Gone are the days when you had to carry long checkbooks in your pocket or fill your wallet with cash for making your purchases. This is an era of plastic money where credit/debit cards are being used extensively. So, when the offering plate is passed on in the church as a part of tithing, people often find it difficult to make appropriate amount of donations or contributions. This is because most of these people do not carry cash. As a result, the church finally ends up receiving less money. An effective alternative for this problem is to set up an automatic tithing machine in your church.
The process of "Automatic Tithing" is a recurring billing service that happens automatically without the requirement of the credit card holder. All that the donor is required to do is to submit his/her financial information and his/her credit card will be periodically billed. Whenever a member of the Church wants to contribute or donate some amount of his/her earnings to the church in a periodical manner using credit card, he/she is not required to swipe the card physically on the terminal. Alternatively, he has to fill in an authorization form with details such as the bank routing number, credit card billing information, amount you desire to donate and the contributions frequency and submit the form at the Church. These details will then be entered into an automatic billing system. This automated billing system or software is provided by the bank that has approved your Church merchant account. Once this information is submitted, it is then diverted to the bank that has issued the credit card for final approval. Also, a copy is sent to the donor so as to authorize or validate the details provided in the authorization form. Once this is done, the credit card is now billed monthly, half-yearly or annually with the amount specified by you on the authorization form.
For this entire processing to happen, church is required to open a church merchant account with any bank that is willing to extend credit card processing services to the Church. Alternatively, one can even approach third party agents for getting a church merchant account. It is through this church merchant account that the donor’s credit card can be periodically billed and the donated amount is collected from various credit card issuing banks on behalf of the Church. After deducting the charges, the net amount is deposited into the checking account of the Church.
"Automatic Tithing" or automatic donation service is becoming increasingly popular in the recent times providing convenience to the donors and also to the church authorities. So as to facilitate the process of automatic tithing, many churches are also establishing an automatic tithing kiosk. One practical advantage of using automatic tithing service is that it reduces the risk of misuse and fraud that usually happens when cash is collected during offerings. This is because money is directly deposited into the church’s account without requiring any middle person services or any counting committee. Also, the documents submitted for the purpose of donations are as per the Internal Service Regulations Committee and can be used by taxpayers as evidence while submitting claims for income tax returns.
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