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Managing requesters & payers

A requester & payer is a record of the parish's relationship with an external party. It tracks two kinds of activity:

  • Requests — Mass intentions, early requests, memorials, and Gregorian series.
  • Payments — receipts and invoices, including payment-only activity such as a baptism stipend or an online form fee, even when no Mass intention was ever requested.

Every time someone submits a request or makes a payment (online, by phone, or in person), a profile is created or matched. These records are not the same thing as People or login accounts. See Understanding parish records for how they relate.

The tab was renamed

This page used to be called just "Requesters." It is now Requesters & Payers because the same record also anchors people whose only activity is a payment. Those payment-only records are normal and expected — not errors.

The Requesters & Payers page​

Navigate to Admin Dashboard → People & Places → Requesters & Payers. The list is built around activity, so you can answer "is this someone we did something pastoral for, or someone who just paid for something?" without opening every record.

Views​

Buttons above the list switch between views:

  • All Records — the default. Start here when looking someone up.
  • Intention Requesters — only records with at least one pastoral request.
  • Payment-Only — only records whose activity is payments (where baptism-stipend and online-form payers live).
  • Needs Review and Duplicate Review — admin tools for identity cleanup.
Search reaches across every view

No matter which view is selected, search always queries the whole list. If you can't find someone, they are not in the system — they are never "hidden" inside another view.

Controls​

  • Search — find by name, email, or phone.
  • Sort — by last activity, request count, amount received, outstanding balance, or name.
  • Pagination — 25 records per page.

Table columns​

The list is deliberately compact — three columns plus a selection checkbox and an actions menu:

  • Name — the display name with a small icon for the kind (single person, joint household / couple, or organization), and the contact person beneath an organization name.
  • What & when — a single activity status chip plus a plain sentence describing the latest activity. This one column replaces the old Type, Identity, Intentions, Total Paid, and Last Intention columns.
  • Contact — email and phone, when available.

Activity status​

Each row carries exactly one status chip:

StatusMeaning
Mass intentionsThe record exists because of pastoral requests.
Payment onlyThe record exists only because of a payment — baptism stipend, online form, manual receipt, or invoice. No Mass intentions were requested.
Masses & paymentsA mix: pastoral requests and a separate standalone payment (e.g. a Mass requester who also paid a baptism stipend).
No recent activityA record with no current requests or payments (often a legacy or imported shell).

Next to the chip, a plain line such as "Paid for a baptism · Jun 4" or "5 requests · last May 28" shows the latest activity at a glance. Exact counts, financial totals, and identity links live in the profile, not on the row.

Requester attributes​

Every requester has two independent attributes, shown as badges in the profile header:

Registration status​

  • Registered — linked to a login account. The parishioner can sign in and see their request history.
  • Guest — no login account. Created from in-person visits, phone calls, or guest checkout.

Requester kind​

  • Individual — a single person.
  • Joint household — one profile representing two people together (e.g., "Bud & Caroline Ederer").
  • Organization — a non-person entity such as a funeral home, school, ministry, or business.

These are independent. A requester is described by both together — for example, "Registered Individual" or "Guest Organization."

Viewing a requester​

Click the three-dot menu on a row and select View (or View directly). The header shows the activity status and a one-line "why this record exists" summary — for example, "This record exists because of a baptism registration payment on June 4. No Mass intentions have been requested."

The profile has three tabs:

  • Overview — contact information (with email verification status), an activity summary, identity links (login account, Person record, household), and any review or repair warnings.
  • Requests — Mass intentions, early requests, memorials, and Gregorian series, grouped together. Each section is a paginated table with status badges and links to invoices and receipts. Empty sections are hidden.
  • Payments — receipts and invoices, each labeled with its source (Mass intention, Baptism registration, Online form, Memorial, etc.), plus currency totals, outstanding balance, refunds, and a summary of any baptism registrations or online-form submissions.

When possible duplicate or legacy matches exist, they appear as clearly separated "possible matches" within the relevant sections — they are admin-only candidates and never grant a parishioner access to those records.

Editing a requester​

Click the three-dot menu and select Edit. The top of the edit window shows a read-only context panel — the activity status, a short summary of what the record represents, counts, and linked identity — so you always know what you're editing before you change it. For payment-only records it also reminds you that editing changes the current contact and identity only; historical receipts and payment records are never altered.

You can update:

  • Requester kind — switch between Individual, Joint Household, or Organization. Each kind shows different name fields.
  • Name fields — depending on the kind: first/last name for individuals, primary and secondary names for joint household, or organization name and contact name for organizations.
  • Email and phone.
  • Preferred contact method — email or phone.
  • Address — with address autocomplete.
tip

If you just need to fix a typo in a phone number or email, edit the requester directly. You don't need to merge anything.

Merging duplicate requesters​

Duplicates happen when the same person submits requests on different occasions — once online and once in person, or after a data import creates a second profile.

Merging 2 requesters​

  1. Select both requesters using the checkboxes in the table.
  2. Click Merge Selected (2).
  3. Choose the target — pick which requester profile survives. The other merges into it.
  4. Resolve conflicts — for any field where the two records disagree (email, phone, etc.), choose which value to keep. You can also enter a custom value.
  5. Review the impact — the system shows what will move: Mass intentions, invoices, receipts, and other linked data.
  6. Confirm — type MERGE and apply.

Merging 3 or more requesters​

  1. Select all the duplicate requesters using the checkboxes.
  2. Click Merge Selected.
  3. Choose the kept requester once — all others merge into it.
  4. Resolve conflicts once — you see all conflicting values from every record and pick the best one. Values marked "Recommended" are the system's suggestion.
  5. Confirm — type MERGE and apply. The system processes the merges in sequence.

When a Person merge is required first​

If two requesters point to two different Person records, the system will block the requester merge and show a warning. You need to merge the People first in the People tab, then come back to finish the requester merge.

Merge People before Requesters

If both the People tab and the Requesters & Payers tab have duplicates for the same individual, always clean up People first. See Understanding parish records for why this matters.

Login accounts during a merge​

If two requesters are linked to different login accounts, the system asks you to choose which account stays attached to the surviving requester. The other account is not deleted or combined — it simply becomes unlinked.

The system never merges two login accounts into one.

What's next​