Soft Credits
A Soft Credit attributes a transaction to a contact or organization who influenced or facilitated the gift, without them being the actual donor of record on the transaction. The donor of record receives a hard credit (the full transaction amount); anyone who receives a soft credit gets recognition for their involvement without it affecting their giving totals.
Common uses:
- Board solicitation credit — a board member who personally asked a donor to give receives credit for the resulting gift
- Matching gift employer credit — the employer whose matching program contributed receives soft credit alongside the employee’s hard credit
- Event sponsorship attribution — a sponsor’s representative who secured the sponsorship is credited
- Household giving — attributing a gift made by one household member to a partner
Accessing Soft Credits
- From the sidebar: Transactions → Soft Credits — opens the full list
- From a contact record: the Soft Credits tab
- From an organization record: the Soft Credits tab
- From a transaction (PurchaseOrder) record: the Soft Credits tab
Fields
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Purchase Order | The transaction being attributed (the hard credit transaction) |
| Contact | The contact who receives the soft credit (use Contact or Organization, not both) |
| Organization | The organization that receives the soft credit |
| Soft Credit Type | A configurable reference value categorizing the reason for the attribution |
| Amount | The amount being soft credited — defaults to the full transaction amount; can be set to a partial amount |
| Recognized | When checked (the default), this soft credit counts toward the recipient’s current-year giving total for Giving Society qualification. Uncheck for attribution-only soft credits (e.g., solicitor credit) that should not inflate giving thresholds. |
| Notes | Free-text detail about why this attribution was made |
Working with Soft Credits
Creating a Soft Credit
- Navigate to Transactions → Soft Credits in the sidebar and click Create, or
- Open a transaction, contact, or organization record and go to the Soft Credits tab, then click Create.
Select the transaction to attribute, choose the contact or organization to credit, confirm or adjust the amount, and select the appropriate type.
Partial Soft Credits
When multiple people or organizations share credit for a single gift, create one soft credit record per recipient, adjusting the Amount on each to reflect the appropriate portion. The amounts do not need to sum to the transaction total; partial attribution is allowed.
Soft Credit Types
Soft Credit Types are configurable reference values managed in Master Data under Transactions → Soft Credit Types. Define types that reflect your organization’s attribution policies (e.g., “Solicitor”, “Matching Employer”, “Facilitator”).
Reporting
Soft credits appear in the standard reporting system. Soft credit amounts are separate from hard credit (transaction) amounts and do not double-count giving totals. Common uses:
- Staff solicitor performance reports (soft credit by owner/staff contact)
- Matching gift tracking
- Event attribution summaries
Use Building Reports to create soft credit reports with filters by type, contact, organization, date range, or amount.