CoolPay Hub is where staff review and approve upcoming recurring payments before they go out. Nothing reaches the bank until someone with permission approves it, or picks another action like skip or hold.
Find CoolPay Hub under Give > CoolPay Hub. It appears first in the CoolPay group with a shield check icon. A Missed Payments alert elsewhere in Give can also take you straight into the hub.
Who can approve
Approval uses the Recurring Contributions Update permission. Anyone with that permission can approve, including regular staff and staff-support or impersonation sessions.
The three tabs
Needs you: everything waiting on a decision. This is the default tab and where you approve payments.
Scheduled: pre-approved periods and periods that are not due yet.
Activity: charges already submitted or resolved.
The badge count shown next to CoolPay Hub in the navigation is the total number of cards in the Needs you tab. It is not limited to payments waiting for approval: it can also include failed payments, stuck payments waiting to be re-submitted, and periods you can approve ahead of time.
Needs you: decision cards
Each pending payment shows as its own card instead of a table row. A card leads with the decision itself: the amount on the left, and the due date (or, for a period you're approving ahead of time, "Charges on") on the right. Below that sit the donor's name and number, a link to the recurring gift, and the payment method, labeled in plain terms as Card or ACH with the last 4 digits, for example Card •••• 4242 or ACH •••• 6789. CoolFocus translates the processor's own vocabulary for you, so you will never see raw values like card or bank_account on a row or in the decision dialog.
Every card also carries one evidence line so you can judge the payment without opening it:
Last: $35.00 on Jun 29 when the gift has payment history. The line uses the most recently processed payment, not whatever order the server returned.
Last: $35.00 on Jun 29 - failed - Card expired when that latest payment itself failed.
Last: $35.00 on Jun 29 - 2 failures in 90 days when the history is otherwise clean but the gift has had recent failures.
First charge - no history for a gift with no payment history yet.
Failed Jul 29 - Insufficient funds on a failed period, styled as a link straight to the failed payment.
Dates on the card show only the month and day. A date from an earlier calendar year adds the year, so an old date is never mistaken for a recent one.
A card also flags a catch-up risk with a second, amber-tinted line when recent payments landed in the same calendar month. That often happens when a held or delayed gift settles alongside newer periods. The flag does not block approval, it just asks you to confirm the payments are separate periods, not duplicates.
Needs you groups cards by the kind of decision:
Due now: periods due today and waiting on a first approval. This group supports batch approval (see below).
Failed - needs a decision: periods whose last attempt failed. Acknowledge the failure, contact the donor, or correct the payment method before re-approving. Only appears when something has failed.
Stuck - re-submit charge: periods approved but never submitted to the processor. Click Re-submit on the card to retry the same approval directly, without opening the review dialog. This does not create a new decision.
Approve ahead of time: clean, future periods you can pre-approve early. These cards show no batch checkbox: pre-approval happens one card at a time, since there is no batch pre-approve endpoint yet.
Each group shows up to 25 cards at once. Past that, a Show all button reveals the rest.
Cancelled or paused recurring gifts
A pending period can outlive the recurring gift behind it. If a donor's recurring gift is cancelled or paused after a period was already queued for approval (for example, a donor cancelled the same day a charge was already scheduled), that period can no longer be charged. CoolFocus surfaces this instead of letting you approve a charge that can no longer go through.
Cancelled gifts move to Activity. When a recurring gift is cancelled, any pending or failed period it already generated can never be approved, since the processor rejects a decision on a cancelled gift. CoolPay Hub keeps those leftover periods out of Needs you and shows them in the Activity tab instead, so Needs you only shows work someone can actually act on. They are also left out of the number shown next to CoolPay Hub in the sidebar, so that count only reflects periods still waiting on you, and out of the daily "recurring gifts need approval" reminder email, so a cancelled gift never inflates the amount your organization is asked to review.
The leftover period stays visible in Activity (and in the gift's own history), so the record is not lost. Open it there to see the cancellation reason and date and why it can't be approved, and Skip it if you want to tidy it up without charging the donor. There's no requirement to do so, since it no longer counts toward anything. There is no approve option for a cancelled gift's period.
Paused gifts still need a decision. A paused gift's leftover period stays in Needs you with a Skip action, because pausing is often how a failed charge reaches a person in the first place. Only a deliberately cancelled gift is moved out of Needs you.
Wherever one of these leftover periods appears, CoolPay Hub flags it so staff do not try to approve it:
The row's status pill shows Cancelled or Paused instead of the usual due, failed, Due now, or Approve ahead label.
The row checkbox is disabled, and the row is excluded from Select eligible, Approve all, and batch approval. Batch approval and pre-approval (approving ahead of the due date) both skip these periods automatically, so they never get pulled into a batch by mistake.
