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Pickup Program Settings

Your pickup program configuration controls what donors see on the public pickup request form and how requests get scheduled.

Where to find it​

Open Point of Sale → Pickup Settings in the sidebar (there's also a gear button at the top of the Donation Pickups page). The program is configured per store location — if your affiliate has more than one store, pick the location at the top of the page before editing. Change what you need and press Save Settings; saving replaces the whole configuration for that store, so the page always loads the current settings first.

If a store has never had a pickup program, the page starts you with sensible defaults (weekday pickups, morning and afternoon windows, standard item categories). Add your service-area ZIP codes and save to turn the program on.

What each setting controls​

Program on or off​

This switch decides whether pickups are offered online at all. When the program is turned off (or was never set up), the public request form is hidden: donors who open your pickup link see a friendly "donation pickups aren't available online right now" notice instead of the form, and no new requests can be submitted — nothing lands in your review queue while the program is off.

Existing pickups aren't affected. Donors who already booked keep full use of their tracking link — they can still follow, reschedule, or cancel their pickup, and your team can still manage it as usual. Turn the switch back on and the public form is live again right away.

Accepted item categories​

The list of item types donors can choose on the form (for example furniture, appliances, building materials). If a donor's request includes an item outside these categories, the request is flagged and comes to staff for review instead of booking automatically.

Time windows​

The pickup windows donors can choose from — for example Morning (8:00 AM – 12:00 PM) and Afternoon (12:00 PM – 4:00 PM). These same windows appear as the standard options when staff approve or reschedule a pickup.

Auto-booking​

  • On: a request that passes every check — in the service area, accepted items, an open date with capacity, a valid time window — is scheduled instantly and the donor gets a confirmed date on the spot.
  • Off: every request goes to the Pending Review queue and staff confirm each one.

Either way, anything that fails a check always comes to staff for review.

Lead time (days)​

How much notice you need. Donors can't pick a date closer than this many days out — with a 2-day lead time, a request made Monday can be booked for Wednesday at the earliest. A donor asking for a sooner date sends the request to review.

Booking horizon (days)​

How far ahead donors can book. Dates beyond the horizon (for example, more than 30 days out) aren't offered.

Daily stop capacity​

The maximum number of pickups you'll take on one day. Once a day is full, donors can no longer book it, and any request for that day goes to review.

Service area (ZIP codes)​

The ZIP codes your trucks cover. The form checks the donor's address; an address outside the service area sends the request to review flagged "outside service area," where staff can decline it or make an exception.

If your affiliate has more than one store with a pickup program, the service areas also decide which store serves each donor: a request from the generic form link goes to the store whose ZIP list covers the donor's address (see Share or embed the request form below). Keep each store's ZIP list matched to the territory its trucks actually cover.

Pickup days and blackout dates​

Which days of the week you run pickups, plus exception dates (holidays, maintenance days) when no pickups are offered even though the weekday normally is.

Screening questions​

Extra questions on the form — like whether there are stairs — whose answers can flag a request for staff review before it's booked.

Donor reminders​

When donors receive reminder emails ahead of their pickup. Out of the box, every program sends two: one about 24 hours before the scheduled window and a day-of reminder about 2 hours before. Both include the donor's tracking link so they can follow the driver's arrival on pickup day. You can change the offsets to fit your operation, or remove them all to turn reminders off for the store.

SMS updates (optional)​

Turn on SMS updates to also text donors the time-critical moments of pickup day: the day-of reminder, a "your driver is on the way" message when the driver starts navigating, and same-day reschedule or cancellation notices. Everything else stays email-only.

Three things must be true before a text goes out: a platform administrator has configured Twilio and enabled SMS for your affiliate (texting stays off platform-side until your organization's sending number is approved by carriers), this toggle is on, and — always — the donor checked the "Text me updates" box on the request form. Donors who don't opt in simply keep getting emails, and texting only happens between 8 AM and 9 PM local time.

Your affiliate's monthly SMS budget — the cap on what pickups can spend on texts each month — is managed by a platform administrator, not on this page. When the budget runs out, texts pause until the next month — donors still get every email, and skipped texts are noted on the pickup's activity feed so staff can see what happened. Contact your platform administrator if you need the cap changed.

Inventory handoff​

Whether completed pickups automatically flow into your store's inventory intake, so collected items are queued for pricing and the sales floor.

Priority pickup fee (optional)​

You can offer donors a paid priority pickup upgrade. When it's turned on, the request form shows a "Priority pickup" option with the flat fee you configure (for example $25), paid by card while scheduling. A pickup with a paid priority fee is marked high priority so it stands out in the request queue and when building routes, and shows a "Priority pickup" badge on the donor's tracking page.

The fee is a service charge, not a donation — it never appears on the donor's tax acknowledgment. In your books it posts as a Pickup Fee journal entry through the store's account mapping (or your default mapping): the fee as store income, with its share of the estimated processing fee as fee expense, the same way a register sale posts. This offer is off unless you turn it on, and donors can always schedule a free pickup exactly as before.

Add-on donations (optional)​

You can also invite donors to add a one-time monetary gift while scheduling their pickup. Turn the offer on and choose the suggested amounts to display (for example $10 / $25 / $50); donors can also enter their own amount. The gift is charged to the donor's card along with any priority fee in a single payment.

An add-on gift is recorded as a regular donation — it appears in the donor's giving history and your fundraising reports, and the donor receives a standard donation receipt by email. If the card payment fails for any reason, the pickup request itself is unaffected: the donor can retry the payment or skip it.

Monthly mapping budget​

Matching addresses to map locations and calculating optimized routes uses a paid mapping service, and each store sets a monthly dollar budget for it. In plain terms:

  • Every address lookup and route optimization uses a small slice of the budget.
  • When a set share of the budget is used (70% by default), the system starts warning you.
  • When the budget is used up, route optimization and address lookups pause until it resets at the start of the next month. Donors can still submit requests and staff can still review, schedule, and build routes by hand — the system just can't auto-match new addresses or compute optimized stop orders until the new month.

If you regularly hit the limit before month end, ask your administrator to raise the budget.

Share or embed the request form​

The bottom of the settings page gives you everything needed to put the public request form in front of donors. There are two kinds of link:

  • This store's form link — the main link and iframe snippet shown are tied to the store location selected at the top of the page. Donors who use this link always book with this store: they see its accepted items, time windows, and payment offers, and their request lands in its pickup queue. Use it on a store-specific web page, in that store's emails, or on its social posts. Press Preview to open the live form in a new tab. If you turn this store's program off, donors on this link see the "pickups aren't available online" notice — even if your other stores are still taking requests.
  • Generic affiliate link — shown below the store link when your affiliate has more than one store. It isn't tied to any store: donors who use it are automatically routed to the right store by ZIP code. As soon as they enter their ZIP, the form switches to the store whose service area covers them, and their request goes to that store's queue. Use this one link on your affiliate-wide website when you don't want to manage a link per store.
  • Embed snippet — a ready-made iframe (for the store-pinned link) you can paste into any page of your website so donors can request a pickup without leaving your site.

If your affiliate has a single store, the two links behave the same way.

There's nothing to configure for donor tracking: after a donor submits the form, they automatically receive a private tracking link by email where they can follow their pickup, reschedule, or cancel.