Activate Your Processing Account (Extra Details)

While there are many places in your Financial Account that you’ll frequent (if you are the financial admin of your church), your Processing Account is one tab that, once you submit your processing application, you’ll likely never need to access again.

That being said, your processing account is an important part of your Giving setup - important enough that without it, you can’t take in online transactions 😄 

So if you’re wanting to use Nucleus Giving (and/or Payments in Nucleus Flows), make sure you submit your processing application as soon as possible, as it can take 5-7 business days on average from the moment you submit your application to the moment we send you the good news that your processing account is fully active.

It’s a pretty easy application that’s entirely digital and each part of the application you fill out in your Nucleus Dashboard has notes along the way to help you out. In this step-by-step walkthrough, we’ll make sure to help you have the smoothest onboarding experience possible.

In this guide, we'll cover the following topics. Click on any one to jump ahead.

Required For Online Transactions With Nucleus

If it’s not already clear, your processing account is required in order to take in online transactions, both donations with Nucleus Giving and payments with Nucleus Flows.

All the information entered in your application will be submitted to the card processor we partner with, CardConnect. Because the financial world is filled with fraudulent activity, they have an entire department dedicated to sussing out the sketchy applications from the sanctified  ones. All the information in the application is required by our card processor to comply with KYC (know your customer/client) legal regulations.

Below, we have some tips on how to ensure the most accurate information is submitted to avoid any additional questions being asked during the review process.

A Look Into The Application Review Process

The typical timeline from the moment you submit your application to when we send you the good news that your processing account is fully active is about 5-7 business days (some a little faster, some a little slower). Here’s a bit of a breakdown on what happens after you submit your processing account application:

  1. First, we review it to make sure everything looks correct. We may ask a question or two for clarification purposes. (We’ll make note of what those typical questions are below.)
  2. Once we approve your application, we submit it to the card processor we partner with (CardConnect), who then reviews your application in even further detail (and cross references the information you provide with what’s listed in the IRS database for security purposes). They usually take a few business days before reviewing your application, and then if they have any questions (ones we didn’t foresee to ask beforehand), we will need to confer with you to provide them with the necessary information.
  3. Once our card processor approves your application and creates your processing account, we can activate it for use in Nucleus!

We try our best to provide updates along the way, but if you’re ever wondering how far along the review process is, feel free to give us a shout at hello@nucleus.church.

Verify Your Email Address

First thing's first: before you can fill out your processing application, you’ll need to make sure your Nucleus login email address is verified. This helps secure and protect your account, and verify there’s a real human applying for this processing account. When initially creating your Nucleus Church Account, we send you an email to verify your email address, so it’s likely that you’ve already completed this step. But just in case you haven’t, go check your inbox for an email from hello@nucleus.church to verify your email address.

If you can’t find that email, no worries! You can resend a new one to yourself directly in the application!

Input Your Church’s Basic & Legal Information

Below is a list of all the information you’ll need to input for your church’s basic and legal information. While there are explanations for most fields in the application itself, we have a few additional tips to help you out 👇

  • Church DBA (doing business as) Name
  • Church Primary website
  • Church Physical Address
  • Church TIN/EIN (Tax ID)
  • Church Legal Name
  • Church Start Date
  • Church Legal Address
  • Church Phone Number
  • Non-Profit Status

Church Physical Address

IMPORTANT! This piece of information is often the kicker when it comes to our card processor asking additional questions, so it’s important to read the following to best understand what to input in the two distinct fields we provide.

The first physical address field is the location where your church exists and/or meets. This location might be a building that your church owns, but it could also be a location that your church rents or leases.

The second physical address field is the location listed on your church’s legal documents, where your church is officially registered with the IRS. This might be the same address that you input in the first address field, but it’s totally possible that it’s different. Whatever the case, make sure you input the legal physical address in the second field.

Note: If your church’s legal physical address is a residential address, our card processor will almost always request additional information. So if that’s you, please make sure to send us a message after submitting your application answering the following questions:

  • Are you a house church? If so, do you hold services at the residential address, or do you hold services elsewhere?
  • If you hold services elsewhere, where is that? (This should match the address you added in the first address field.) Please send over a copy of an executed lease/rental agreement along with this.
  • If you hold services at the residential address, please send a bill (electric, water, internet, etc.) or some other documentation verifying both your church’s name and the legal physical address. This could include your church’s SS-4 letter from the IRS, that also includes your church’s tax ID.

