A soft credit credits one person for a donation they didn't actually make but influenced — most often a corporate matching gift, a memorial gift, or a donation made through a business. The soft-credited individual will not receive a tax deduction and the gift will not appear on their giving statement.
Soft credits show up on each credited person's profile under the Financial tab so the relationship is visible without affecting their tax-deductible total.
Adding a soft credit
You will need the Full Write Contributions permission to add or edit transactions.
Soft credits are part of a contribution, so they can be added while creating (or editing) a transaction inside a batch.
Go to Contributions > Batches and open the desired batch (or create a new one). On the batch's Transactions tab, click + Add Transaction to open the Add Transaction dialog.
On the General tab, fill in the transaction. For the Payee / Donor field, choose how the donation should be recorded:
If the donation came from a business or organization that already has a profile in One Church (for example, an employer running a matching gift program), select that profile.
If the donor doesn't have a profile yet, check Does not have a profile and you can record the donating party without creating one.
To record the donation as anonymous, leave the Payee / Donor field blank.
Switch to the Soft Credits tab. Use the Add Person / Business search to find the individual who should be credited and select them. Repeat to add additional people if more than one person should share credit.
If more than one person is being credited, adjust each person's share so the totals add up to the donation amount.
Click Save to record the transaction with its soft credits.
What soft credits do not do
Soft credits are intentionally separate from tax-deductible giving. Keep these in mind:
The credited individuals do not receive a tax deduction for the gift.
The soft credit does not appear on the credited individual's giving statement.
The donation itself is still tracked on the actual donor (the Payee / Donor selected on the General tab) and counts toward their giving total and statements as usual.
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