Opening the row shows a Recurring gift cancelled or Recurring gift paused alert with the date it was cancelled or paused and an explanation that the gift can no longer be charged.
The dialog title becomes Review cancelled payment or Review paused payment.
The Approve and submit button is replaced with Skip without charging, the only available action. Skipping resolves the leftover period and clears it from the queue without submitting a charge or charging the donor.
If you try to approve one of these periods through the API directly, you'll get a recurring_contribution_unavailable error. Use Skip instead.
Batch approving Due now
The Due now group header carries the batch controls:
A checkbox to select every eligible card currently shown in the group.
A button that prices the batch as you go: Approve all N * $amount when nothing is selected, Approve N selected * $amount once you check individual cards.
If more cards are hiding behind Show all, the button reads Approve N shown * $amount instead of Approve all, and both the button and the select-all checkbox only ever reach the cards on screen. Click Show all first if you want the batch to cover every due period.
A card in Due now that cannot batch-approve (because it needs individual review or has a recent failure) shows a disabled checkbox with the reason, instead of a blank space. Select-all skips these cards automatically.
Clicking the batch button opens the batch confirmation: approving requires typing the exact confirmation phrase for the selected count and total.
Switching tabs clears your selection, so a card checked in one tab can never ride into a batch approved from another.
Reviewing a single period
Click anywhere on a card (other than its buttons or links) to open its decision dialog. Along with the amount, frequency, due date, and payment method (same Card / ACH labeling as the queue), you will see:
Recent payments for this gift (date, amount, covered period, and status), so you can avoid a duplicate charge.
A catch-up warning when recent payments landed in the same calendar month.
For a failed period, the dialog title becomes Review failed payment and shows the failure reason, so you can approve again, skip, or hold with context.
For a cancelled or paused recurring gift, an alert explaining the gift can no longer be charged, with the cancellation or pause date
The Approve (or Approve ahead) button is green; a failed period's Review button is amber. Approving submits that one period only. It does not approve any future periods for the same gift.
When a period's details change before you approve
CoolPay Hub keeps a pending period in sync with the donor's recurring gift right up to the moment you approve it. A pending period keeps a snapshot of the payment method, amount, fees, frequency, and next payment date at the moment it was queued. If the donor updates their recurring gift after that (for example switching a card to a bank account, or changing the amount) while the period is still undecided, CoolFocus refreshes that snapshot automatically the next time it materializes due periods. You will see the updated payment method and amount in the row without having to do anything.
If the row in your browser is showing older details when you click Approve, CoolFocus rejects the approval with a 409 instead of charging against outdated details. When that happens:
The confirmation dialog closes and your attestation is cleared, so you cannot resubmit the same dialog against stale details.
An error message names what changed, for example "Payment method, amount, and fees changed."
The queue refreshes automatically, so the row now shows the current payment method, amount, and fees.
Review the refreshed row, then approve again with the current details, or use Skip to move past this period without charging.
Retrying a failed period after replacing the payment method
After a charge fails, the recurring gift's schedule normally moves on to its next due date within a few days, often before staff have even replaced the failed card. That schedule move by itself does not block your retry.
When you re-approve a failed period with a new saved payment method, CoolFocus recognizes that the schedule has simply advanced past the failure and still lets the retry through, charging against the failed period's own original due date rather than the newer one. If anything else about the gift changed at the same time, such as the amount or frequency, the approval is still blocked as stale so you can review the current details before trying again.
Blocked periods
Some periods carry an open risk flag that Approve cannot get past. In the queue, these show a red Blocked badge on the card instead of a Review or Approve button. Opening a blocked row shows a dialog titled "Can't approve this period yet" that names the specific issue in plain language (what is actually true right now) and lists what you can do about it, instead of just showing a raw flag name or status code.
Each blocking issue has an owner:
You can fix it now: for example, no usable payment method or a duplicate active recurring gift. The dialog tells you what to ask the donor for, or what to cancel, before approving.
Nothing to do but wait: for example, an earlier bank payment on the same gift hasn't settled yet, or the period is already covered by a charge in flight. Approving now risks a double charge, so the dialog says to wait.
Only support can clear it: for example, an open payment issue (reconciliation alert) on the recurring gift. The dialog says to contact support if the period needs to be charged, and offers Skip, Pause, or Mark fulfilled outside CoolPay as the actions that do work in the meantime, so the donor is not left waiting on a period nobody can act on yet. It never asks you to chase the donor for a card that is already fine.
The blockers you may see:
Payment issue still open - an unresolved payment issue is open on this recurring gift. Support has to clear it before the period can be charged.
No usable payment method - the gift has no saved card or bank account that can be charged. Ask the donor for an updated payment method, then approve.
Duplicate recurring gift - the donor has another active recurring gift with the same amount, schedule, and payment method. Cancel whichever gift is the duplicate, then approve.
