Giving troubleshooting
Answers to the most common giving questions — missing donations, bank-account delays, duplicate records, and more. Each section starts with what to check yourself and ends with when to contact your Apollos representative.
Why isn't a donation showing in Rock RMS?
This is the most common giving question. Work through these checks in order:
- Has it only been a few minutes? Donations sync to Rock in the background and typically take a few minutes — they are never instant. Give it up to an hour before digging deeper.
- Did the payment actually go through? Check Giving → Transactions in Admin (or your Stripe dashboard). If the donation isn't there either, the payment was never processed — ask the donor whether they completed the giving flow and received a receipt email.
- Is it a bank-account (ACH) gift? ACH gifts stay pending for 3–5 business days before they settle. The gift won't finalize in your records until then.
- Is it already in Rock under a different person or batch? Search Rock by amount and date. Donation lookup processes the full matching set before the sync finishes. Unmatched Stripe donors can also gain a name and email from their gift details before matching (see the duplicate-profiles question below).
- Is the fund mapped correctly? If the gift is in Rock but in the wrong fund, check the fund's Rock mapping in Giving → Funds.
If the donation shows in Admin but still hasn't reached Rock after an hour — or your Rock connection has recently changed credentials — contact your Apollos representative. Include the church name, the donor's name, the gift amount, and the date and time of the gift.
Why is an ACH (bank account) donation taking so long?
This is expected behavior, not a problem. Bank transfers take 3–5 business days to settle. During that window the gift shows as pending in Admin, and a recurring gift on a brand-new bank account won't activate until the account finishes verification.
If a gift has been pending longer than 5 business days, the bank may have rejected it — common causes are insufficient funds or a closed account. The gift will eventually show as failed, and the donor should try a different payment method. See Payment methods.
Why did a donation create a duplicate profile?
When someone gives without being signed in (web giving, App Clip, or tap-to-give), Apollos matches the gift to a person by email, phone, or name. If no match is found, a new profile is created — which can produce a duplicate if the donor already exists under slightly different details (a different email, a maiden name, a typo).
What to do:
- Merge the duplicate in Rock (or your ChMS) so future gifts land on the right profile.
- Encourage members to give while signed in to the app — signed-in gifts are matched directly to the member's profile and never create duplicates.
- Apple Pay and web giving: current web giving clears stale sessions and matches signed-in Apple Pay gifts to the member when possible. If you still see duplicate Rock profiles, send the gift details to your Apollos representative so they can review the match.
If a gift was matched to the wrong existing person, contact your Apollos representative with the gift details so it can be re-pointed and re-synced.
Why does the donation amount in Rock not match what the donor gave?
Check your church's fee settlement setting:
- Net settlement — Rock records the amount after fees, so the recorded gift is smaller than what the donor gave. Recurring gifts carry a higher fee than one-time gifts, so they come in lower still.
- Gross settlement — Rock records the full amount, with fees tracked separately. If amounts still differ under gross settlement, contact your Apollos representative.
For your church's exact fee rates, sign in to your Stripe dashboard or ask your Apollos representative.
If the donor says they were charged more than expected, check whether the gift is recurring and what amount they actually entered. App-to-web handoffs and Apple Pay now lock the submitted amount when the donor confirms, including amounts typed with commas, so a gift like $1,000.50 should stay $1,000.50.
Why is a donation in Rock twice?
- Was the gift made through web giving? Web giving now reuses the in-progress gift attempt when a donor clicks quickly or reloads during checkout, so it should not create two charges for the same confirmed gift. If you see duplicate web giving charges, contact your Apollos representative with the donor's name, gift amount, and gift time.
- Is it a 1st-and-15th recurring gift? These use two linked schedules behind the scenes, and only one is supposed to sync its schedule to Rock. If both are syncing you'll see duplicates — this needs a fix on the Apollos side, so contact your Apollos representative with the donor's name. See Recurring giving.
- Not a 1st-and-15th gift? Delete the duplicate from Rock, then report it to your Apollos representative so the root cause can be investigated — genuine duplicates are rare and worth flagging.
Why did a recurring gift stop charging (or never start)?
Check with the donor (or look at the gift's status):
- Past due — the last charge failed (declined, expired card, insufficient funds). Stripe retries automatically over several days; the donor should update their payment method in the app.
- Canceled — the donor canceled it, or it was canceled automatically after repeated failed charges.
- Incomplete — the donor never finished setup; the gift will never charge and they need to set it up again.
- New ACH gift — won't activate until bank verification completes (3–5 business days).
- Future start date — the first charge waits for the start date the donor chose; 1st-and-15th gifts wait for the next 1st or 15th.
See Recurring giving for the full lifecycle.
Why is a refund not showing up?
- Was the refund actually issued? Open the gift in Giving → Transactions — a refunded gift shows a Refunded or Partially Refunded badge. If it doesn't, use Begin Refund there. Refunds issued straight from your Stripe dashboard show up here too.
