Please note: you can only import contributions to existing contacts, if (some of) your contacts are not yet in the CRM, start by importing the contacts. If some of the contacts are in the system and some are not, the system will import all it can and give you an Excell with anything it could not enter.
To make sure the contributions apply to the correct person there are a few options:
- Using a duplicate rule
- Looking up the contact ID and adding that to the spreadsheet for each column
- Using external ID. This is most useful if you are importing contacts and contributions consecutively
Actually importing Contributions into the CRM begins with preparing your spreadsheet.
Your spreadsheet will need to include the following Columns:
- Contact reference
- See above
- Total Amount
- The value should only include numbers, do not include the currency symbol.
- Received Date
- Make sure this field is formatted to a specific date format. If you do not format the date column, it might export the date in a different format than what you see on your screen.
- Financial Type
- The value for this column must match one of the options in the list of Financial Types in the CRM. To see what is available, navigate to Administer > CiviContribute > Financial Types
- Payment Method (optional)
- The value for this column must match one of the options in the list of Payment Methods in the CRM. To see what is available, navigate to Administer > CiviContribute > Payment Methods
- Campaign ID (optional)
- The value for this column must match one of the options in the list of Campaigns in the CRM. To see what is available, navigate to Contributions > Campaigns > Dashboard
- The best practice is to use the campaign ID which you can find on the dashboard to avoid issues.
If there is an error you will get an excel sheet telling you what the error is, sometime it says 'expected one Contribution but found 25', this is a bug, the error is usually one of the above criteria not met.
To watch the video series on importing click here, below is the video dedicated to contributions.