If your church’s legal physical address is in a business plaza, please make sure to send us a message after submitting your application with the following information:

  • Please send a bill (electric, water, internet, etc.) or some other documentation verifying both your church’s name and the legal physical address. This could include your church’s SS-4 letter from the IRS, that also includes your church’s tax ID.

Note: While these extra details are technically not required to submit your application, our experience has been that our card processor requests these additional documents and/or pieces of information while reviewing applications. So if you don’t send over these extra details after submitting your application (or if you forget), don’t worry. Our Customer Success team will contact you after our initial review 😉 But if you’d like to get ahead of the game, we always appreciate the extra info ahead of time, and it helps us expedite your account!

Choose An Account Signer

In order for our card processor to create and activate your processing account, there needs to be a real human being on the other side of the account the “Signer” to help ensure that the account being created is not going to be used for money laundering or other nefarious activities. This is similar to setting up any other financial account at a bank or for a credit card, etc. Your processing account is no different, and often, churches have the same person who opened their bank accounts or credit cards (or currently manages those things) as the person responsible for the processing account. 

This Account Signer is also responsible for signing any official changes about your processing account. This includes anything from changing the deposit bank account on file, to updating your church’s legal name in our card processor’s system.

All information sent in about the Account Signer is purely for verification purposes only. All information is also securely saved, encrypted, and sent to our card processor, and isn’t shared with any other entity.

Below is a list of the required information for the Account Signer 👇

  • First & Last Name
  • Email Address
  • Phone Number
  • Residential Address
  • SSN (or SIN for Canadians)
  • Date Of Birth

Why Do You Need The Signer’s SSN or SIN?

While we totally understand any hesitation in providing someone's SSN/SIN as part of application for Nucleus Giving, it is a required piece of information by our card processor.

As stated above, even though the processing account you’re signing up for will be associated with your church as a non-profit entity, there still needs to be a real human being on the other side of that merchant account. This is the Account Signer. 

As a security check to ensure that any money associated with your church’s processing account isn't being used for any sort of illegal activity, personal information, such as a person's date of birth and SSN/SIN is necessary for that verification process. (e.g. If the person associated with the account is under legal review for money laundering - or worse, has actually been charged with that - then red flags will be raised for what the processing account will be used for.)

Note: While it is extremely rare, there have been a few times in our experience where a Signer was rejected because of a bad credit score. Even though there is no hard pull on the Account Signer’s credit during the review process, the Account Signer is required to meet a minimum standard of credit worthiness for our processing partners to accept them as the Account Signer. Again, no different from applying for a new credit card or something like that.

And again, as stated above, any information provided on the application - SSNs/SINs included - is all securely submitted to our card processor, which has the same level of security that all major banks have. And just in case you have this question floating around your head, any SSNs/SINs submitted to our card processor do not get shared to the IRS, CRA, or anyone else.

Who Should Be The Account Signer?

While the Account Signer can technically be anyone associated with your church, there are a few expectations of who it should be. Preferably speaking, the Account Signer will be someone on your church’s finance team; however, if you need to choose someone else, preferably they are someone who:

  • Can access your church’s legal/financial information, should our card processor request additional legal documentation about your church
  • Is on staff, or at the bare minimum volunteering at your church
  • Can easily be verified to be connected your church in some way
    • The best way for this is to have them listed somewhere on your church’s website
    • If not, or they can’t be added to the website, please send church meeting minutes with their name on it
    • If you can’t provide church meeting minutes with their name on it, please provide an alternative document that links them to your church (e.g. a business card)
    • Sometimes, if our card processor can’t verify the Account Signer to your church, they will also request a copy of the Account Signer’s drivers license. Note: This is not required with the initial application, but is sometimes requested from our card processor during the review process.
  • Can be easily contacted by our Customer Success team
  • Can navigate digital forms (e.g. DocuSigns)

Add Your Church’s Bank Account Information

Below is likely the easiest part of the application: your church’s bank account. This is the bank account that you want all deposits going into. Our card processor can only allow one bank account per processing account, so if you have multiple bank accounts that you need funds diverted to, you’ll need to manually transfer funds from your main bank account (the one that will be on file with our card processor) to their proper bank account.

Below is a list of the required information for your deposit bank account 👇

  • Bank name
  • Account & Routing Number (for USA)
  • Account, Institution & Transit Number (for Canada)

Can It Be A Savings Account?