- Is it still processing? Card refunds take 5–10 business days to appear on the donor's statement; bank-account refunds can take longer.
- Refunded but not in Rock yet? Refunds sync to Rock the same way donations do — allow some time, and if it never arrives, contact your Apollos representative.
Why can't a donor remove their saved payment method?
The payment method is in use by an active recurring gift — Apollos blocks removal so the recurring gift doesn't silently start failing. The donor should change the payment method on their recurring gift(s) first, then remove the old one. See Payment methods.
Why was someone blocked from giving through the App Clip or website?
App Clip and web giving verify the giver is in the United States, for regulatory compliance. Common causes of a block:
- The person is traveling internationally — they can give through the full app instead, which doesn't have this restriction.
- They're using a VPN with a non-US exit point — ask them to turn it off and try again.
Why don't I see the Giving section in Admin?
- Giving may not be enabled for your church yet — confirm with your Apollos contact.
- Your role may not include giving permissions — non-admin team members need at least one giving permission assigned. See Giving administration & reports.
- Stripe setup may be incomplete — until your Stripe account reaches Complete status, the Giving section shows only the onboarding flow. See Set up giving.
Why isn't the giving form on our website working?
- The form doesn't load at all — verify the embed code is pasted into your site exactly as generated in Giving → Web Embed, and that it's the current version. Regenerate and re-paste if in doubt.
- The form loads but funds or campuses are missing — check that your funds exist and are associated with the right campuses in Giving → Funds. App-to-web giving keeps the selected fund and campus attached during wallet checkout, and migrated recurring gifts should follow the gift's campus-scoped fund when one is available.
- Payments fail with a friendly retry or support message — ask the donor to try again, then try a different payment method. Donors should no longer see raw technical payment errors in the app or App Clip. If the message includes your support email, use the gift details they send to check Giving → Transactions and Stripe.
- The page shows an unexpected server error after opening from the app — stale sign-in sessions are cleared automatically. Ask the donor to reopen the giving link and continue signed out or sign in again.
- Payments succeed but donations don't appear — follow "Why isn't a donation showing in Rock RMS?" above.
See Website embeds for setup details.
Why hasn't our payout arrived?
See the payout checklist in Giving administration & reports — in short: in transit payouts take about 2 business days, paid payouts can take 1–2 more days to post at your bank, and failed payouts usually mean the bank account details in your Stripe dashboard need updating.
Why can't a donor reach the confirm button when adding a bank account on iPhone?
They should be able to. The bank authorization window sizes itself to the visible part of the screen on iPhone, so the final confirm button isn't cut off below the bottom of the page. If a donor still can't reach it, ask them which iPhone and browser they used and send that to your Apollos representative.
Why doesn't the cancel button respond on a member's recurring gift?
It should respond. Cancel stays tappable on iPhone, including when the gift's details are open in a sheet. If a member reports that nothing happens when they tap it, have them update the app and try again, then send you the gift details so you can pass them to your Apollos representative.
Why does our migration dashboard look empty when donors have started?
It shouldn't. Apollos keeps checking migration progress in the background even when nothing has changed, so the dashboard should keep showing where donors actually are. If the counts look empty or stale for more than a day while you know donors are working through it, contact your Apollos representative. See Migrate donors to Apollos.
Why does bank verification open a separate tab for a donor?
In the giving embed on your website, the bank's sign-in page opens in its own browser tab rather than inside the embed, because banks don't allow their sign-in pages to load inside another site. The donor finishes verifying there and returns to your giving page. See Payment methods.
Why didn't a card a donor added later attach to their migrated gift?
Migrated gifts keep the payment method the donor chose when they confirmed them, so a card added afterward isn't attached automatically and a gift never quietly switches accounts. The donor can change the method on the gift itself in the app. See Migrate donors to Apollos.
Why is there no refund option on an older bank-account gift?
Refunds for bank-account (ACH) gifts are only available within 180 days of the gift, and the option isn't shown after that. For an older gift, talk to your Apollos representative before promising the donor a refund. See Giving administration & reports.
What does a donor see when a gift fails in the App Clip?
A short, readable message asking them to try again or to reach out to your church — not the bank's raw decline text — sized to fit the App Clip's small screen. If you've set a support email in Giving → Settings, that address appears in the message. Check Giving → Transactions and your Stripe dashboard for the actual decline reason.
When should I contact Apollos?
Contact your Apollos representative when:
- A donation shows in Admin but never reaches Rock, and an hour has passed.
- You see duplicate donations or duplicate scheduled gifts in Rock.
- A gift was matched to the wrong person and needs to be re-pointed.
- A 1st-and-15th gift is behaving oddly (wrong dates, duplicates, one half canceled).
- A donor's payment method repeatedly fails to save.
- Donors see repeated payment-error messages after trying again or switching payment methods.
- Your migration dashboard shows donors stuck despite completing their steps.
Include as much of this as you can: your church name, the donor's name and email, the gift amount and date, whether the gift was one-time or recurring, and what you've already checked. It dramatically speeds up resolution.