When a purchase is made, the donation status is initially set to Pending. This means we’ve received confirmation from the retailer that a purchase was made, but the donation isn’t finalised yet.
The retailer typically waits a period of time to ensure that the order isn’t cancelled or returned. This period can vary depending on the retailer's internal policies. We have a guide with some examples of these wait periods here: How long should a donation be pending?
After this waiting period, if the order qualifies, the donation status will change to Confirmed.
Retailers pay us the funds for confirmed donations at different intervals. Once the donation is ready to be paid out, it will be marked as Ready to pay - this can be seen by the cause administrator on the Cause Transaction Summary page.
Finally, four times a year, we pay all Ready to pay donations to the causes. Once the donation is paid to the cause, its status is updated to Paid. We have a guide with further details on this here: Donation Day payments explained.