> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.rescueconsole.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Fees, donations and payments
> The adoption fee schedule and its discounts, the one-click donation amounts, and taking payments online through your own Stripe account.
The **Finance & adoption** group in Settings holds three pages: **Adoption fees**, which works out what an animal costs to adopt; **Donation amounts**, the one-click choices on a donation; and **Payments**, where you connect the card processor that takes money online.
## Adoption fees
**Settings → Finance & adoption → Adoption fees** is the fee structure staff apply when an animal comes in: a list of rules, each giving a fee for a species at an age, and under it a list of discounts. When an animal is added, or its fee is set, the schedule suggests the fee of the first rule that matches it.
Only someone with **Configure** on Animals can open this page. Anyone else is told they do not have access to the fee schedule.
The schedule is a calculator, not a price list. Changing it suggests different fees for animals added afterwards. It never changes a fee already set on an animal, and it can never change what a completed adoption charged.
### Fee rules
Press **Add a rule** for each fee, then **Save changes** to keep the list. Until there are rules, staff type each animal's fee by hand.
| Field | What it means |
| --------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Description** | What the fee is called, such as "Puppy" or "Senior cat". |
| Amount | The fee, in dollars and cents. |
| Species | Required. The one species the rule covers, from the species you work with. |
| Age | **Any age**, or one of that species' [age groups](/settings/pet-configuration#age-groups). |
| **Active** | Untick it to pause a rule without deleting it. A paused rule is kept, so a fee structure that changed in July can still be looked up in October. |
The arrows (or dragging a rule) move it up or down, and the bin removes it. **Save changes** is unavailable while any rule has no species.
### Rule order
The first rule that matches an animal is the one that applies, so the order matters. Put the specific rules above the general ones: "Puppy" above "Dog, any age".
A rule for a species at **Any age** matches every animal of that species, so any active rule for the same species below it can never apply. The page warns you, marks the rules it hides with "Never applies: an earlier rule matches every animal", and will not save until you move the general rule below them.
### Discounts
Discounts are taken off the fee the schedule suggests, at the moment an adoption is recorded, when their conditions hold: a bonded pair, a long stay, a holiday, two going home together. Every matching discount applies, in the order listed, and a percentage takes from what is left after the ones above it. The adoption keeps a receipt of what came off and why.
Press **Add a discount**, fill in the row, and press **Save discounts**.
| Field | What it means |
| ---------- | --------------------------------------------------- |
| Label | What the discount is called, such as "Bonded pair". |
| Kind | **% off**, **$off**, or **Set the fee to$**. |
| Value | The percentage, or the amount in dollars and cents. |
| **Active** | Untick it to pause the discount. |
Under each discount, **When:** sums up its conditions and dates in one line. **Edit conditions** opens them.
### Discount conditions
| Condition | What it means |
| ----------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **From**, **Until** | The dates the discount runs between. Either may be left open. |
| **Species** | Required: every discount names one species. |
| **Age** | One or more of that species' age groups. None chosen means any age. |
| **Carries any of these traits** | The animal has at least one of the chosen attributes from your [Behaviour](/settings/pet-configuration#behaviour) list. |
| **In care at least (days)** | How long the animal must have been in your care. |
| **Going home together, at least** | How many animals must be adopted together, two or more. |
| **Has a bonded pair** | The animal has a bonded pair recorded on it. |
| **Fee at least ($)**, **Fee at most ($)** | The range the suggested fee must fall in. |
A discount with no conditions and no dates would apply to every animal on every day. That is a price change, not a discount: the page will not save it, and asks you to change the fee schedule instead.
## Donation amounts
**Settings → Finance & adoption → Donation amounts** is the set of one-click amounts offered when somebody records a donation, and on the donation form of your public site. Leave the list empty to type an amount every time.
To add one, type it in **Add an amount**, optionally say **What it does** ("Vaccinates one cat"), and press **Add**. The sentence shows beside the amount on your donation page and on the donation form in RescueConsole. You can edit the sentence on any amount in the list, and the cross beside it removes the amount.
Amounts are kept in order, smallest first. The same amount cannot be listed twice, and the list holds up to 12. Press **Save amounts** to keep your changes.
Only an **Organization admin** can save the amounts.
## Payments
**Settings → Finance & adoption → Payments** is where you take donations and adoption fees online, through your own Stripe account. The money lands with you; RescueConsole never holds it.
