ARCOS 7 Help

All Contributions

The Contribution Reports let you view and download the data submitted on contribution forms on your organization's website. You can set the timeframe for the reports to show only those forms submitted on a particular day or in a particular week, month, year, or quarter. You can also set the range to Maximum (the lifetime of the site) or specify a Custom date range.

To Find a Contribution Report

Enter the contribution form's story ID or part of its title or URL and click Search. The search results appear below the search section. For a complete list of contribution forms, leave the space blank and click Search.

To View a Contribution Form Report

First, decide whether you want to view a report about an individual contribution form, several contribution forms, or all contribution forms on the site. Then:

  1. To view a report about a single contribution form, locate the form you are interested in by scrolling down or by searching. Then, click the View link.
  2. To view a report that combines several contribution forms, locate the forms you are interested in by scrolling down or by searching. Place a check in the checkbox next to each of the forms. Finally, click the View button at the bottom of the list of forms.
  3. To view a report that combines all contribution forms on your organization's site, click the View button next to All Contribution Forms.

Understanding a Contribution Form Report

Overview Tab

The Overview tab of a Contribution Report allows you to quickly and graphically view the Total (total dollars collected), Average (average dollars collected), Standard Deviation, and Count of contributions made in the past day, 7 days, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, or year. You can also set the range to 'max' (maximum), specify a custom date range, or change the Ending Date for the report.

Dollars Raised
Donations
The total number of people who submitted the contribution form(s)
Unique Donors
The de-duped number of people who submitted the contribution form(s)
First-time Donors
Donors who are new members
The total number of people who joined your list by submitting the contribution form(s)
Donation by Amount
A breakdown of how many contributions were for less than $10, $10-$25, $25-$50, $50-$75, $75-$100, or $100 or more.
Average Donation
The average contribution amount
Page views
The total number of times the contribution form(s) have been viewed
Conversion
How frequently a person who viewed the contribution form(s) chose to submit the contribution form(s). If 10 people come to the contribution form page but only one submits the form, that is a 10% conversion rate.

This page also displays a graph of the Dollars Raised over time. Click the links above the graph to graph Donations, Average Donation, or Standard Deviation.

Lastly, you can click the CSV or Excel buttons to download the contribution data.

Contributions Tab

The Contributions tab of a Contribution Report allows you to see the individual contributions made in the selected timeframe.

Failed Contributions Tab

The Failed Contributions tab of a Contribution Report allows you to see the individual contributions that failed in the selected timeframe.

There are many common user errors that may cause a contribution to fail. For example, the address entered on the contribution form may not match the address on file for the card, or the credit card might be declined.

There are also some infrequent but serious system errors that may cause a contribution to fail. The payment processor (Authorize.net or Verisign) may have gone offline for routine maintenance or the SSL connection to the processor may have failed. Though infrequent, it is important to catch and correct these errors quickly. For this reason, we strongly encourage you to have at least one ARCOS user monitor the most critical failed contributions. See Failed Contribution Watchers below.

On the Failed Contributions tab, you will see a breakdown of failed contributions by error type. The error types are:

Failures
The total number of failed contributions, regardless of error type
AVS Mismatch
The address entered on the contribution form does not match the address on file with the credit card company. AVS stands for Address Verification Service, a service your payment processor may or may not offer. Contact your payment processor to determine whether this service is available and what configuration options are possible. In some cases, AVS mismatch will cause the processor to decline the transaction. In other cases, a failure is returned but the payment is successfully processed.
Attempted Duplicate
The user made a contribution and then tried to make a second contribution within a short amount of time. ARCOS prevents multiple contributions within a brief time span to keep users from accidentally contributing twice.
Card Declined
The credit card was declined.
Card Security Code
The card security code entered on the contribution form is not correct.
Other
Some other error caused a contribution to fail. For example, the payment processor (Authorize.net or Verisign) may have gone offline for routine maintenance or the SSL connection to the processor may have failed. Though infrequent, it is important to catch and correct these errors quickly. For this reason, we strongly encourage you to have at least one ARCOS user monitor the most critical failed contributions. See Failed Contribution Watchers below.

Failed Contribution Watchers

Failed contribution watchers are ARCOS users who receive email alerts when a site visitor attempts to make a contribution but fails. Only users with email addresses can be failed contribution watchers. You can set each watcher to receive alerts for either all failures or only the most critical failures. For more information about what types of failures are considered "most critical", see Failed Contributions Tab above.

On the Failed Contributions tab of a Contribution Report, you will see the link Who is monitoring Failed Contributions? Click on this link to view, add, or delete failed contribution watchers.

To Add a Watcher

  1. Select a watcher from the drop-down menu.
  2. Click the Add a New Watcher button. Your watcher will be listed in alphabetical order along with the other watchers.
  3. Use the radio buttons to choose either All or Most Critical alerts. By default, the new watcher will receive only the Most Critical failure alerts.
  4. Click the Save Changes button.

To Delete a Watcher

  1. Place a check in the checkbox next to the watcher you wish to delete.
  2. Click the Save Changes button.

To Download a Contribution Form Report

  1. First decide whether you want to download a report about an individual contribution form, several contribution forms, or all contribution forms on the site. Then:
  • To download a report about a single contribution form, locate the form you are interested in by scrolling down or by searching. Then, click either the CSV or Excel link.
  • To download a report that combines several contribution forms, locate the forms you are interested in by scrolling down or by searching. Place a check in the checkbox next to each of the forms. Finally, click either the CSV or Excel button at the bottom of the list of contribution forms.
  • To download a report that combines all contribution forms on your organization's site, click either the CSV or Excel button next to All Contribution Forms.
  1. A new window will appear with a progress bar. When the progress bar reaches 100%, a message will appear that says "Report Complete: Contribution Report (right-click, Save As, to save to disk)". Right-click on the Contribution Report link and save the file to your computer. The file is in CSV (comma-separated) or Excel format and can be opened in Excel or other spreadsheet programs.

To Void/Credit a Contribution

You can not reverse (void/credit) a contribution from ARCOS. To do this, you will need to log in to your payment gateway.

How to do this on Authorize.net

To Update/Cancel a Recurring Contribution

You can not update or cancel a recurring contribution from ARCOS. To do this, you will need to log in to your payment gateway.

How to do this on Authorize.net