How to start online donations for a temple

Many devotees now expect to give the way they pay for everything else — by UPI from their phone, often from another city. A temple that accepts only cash at the counter misses those gifts, and a temple that shares a trustee’s personal UPI ID creates a problem its auditor will find. This guide walks through a clean setup, in the order a temple office would actually do it.

What you need before you start

Razorpay’s published checklists for trusts list the trust deed or registration certificate, the trust’s PAN, a resolution authorising a signatory, signatory KYC and a cancelled cheque or bank statement in the trust’s name; some also mention 12A and 80G certificates. Lists differ between gateways and change over time, so treat the live onboarding form as final.

Choose how devotees will pay

There are three common routes, and most temples end up using two of them.

A static QR code on its own is the easiest to set up and the hardest to account for. Money arrives with no fund, no address and sometimes no recognisable name, so it cannot carry a proper donor receipt and often ends up in a suspense account. If you use one, put it beside a short form or a phone number for receipts, and reconcile it daily.

Opening a payment gateway account for a trust

1. Choose the gateway. Compare fees for UPI, cards and net banking, settlement timing, support for recurring payments, and whether your temple software already connects to it.
2. Register as the trust, not as an individual. Pick the trust, society or NGO business type and give the trust’s PAN.
3. Upload the documents from the table above, in the trust’s name and signed where required.
4. Add the trust’s bank account for settlements.
5. Submit your website or donation page for review. Gateways usually expect contact details, terms and a refund or cancellation policy to be visible.
6. Test with a small live donation. Check the receipt, and confirm the settlement reaches the bank before announcing anything to devotees.

Expect questions about the trust’s activities during review. Answer them in the trust’s own words, and keep copies of everything you submit.

Decide what devotees can give to

Offer a short list. A donation page with twenty funds confuses donors and the accountant alike. A typical temple starts with:

• General donation — any amount, for the trust’s objects.
• Annadanam (free community meals) — often with suggested amounts, such as one day’s meals.
• A named project — a renovation, a new ratha (chariot), the goshala (cow shelter) — with a target and a date.
• Puja and seva bookings — fixed-price offerings with a date and the devotee’s gotra (lineage) and nakshatra (birth star), handled as bookings rather than donations.

Each option should map to one account head and, where relevant, one earmarked fund, so the online receipt lands in the right place in the books. Corpus donations need a written direction from the donor, so add clear wording and a checkbox if you accept them online.

Issue a receipt for every payment

An online donation should produce a receipt as soon as payment succeeds, sent by email or SMS, from a numbered series of its own for the online channel and the financial year. Ask for name and address on the donation form, and PAN or Aadhaar only from donors who want a tax receipt and only if your trust holds 80G approval. Print 80G wording only if the trust is approved — our 80G guide explains why many temples are not. If you send receipts by SMS, the message template has to be registered on DLT first; see DLT registration for temple SMS.

Online giving also helps donors who want a deduction: the Income Tax Department’s FAQ on section 80G says a cash donation above ₹2,000 does not qualify, while payments by cheque, draft or electronic mode can.

Reconcile settlements, not just payments

A gateway dashboard shows payments; the bank shows settlements. They are not the same numbers. Gateways bundle many payments into one settlement and deduct their fees, and refunds or disputes can reduce a later settlement. A weekly routine:

1. Download the gateway’s settlement report for the week.
2. Match each settlement to its credit in the bank statement by amount and settlement reference.
3. Check that every payment in each settlement has a receipt in your system, and that no receipt exists for a failed payment.
4. Book the gross donation as income, and the fees and GST on fees as expenses.
5. Investigate refunds and disputes the same week, while the devotee still remembers the payment.
6. Carry anything unmatched to a suspense list with a person’s name against it.

Recurring donations

Monthly giving is steadier than festival appeals. Most gateways offer subscriptions that use UPI AutoPay or card and bank e-mandates: the devotee approves once and is debited each month. Keep it simple — a few fixed monthly amounts, a clear statement of the debit date, a receipt every month, and an easy way to cancel. Make cancelling as easy as signing up; donors who feel trapped stop trusting the temple, not just the mandate.

At the counter and on a kiosk

Online does not only mean the website. A QR code shown at the counter for the exact amount of a seva, or a card machine (POS) linked to the counter software, gives the speed of UPI with the donor’s details already entered. A self-service kiosk in the temple premises lets devotees donate or book without queueing and prints the receipt on the spot.

Launch checklist

1. Trust bank account confirmed, and no personal UPI IDs in use anywhere.
2. Gateway account approved in the trust’s name, and a test payment settled.
3. Donation options mapped to account heads and funds.
4. Online receipt series set up, and receipt wording checked by your CA.
5. A privacy note on the form explaining why you collect phone numbers and PAN.
6. A named owner for the weekly reconciliation.
7. The announcement ready: notice board, WhatsApp groups, and a mention after the evening aarti (lamp offering).

How Netra’s website & kiosk fits

Netra’s website & kiosk gives a temple its own booking website with Puja, Donation, Ticket, News, About and Contact tabs, deity and utsav (festival) pages, devotee OTP login, and installation as the temple’s own app on a phone. It works with Razorpay, Cashfree, PayU, Paytm, Worldline and Decentro. Online donations and kiosk payments land in the same receipt ledger as the counter, with the same numbering rules, and gateway settlements are matched automatically. Monthly auto-debit donations run through Razorpay or Cashfree subscriptions. The kiosk runs on Android in full-screen mode, with three booking flows, five themes and automatic thermal printing.

What it does not do: it does not open your gateway account — KYC is between the trust and the gateway — and card-machine payments on the kiosk are still rolling out. Website plans run from ₹999 to ₹1,999 a month depending on online receipt volume, GST extra, after a three-month free trial.

Sources

• Documents required for a payment gateway in India — Razorpay
• FAQs on Section 80G — Income Tax Department (₹2,000 cash limit)