Offline payments
Offline payment means the money changes hands outside the site — a bank transfer, a cheque, cash in person. Ignition Crowdfunding records the pledge and waits for someone to confirm the money arrived.
On a platform with many independent creators, the question is who. Platform Mode lets you answer it: either the platform collects everything centrally, or each creator collects their own and confirms receipt themselves.
Choosing who collects
Section titled “Choosing who collects”Offline payments have no separate setting for this. Who gets the money is decided once for the whole site, under Ignition → Settings → Add-ons → Platform Mode → Who Receives Pledges, and every payment method follows it.
| Choice | Who gets paid | Who confirms |
|---|---|---|
| The platform (default) | You. Backers follow one set of payment instructions that you write. | You, from wp-admin. |
| Each creator | Each creator, directly. Backers follow instructions the creator wrote. | The creator, from their own dashboard. |
When the platform collects, the Payment Instructions editor on Ignition → Settings → Payments → Offline holds the single set of instructions every backer sees, and nothing about offline payments changes for your creators.
A payment you confirm on that route is recorded as money you are holding on the creator’s behalf — that is the record the Ignition Payouts add-on reads to work out what each creator is owed. When creators collect, no money passes through you and nothing is held.
When each creator collects, that editor is not on the screen at all — a note explains that creators write their own. It is removed rather than merely hidden, because one set of bank details written by you would point every backer at the wrong account. Everything below applies to that case.
What creators do
Section titled “What creators do”Writing payment instructions
Section titled “Writing payment instructions”Each creator gets an Offline payments section in the Account area of their dashboard. They write, in their own words, how a backer should pay them — bank details, a payment handle, where to post a cheque.
Three placeholders get filled in per backer:
| Placeholder | Becomes |
|---|---|
{amount} |
The pledge amount |
{campaign_name} |
The campaign’s title |
{pledge_id} |
The pledge’s reference number |
A creator writing “Transfer {amount} to Sort 00-00-00, Account 12345678, quoting reference {pledge_id}” gives every backer a reference that ties the money back to a specific pledge — worth encouraging, because it is what makes the next step quick.
Backers see these instructions on the confirmation screen after pledging, in their pledge confirmation email, and on the pledge in their own dashboard.
Confirming a payment arrived
Section titled “Confirming a payment arrived”When the money lands, the creator opens their campaign’s pledges list, finds the pledge, and chooses Mark payment received. That is the whole action — one confirmation, no form.
Everything that normally follows a successful payment then happens by itself: the backer gets their payment-received email, the pledge moves to succeeded, and the campaign’s collected total and progress bar update.
Only the creator who owns the campaign can do this. Staff keep the same ability they always had.
Offline hides itself until a creator can be paid
Section titled “Offline hides itself until a creator can be paid”A campaign whose creator has not written any payment instructions does not offer offline payment at checkout. There is nothing useful to show a backer, so the option is not there.
Staff can see why. The campaign’s page in wp-admin lists the payment methods it offers, and for Offline it says the creator, by name, hasn’t written offline payment instructions. Once the creator writes them, Offline appears at checkout with no further step.
If a submission arrives asking for offline payment on such a campaign anyway, it is refused rather than quietly switched to another method — no pledge is created and the backer is told. A backer is never charged through a route they did not pick.
This check looks only at whether instructions exist right now. A pledge already made offline stays confirmable even if the creator later clears their instructions, so editing them never strands money already in flight.
What you still see as staff
Section titled “What you still see as staff”Handing collection to creators does not hide it from you. The Creators list in wp-admin and each creator’s detail view continue to show what each creator has pledged, received, refunded and canceled.
Related
Section titled “Related”- Platform Mode overview — the Who Receives Pledges setting, and the creator role.
- Ignition Payouts — paying creators the money you collected for them. Requires Platform Mode 0.4.0 or later.
- The Creators list — the wp-admin roster of creators and their activity.
- Payments — the payment methods screen and how offline fits among them.
- Managing pledges — recording an offline payment from wp-admin.