Downloading Import Files on Faith Direct
On your Faith Direct Church Staff homepage, navigate to the 'Utilities' menu on the top and hover over 'Contribution Export'.
Once you are inside the 'Contribution Export', you may select the month and transaction date for the transactions you wanted to download the import file for. At this time, you can only filter dates to a maximum of 1 month (i.e, 2 transaction dates). The options under 'Day of Charge' are 4 (for the 4th transaction period), 15 (for the 15th transaction period), and Both (for the entire month).
When you are done making the selection, hit the 'Export Contributions' button.
If some envelope numbers are missing or need to be locked, you will be taken to the below screen where it will prompt you to enter envelope numbers and lock them to continue with the file download. Ideally, this may happen every month every-time a new donor registers on Faith Direct so it is important you pay close attention to this. This is a crucial process as you will not be able to download the file if there are missing fields in 'Church ID'. After entering all the envelope numbers and checking on the 'Lock All' box on the top you are now ready to be taken to the next step. Go ahead and click on the 'Submit' button.
Congratulations, you will now be taken to the download screen where you can download the import files. If you selected "Both" under 'Day of Charge' you will have 2 download files.
Download these files in a very accessible location on your computer. It will be a CSV file (a variation of MS Excel). We recommend downloading it into the desktop. Because you will have to navigate to that same location in your census software on your computer so you do not want to confuse yourself with the location where you downloaded the file because it will take you to the root folder. Make sure to open the file, take a peek at it (to ensure there are transactions in there) and then close the file completely before you begin the import process. Leaving the file open while you are importing into your census software might not cause it to load so make sure it completely closed out.
Your job on Faith Direct is now done. The next part is to refer to the instruction manual on your census software. Attached below are a few instruction manuals that are specific to the most commonly used import software programs for exporting contributions from Faith Direct. So feel free to glance at them and refer to the instructions specific to your census software.
**If your software is not listed in any of the attachments you will need to go to their website and refer to the instruction manuals. If you want to be configured for imports for a new census software (that is not listed in the attachments) please contact us at clientcare@faithdirect.net or email us with the exact version of your census software along with a sample import file with detailed specifications. This will help our team configure you for imports. On a side note, if you are using ParishSoft Family Suite you will need to update Faith Direct with the 4-5 digit ConnectNow Organization ID.
Instruction Manuals
FD-Contribution-Export-Instructions.pdf
ParishSOFT-ConnectNow-Import-Instructions.pdf
PDS-OnDemand-File-Import-Process.pdf
QuickBooks-Import-from-Excel-and-CSV-manual.pdf
Servant-Keeper-Import-Guide.pdf