asking in-person we’d like to have card readers available. Thank you!
We have quit a few repeat items each year. Is there a way to copy items from last years event to this years items?
Hi Ray, thanks for the question. Yes absolutely you can copy items over. Here are a few articles that discuss on how to do that.
https://greatergivinghelp.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360021737214-Copying-Items-from-a-Previous-Project
https://greatergivinghelp.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360021732094-Creating-a-Project-Using-a-Past-Project
If you should have any further questions, feel free to reach out: Phone (866) 269-8151 or Email support@greatergiving.com
If a text is sent out to attendees, do they have the ability to reply or opt out of text messaging? We are planning to send out a host of messages to donors for a virtual event who have shared their number with us, but want to ensure that they have the ability to opt out if they wish.
Hi Sarah, attendees do have the ability to opt out of text messages, but they do not have the ability to reply. Hope that helps!
I need to run a report with all our supporters who have either donated or purchased from our projects. What I need to know is how to get the results to exclude the archived supporters. The chat has been very helpful with running the reports but they all include the archived supporters. Please help!! Thank you
Hi Shyla,
Can you give us a call so we can discuss the options? -Phone (866) 269-8151 or Email support@greatergiving.com. Thanks again for reaching out!