Notify lets you tell someone that a donation was made — typically the family a gift was given in honor of or in memory of. The donor gets their usual thank-you letter; Notify is the separate note that goes to the people being honored, letting them know a gift was made in their name.
Notify is not the donor’s thank-you or receipt. Those are sent from the same row using the envelope icon. Notify always goes to a different family — the one the gift honors.
How It Works
A single payment can have as many Notify recipients as you need — for example a gift given in memory of someone with three surviving children, each at their own address. Each recipient gets their own letter, and each is tracked separately so you always know who has been told and who hasn’t.
Where to Find It
Notify lives on the payment row itself, not inside the payment window. You’ll find it anywhere payments are listed — the main Transactions page, and the Transactions tab inside a family.
- On a computer: hover over a payment row and click the bell icon.
- On a phone or tablet: tap the ⋮ menu at the end of the row and choose Notify.
Notify appears on payments only. Bills don’t have it, because there is no gift yet to tell anyone about.
Before Your First Notify
Notify sends a letter, so you need at least one letter template of the Notify type. Without one, clicking the bell just shows a message telling you none has been created yet.
- Go to Settings → Communications → Letters.
- Choose the Notify letter type.
- Create a template with the wording you want. Merge fields let you pull in the donor’s name, the amount, and the date, so the honored family sees a personal note rather than a form letter.
Think about whether to show the amount
Many organizations deliberately leave the gift amount out of the Notify letter. The honored family is usually told that a gift was made, not how much. Decide this once when you build the template — it applies to every Notify letter sent from it.
Adding Someone to Notify
- Open the payment’s Notify window using the bell icon.
- In the Family box, type at least three letters of the family name. Matching families appear as you type — click one, or use the arrow keys and press Enter.
- Pick the Letter to send. Only Notify-type letters are listed.
- Add a Note to show in the letter, example: "in honor of your birthday." This will show in place of the {{Note}} field.
- Click Save on that row.
To add another recipient to the same payment, click + Add recipient and repeat. You can only have one unsaved row at a time, so finish or remove the current one first.
Him, Her, or Both
When the family you picked has two primary members, a small Both / Him / Her choice appears under the name. This decides who the letter is addressed to — useful when only one spouse should be written to. If the family has a single primary member, the choice doesn’t appear and the letter simply goes to the person listed.
Saving Your Changes
Nothing in the Notify window is saved automatically. Change a family, letter, note or the Sent tick and a Save button appears on that row — your change is only stored once you click it.
| What you see | What it means | What to do |
|---|
| Save showing | This row has changes that are not stored yet. | Click Save on the row. |
| Saved, not sent | The recipient is stored and waiting to be told. | Click Send when ready. |
| Sent ticked | This recipient has already been notified. | Nothing — Send skips them. |
Send and Download wait for you to save
While any row has unsaved changes, the Send button and the letter download are switched off, and hovering Send explains why. This is deliberate: both build the letter from what is stored, so sending mid-edit would mail something different from what is on your screen.
If you try to close the window with unsaved changes, you’ll be asked whether to Discard them or Keep Editing. Discarding throws away only the unsaved edits — rows you already saved stay put.
Sending the Letters
Click Send to email every recipient that is saved and not yet marked as sent. Rows already ticked Sent are skipped, so you can add a recipient later and send only the new one without anybody getting a second copy.
As each letter goes out, its row is ticked Sent automatically, and the email is recorded against the honored family like any other letter you send.
The Sent tick is also yours to set by hand. If you posted a letter or called the family instead, tick it yourself and save — that recipient will then be left out of any future Send.
Printing a Letter Instead
If your Notify letter template includes PDF wording, a download icon appears on each saved row. It produces the letter as a PDF so you can print and post it — useful when the honored family has no email address.
No download icon means the chosen template has no PDF wording set up. Add it to the template in Settings and the icon will appear.
Removing a Recipient
The bin icon on a row removes that recipient. Removing a row that was already sent does not un-send the email — it only takes the recipient off this payment’s list.
Hiding the Notify Button
If you aren't using the Notify feature, you can take the bell off the payment rows for yourself.
- Open the settings panel on the Transactions list.
- Go to the Columns tab.
- Untick Notify.
This is a personal preference, like any other column choice — your colleagues keep their own setting. Tick it again at any time to bring the bell back.
Troubleshooting
Clicking the bell says no Notify letter exists
No letter template of the Notify type has been created. See Before Your First Notify above.
The Send button is greyed out
Either a row still has unsaved changes — save it first — or every recipient is already ticked as Sent. Hover the button and it will tell you which.
No families come up when I search
Type at least three letters. The search looks at the family name only, so try the surname rather than a first name or address.
I can’t find the bell on a payment row
Check that Notify is still ticked in the Columns tab, and that you are looking at a payment rather than a bill. On narrow screens the bell lives in the ⋮ menu rather than on the row itself.
Good to Know
- Notify is attached to a saved payment. Enter and save the payment first, then add the people to notify from its row in the list.
- Deleting the payment removes its Notify recipients along with it.
- Honor / Memory and Notify do different jobs. The Honor / Memory field records who a gift honors, and can be merged into the donor's thank-you letter. Notify writes to the honored family itself. Filling in one does not send the other.
- There is no limit on Notify recipients per payment — add as many as the occasion calls for.