Only an **Organization admin** can manage payments.
If online payments are not switched on for RescueConsole yet, the page says **Not available yet**. The **Paid another way** part below still works.
### Connecting Stripe
The **Stripe** card shows where you are:
| Status | What it means |
| -------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Not connected** | No Stripe account is linked. |
| **Setup incomplete** | Connected, but Stripe has not yet cleared the account to take payments, usually because the setup was not finished or a detail is still being checked. |
| **Taking payments** | Donations and adoption fees paid online arrive in this account, and Stripe pays it out on its usual schedule. |
Press **Connect Stripe**. This creates a Stripe account in your organization's name and takes you to Stripe.
Stripe asks, on its own pages, for the details it needs to pay you out. You give them to Stripe, not to RescueConsole. There are no keys to copy.
When you return, the page checks with Stripe and shows the new status. If it reads **Setup incomplete**, press **Finish setting up** to go back to Stripe.
Once you are connected, **Stripe dashboard** opens your account on Stripe. Because every payment lands in your own Stripe account, refunds and disputes are yours, handled there.
When the status is **Taking payments**, add a **Donate** section to a page of your [public site](/public-site/overview), and send adoption-fee payment links from an [adoption](/animals/adoptions).
### Who pays the fees
Shown once Stripe is connected. Two kinds of fee can come out of an online payment, and for each you choose whether it comes out of what you receive or is added to what the payer is asked for. Each choice saves the moment you pick it.
**Card processing fee (Stripe)**
| Choice | What happens |
| ------------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Offer the payer the choice** | The payer sees a tick box, ticked to start with, offering to cover the card processing fee so the whole gift reaches the animals. |
| **The payer always covers it** | The cover is added to every payment, with no tick box. |
| **We pay it** | Stripe takes its fee, about 2.9% plus 30¢, from each payment before it reaches you. |
The cover the payer is asked for is an estimate, because Stripe's actual fee varies by card. The checkout says so.
**The \$1.00 an adoption costs you**
RescueConsole costs \$1.00 for each adoption you complete, free for the month you joined and the twelve full months after it.
| Choice | What happens |
| ----------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **We pay it** | It stays on your monthly RescueConsole invoice. |
| **The adopter pays it** | It is added to the adoption fee at checkout as its own line, and that adoption is left off your invoice. |
The page shows what a \$150.00 adoption fee would ask the adopter for under your choice. Changing this does not change a payment link already sent: each link keeps the amount it was made with.
**Platform fee (RescueConsole)**
**We pay it** takes it out of what you receive; **The payer pays it** adds it on top as its own line. If your account has no platform fee, the page says so, and the choice changes nothing today.
Under the choices, a worked example shows what a \$25.00 gift costs the payer and what you receive, with your current choices.
### What your payers see
A donation or an adoption fee paid online goes through Stripe's own checkout page. Each part of the charge is its own line, so the payer sees exactly what they are paying for:
| Line | When it appears |
| ---------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------- |
| **Donation to** your organization's name | On a donation. |
| **Platform fee** | When the payer pays the platform fee. |
| **RescueConsole** | On an adoption fee, when the adopter pays the \$1.00. |
| **Covers card processing** | When the payer covers the card processing fee. |
A single online payment can be from $1 to $10,000.
An adoption-fee link also lets the adopter add a gift on top of the fee.
A payment is recorded only when Stripe confirms it was paid, not when the payer returns to your site. A donation is then recorded as a completed donation in [Donations](/fundraising/donations), including any card-processing cover the payer added. An adoption-fee payment is recorded on the adoption as a verified online payment, and a gift added on top of it is recorded as a donation.
### Paid another way
**Paid another way** is for the apps you already take money through. Add them here, and an adoption shows the adopter a code to scan with the amount already in it.
| Field | What to enter |
| ------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Cash App** | Your \$cashtag. The code carries the amount. |
| **Venmo** | Your handle. The code carries the amount and what it is for. |
| **PayPal** | Your paypal.me name. |
| **Zelle** | The email or phone Zelle goes to. Zelle has no code to scan; the adopter types this into their own bank app. |
| **Something else** | A link if you have one, or details to read out if you do not, with **What to call it on screen**. |
Press **Save**. To remove one, clear its field and save.
These pay you directly, so RescueConsole is never told when one is paid. Record what arrives on the adoption the way you record cash.
This part works whether or not Stripe is connected.