Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust collect 35k donations a month
The Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) is a leading international wetland conservation organisation working to protect wetlands and threatened wetland species. As a UK charity, a substantial proportion of WWT’s income comes from supporter’s donations; with the charity processing over 35,000 recurring donations via Direct Debit every month.
With these volumes, a robust collections process is essential for them to collect both their regular donation portfolio and membership subscriptions.
Deadlines and decisions for Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust…
But Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust faced a deadline for the cessation of their incumbent, on-premise software; as well as a costly upgrade fee for renewal.
“Before AccessPay, we were reliant on hardware. To process payments, you would have to get up from your desk and log on to a separate machine. Having that flexibility has made our processing a lot quicker and more accessible for other members of the team to utilise.”
The charity was left faced with a choice:
They could stay with their existing supplier; who offered an expensive, fixed term contract with an annual cap on the number of permitted payment transactions, after which they would have to pay significant costs per each individual payment.
This transaction-based contract would severely interfere with the future growth plans of the organisation, which are hugely dependent on the ability to process tens-of-thousands of Direct Debit instructions every month. Or they could explore other options.
Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust find a better way to collect
“As an organisation, we wanted to move into a more cloud-based way of working. The security, business benefits and flexibility are all a big improvement.”
AccessPay enabled Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust to make the much-needed switch to a cloud-based integration platform, which instantly uplifted accessibility issues. As a result, WWT were no longer restricted to working from a single machine, as designated users were able to manage their collections from any device, in any location; whenever necessary.
With this added flexibility comes security benefits; as AccessPay’s cloud-based platform enables a simpler disaster recovery process, as well as secure connectivity to BACS and the introduction of an automated process for flagging any errors or duplicates for reconciliation purposes.
“We do around 35,000 transactions within two Direct Debit files per month. With AccessPay, they only take a matter of minutes to upload, it’s a really smooth and streamlined process.”
But the biggest benefit of all was AccessPay’s fixed annual subscription model. With no transaction fees, free upgrades and just one flat, annual fee to pay; WWT were finally able to determine how much it would actually cost them to collect their monthly donations.
“Now, we can plan for the next five years with confidence, knowing exactly how much we’re going to pay AccessPay, even if our charity donations continue to rise.”
Ultimately, this meant that the charity could continue with their ambitious 5-year expansion plans, without having to worry about any steep price increases or costly transaction caps; the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust team no longer had to worry about getting penalised for growth.