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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.

:::note 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.

:::tip 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.

:::warning 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​