PCI Compliance - Protecting your Member Data!

🔐 What is PCI Compliance?

PCI ( Payment Card Industry) compliance ensures that organizations handling credit card data maintain a secure environment. Flocknote, together with our trusted payment processor, Stax, prioritizes your data security by adhering to these high standards. In this article, we’ll explain what PCI compliance means, why it’s important for your church, and how Flocknote helps you stay secure and up to date!

Who needs to complete the compliance steps?

Financial Controllers will be required to complete an annual PCI Compliance Questionnaire. The team at Flocknote will be happy to assist with this process.

Completing PCI Compliance (estimated time ⏰ - 5 minutes)

As the controller for your Flocknote network's Online Giving Account, you will receive an email from support@pciapply.com  with instructions to log in to your compliance portal. You'll recieve that email when it is time to complete your annual PCI compliance. Since there is a fee associated with non-compliance, you'll receive a few reminders as well.

Once logged in, you'll arrive on the home page. This page includes a reminder about why PCI compliance is an important step in protecting your members' giving data! You'll also notice a quick preview of the 5 easy steps to complete the process. Once you've perused the page, you are ready to begin the compliance process. Click Get Started and start your clock. This process should take about 5 minutes. ⏰

Merchant information

First, it's time to complete your merchant information. Good News! All you need to do is select the drop-down in the top right-hand corner and select Flocknote Payments. This will autofill all your information for you!  

Scroll down the page to see the information that was autofilled. The fields can be adjusted, just in case, but feel free to move forward with the autofilled information. 👍

Once your information is filled in, you'll need to agree to the terms and conditions. Feel free to click the blue text for more details. When you are ready, click the "I have read and agreed to the end-user license agreement" box and then hit Save and Continue

Confirm your eligibility

The statements below are each a requirement for being PCI compliant. Each of these statments are writen in "bank speak" so if they sound a bit confusing, don't worry. If you use Flocknotes' Online Giving feature as intended, these statements should all be true, and you can select the "I agree that the statements above are true" box and then click Continue.

If you have a question about any of these statements or if you are not sure if they are true for your church or organization, feel free to reach out to our team at help@flocknote.com. Were happy to clarify further so that you can continue with confidence.

The Questionnaire

Now it's time for the questionnaire, and we've got more good news! Notice the green boxes. These indicate that all the information has been automatically filled in for Flocknote Online Giving users. All you will need to do on this page is hit Continue.

Review and Sign

How's your countdown clock? This is the last step. Take a second to review all the information (remember, we've filled in everything you need). Then, at the bottom of the page, we'll need some official information to confirm that you completed this survey on behalf of your church or organization. Once that information has been entered, click Submit!  

1. Merchant Executive Office Name (Your Name)
2. Title (Your role at the church/organization)
3. Last 4 Digits of your Tax ID (your Church's EIN) or Social Security #

And just like that, you have completed the annual PCI Compliance for your church! 🎉

Why does my church need to be PCI Compliant? Is this optional? 

PCI compliance shows that your church or organization is taking the security measures needed to keep cardholder data secure, so you must become compliant. Even if you are not actively using your Flocknote Online Giving account at the moment, you still need to show that you are compliant with these standards. For this reason, this is required, so make sure to put this on your to-do list! If, by chance, you do not become compliant within a certain time frame, you will incur a fee from Stax (see below).

How often must my church update its compliance? 

The standards for payment processing are constantly advancing. To make sure that your church or organization complies with the most up-to-date requirements, PCI compliance must be renewed annually.

Upon being verified with Flocknote's payment provider, Stax, you will receive an automated email with login instructions to access the PCI compliance workflow. If you did not receive an email or need help getting started, please reach out to help@flocknote.com

Have more questions about PCI Compliance? Reach out to our team at help@flocknote.com