Bank payment still pending - an earlier bank payment for this gift has not settled yet. Wait for it to settle; charging now risks billing the donor twice.
Period already covered - a charge covering this same period is already in flight or completed. Skip this period.
Schedule cannot be resolved - the gift's frequency does not resolve to a single billing period. Support needs to correct the schedule.
When the fix is not something staff can do themselves, the dialog says so directly and points you to Skip, Pause, or Mark fulfilled outside CoolPay instead of Approve. Chasing the donor for a new card will not help when the block is one of these, since the payment method is not the problem. The dialog does not offer an Approve action it cannot honor; Skip, Pause, and Mark fulfilled outside CoolPay remain available from the same dialog for a blocked period.
A blocking alert only holds back the specific billing period it was raised about, not every later period of that gift. An alert raised against an earlier period (for example, a duplicate-payment check from several months ago) does not keep blocking later periods of the same recurring gift, even after intervening charges have gone through. Once the alert's own period is resolved or has passed, later periods can be approved normally, even while the older period still waits on support. Alerts that don't name a specific period still block every period of the gift until resolved, since there is no way to scope those to a single charge.
A stuck "Reconciliation Required" period clears itself
A period can get stuck showing Reconciliation Required with no Approve button at all, not even Skip through the usual review dialog, if the payment behind it was approved but never actually sent to the processor.
CoolFocus checks a stuck period like this every time the Hub reloads. If the payment history shows the charge truly never went out, the period is reopened automatically to a normal pending decision, and Approve becomes available again without anyone contacting support. If a payment may actually exist for that period, the block stays in place and still needs support to review it, since approving on top of a real charge would risk billing the donor twice.
If a period stays stuck after reopening CoolPay Hub, contact support.
When Approve is not shown
Some periods can't be approved as part of a batch and open in an Individual review alert instead. When the attestation checkbox and Approve button are available, the alert tells you to review the details and confirm authorization. Those controls only show when there is actually something to approve. If they are hidden, the dialog explains why instead of telling you to confirm authorization you cannot see. You may see:
You do not have permission to approve payments
Approval is unavailable while the recurring gift is not active
The gift has no usable saved payment method, so nothing can be charged yet
The exact date approval opens, when the period isn't due yet
In the no-payment-method case, approval and the attestation checkbox are hidden entirely.
When a period is hard-blocked by a risk flag (for example a pending ACH overlap), the dialog names the flag in plain language instead of just hiding Approve. Non-charge actions like Skip, Hold, and Mark fulfilled outside CoolPay stay available in all of these cases, so you still have a way to resolve the period.
Scheduled tab
The Scheduled tab is read-mostly. It groups periods into:
Pre-approved - will charge on the due date: already authorized. You can revoke any of these right up until it charges.
Upcoming - needs a look on the day: periods that carry something worth checking, so they wait for same-day review instead of being signed off in advance.
Click a row to open the same decision dialog as Needs you.
After you approve
CoolFocus submits approved charges in the background. If the processor rate-limits the submission (for example "Too many requests"), CoolFocus keeps the period approved and queued, does not email the donor, and automatically retries. Recovery starts within a few minutes and also runs in a daily sweep. You do not need to re-approve in those cases.
Approved but not submitted
Approval is not the same as submission. A period that shows an approved decision but is still queued lands in the Stuck group, with a Re-submit action.
Common causes:
Recurring processing is paused for your whole organization.
Recurring processing is paused for that donor's account.
When a pause blocks submission, CoolFocus opens an alert and writes a processing log entry. You can see the open alert on the recurring gift's Recent History timeline. Clear the pause, then approve or re-submit the period from the hub.
Other ways to resolve a period
Skip moves the gift to its next scheduled date without charging this period. This is the right choice for a leftover period whose recurring gift was cancelled or paused.
Hold pauses the period until someone removes it from hold.
Mark fulfilled outside CoolPay records that the donor already gave another way for that period.
Recovery spacing
If approving one past-due period would cause a second non-current-period charge on the same gift to land the same day, CoolFocus defers the second one. You will see a Recovery spaced entry in Recent History. The current-period charge due today is never delayed. The deferred period stays in the hub and becomes eligible again after about 7 days.
Due dates and time zones
The hub decides when a period is due using your organization's time zone on the server, not your browser's clock. That affects Needs you vs. Scheduled, and what can be approved:
Scheduled lists pending periods that are not yet due in your org's local time.
You cannot approve a period until it is due locally. Approve stays unavailable for not-yet-due periods (other than the deliberate early approvals in Approve ahead of time). You can still open a card to review details.
Overnight edge case: if it is already the next day in UTC, but not yet the next day in your organization's time zone, the period stays in Scheduled and cannot be approved yet.