While the bank account you provide can technically be a savings account, the bank account you provide must be able to have unlimited deposits and withdrawals. Since most savings accounts have a limit of how many transactions can take place within any month, we recommend not using a savings account for your deposit bank account for your Nucleus Giving account.

In fact, in our experience, every single time a church has submitted a savings account, our card processor has come back to us saying they cannot use that bank account. So it’s best to just provide us with a checking account with unlimited transactions just to be safe.

Start Your Subscription & Submit Your Application

Once you fill out all the required pieces of information, you’ll need to start your Nucleus Giving subscription before submitting your application. This is because it costs money to submit any application to our card processor, so starting your Giving subscription helps cover any costs associated with the application process.

To start your subscription, you’ll first need to ensure that there is a payment method on file here in the Billing section of your Church Settings.

Then, go to your Products tab and start your Giving subscription.

If you have any difficulties starting your Giving subscription, send us a message at hello@nucleus.church and our Customer Success team will help 😊

Once your subscription is started, the last step is to agree to both CardConnect’s and BluePay’s terms of service. There are links directly on the Processing Account page to read their terms of service, but below are some quick links if you need some, er… easy access bathroom or bedtime reading material 😅

Once you check both boxes off agreeing to the terms, you can then click the button to Submit Application.

Who Is BluePay?

While CardConnect is the company who manages your processing account, BluePay is the system that currently handles ACH (direct bank-to-bank transfers) transactions specifically. So anytime someone donates via their bank account and you receive those funds, BluePay has a hand in making sure those funds are transferred correctly.

Note: CardConnect recently bought BluePay, so soon, all transactions (card and ACH) will be handled under the same CardConnect platform and Terms of Service. 

While You Wait

As stated above, typical turnaround time from when you submit your application to when your processing account is fully active is about 5-7 business days. But that doesn’t mean you have to just sit there twiddling your thumbs waiting with bated breath! In fact, there are several tasks you can take care of during this time to make sure that you’re all ready to go the moment we send you the good news that your processing account is active 😎

Note: While we have an agreement with our card processor that they should not send you any promotional materials, there is still a chance you may receive some emails from CardConnect, Cardpointe, or BluePay once we submit your application. Please safely disregard these emails.

Note: During the waiting period, our card processor will review your application. In doing so, they may ask for additional information or documentation to help verify the information you provided in the application. While this doesn’t happen all the time, please be on standby to receive an email from a member of our Customer Success team with those details. The sooner those additional pieces of information or documentation are provided, the sooner our card processor can continue reviewing your application.

Invite Other People To Help Manage Your Giving

Just like with any aspect of your Nucleus Dashboard, you can invite multiple people to help manage your account. So feel free to invite other admins who can aid in tracking and reconciling all your donations that you’re soon to be taking in from your GivingFlow here in your Dashboard.

To learn about how to invite other admins, click here.

Set Up Your Funds

While you can organize your funds directly in the Giving area of your Dashboard, you first must create your funds in the Financial Account section of your Church Settings. Click here for a quick link.

Here, you can add as many funds as you’d like and add descriptions to help explain to donors what those funds will be used for if the name of the fund isn’t self-explanatory.

To learn more about how to create funds, click here.

Customize Your GivingFlow

While your GivingFlow is already set up with steps in a specific order, you can still add a few other steps and customize certain elements, organize your funds, etc.

To do this, go to your Giving, click on Manage, and then select GivingFlow. Click here for a quick link.

We have an entire section on managing your GivingFlow. Click here to check that out.

Add Your GivingFlow To Your Launcher

Once you’re satisfied with how your GivingFlow looks, it’s time to make it easily accessible by your church. Your GivingFlow is best accessed via an action in your Nucleus Launcher. Adding it to your Launcher is super easy and is done within the Next Steps area of your Dashboard.

To learn more about adding actions to your Launcher, click here.

Note: If you already have your Launcher installed on your website, but your Giving account is not yet active, we recommend waiting to add Giving to your Launcher until after you can actually take in online donations. This will help avoid confusion for anyone visiting your website and tries clicking on your Give action in your Launcher, but can’t actually make a donation.

Make Sure Your Launcher Is Installed On Your Website

If you haven’t done this already, once we give you the green light that your processing account is active, you’ll want to make sure that your Launcher is installed properly on your church’s website. Otherwise, you’ll have an active giving account with no way for people to give online donations 😢

To learn how to install the Launcher on your website, click here.

What Next?

If you’re filling out (or just completed) your processing account application and are looking for some more introductory guides on Nucleus Giving, check out some of the articles below:

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