Managing Backer Information

Our platform supports the import of backer lists from various platforms. Some can be done by you, some you will need to contact our team to do it on your behalf.

!!! IMPORTANT !!!

BEFORE you import your backers, you need to make sure that you have properly defined all the Rewards in your project. At the time of import our system will try to match the backers' choices in Kickstarter with the information in our system so that it can correctly import all their data.

1. Kickstarter

You can easily upload your backer list from Kickstarter. To do so, please follow the steps below:

Step 1: Download the CSV from Kickstarter. Go to your "Backer Report" section in your Kickstarter project, and click the "Download Backers" button.

Step 2: Make sure that you have created in our platform ALL the "Pledges" and "Add-ons" that you had in Kickstarter. You need to choose "All reward tiers - one file" and the format "Kickstarter - pledge and rewards details".

Step 3: To each Pledge you need to assign the "Reward Id" that you will find within the Kickstarter CSV. Open the Kickstarter CSV and check the column named 'Reward ID'. You will find a unique number associated with each of your Kickstarter Pledges. Fill that number in the pledge's definition within our platform.

IMPORTANT: If you used Kickstarter's "Late Pledge" feature AND you increased the prices of your items for late pledge backers, then you must do the following:

• create TWO rewards (two pledges or two add-ons) for each reward in your Kickstarter campaign.
• mark one reward as available only to Kickstarter backers with the correct price, and then the other as available only to Late Pledge backers with the increased price.
• BOTH rewards must to have the same "Reward Id"

If you didn't use that Kickstarter feature, or you didn't change the price, then you do not need to do the above.

Step 4: To each Add-on you also need to assign in the field "Reward Id". You will find the add-on id (number) inside the Kickstarter CSV in the title of the column that describes the add-on. It will look like this: "[<Add-on Id>] <Add-on Description>". You need to take that number and add it in our platform.

Once you have completed the above steps, go to your "Backers" tab inside your project, click the button "Upload Backers", select the Kickstarter Export CSV from your computer, and then click the green button "Upload".

Our system will import only the backers that are marked as "collected" in the CSV. This is to ensure that only backers that have actually been charged by Kickstarter are entered in the system. 

Also, if the backer already exists, because you re-uploaded the same file, the system will ignore the second attempt and will keep the original information (from the first upload). This allows you to upload the CSV multiple times (for example if you are running late pledging with Kickstarter and you have new backers since the previous time you uploaded backers).

IMPORTANT: Do NOT modify the CSV you downloaded from Kickstarter in ANY way. Do NOT open it with your Excel and then save it. You need to upload into our platform the original CSV you downloaded from Kickstarter.

VERIFY: Make sure to check the backers after your import. Open some of them, and ensure that the amount and their selection (pledges and add-ons) has been imported correctly. If you see any issues, please contact our team to help you out.

2. IndieGoGo

Our platform supports the import of your backer list from IndieGoGo.

This process can not be done directly by you. Please contact our team and send them your export. They will import it on your behalf after they validate it.

3. BackerKit

Our platform supports the import of your backer list from BackerKit.

You will first need to get two export files from BackerKit:

• expected-revenue_segment
• sku-per-column_segment

Once you have those two files, please contact our team and send them over. Then they will be able to help you with the next steps of the process.

In Hive inside a backer's pledge you can have 3 different types of items:

• Pledge: This is always only one, and initially it matches the backer's selection in Kickstarter. They are allowed to change it through the checkout process.
• Addons: A backer can have multiple addons in their pledge, and each one with a quantity of 1 or higher (if they want multiple copies of an item). For each addon the system will charge the relevant price and will increase the weight of the pledge so that shipping costs can be calculated correctly.
• Freebies: These are addons that have been assigned to the backer either through a manual import or via answers to the survey's questions. The system will not charge any amount for the acquisition of those freebies, but it will increase the weight accordingly. Effectively the backers get the item for free, but still have to pay its shipping cost. If you want to give the item with free shipping you need to set its weight to zero and mark it as "Is Virtual".

Freebies are used under many different circumstances:

• During your pre-campaign you can run a promotion to have backers register to a newsletter list, or secure their KS pledge by paying a small amount (e.g. $1). Usually, you want to reward those backers with a free item during the campaign, and freebies are perfect for this.
• If your product supports multiple languages or other types of variations (e.g. color, size etc), then you will need to use freebies to collect the right information for your fulfillment. Read this article for more information about how to do so.

Importing Freebies

You can use the button "Import Freebies" to upload a CSV with the appropriate information so that our system can assign them to each backer. You can create a CSV using Google Docs. You will need to have 3 columns to this CSV, with no header row. The columns should be in the order specified below, and have the relevant content:

• First column should be the email of the backer
• Second column should be the exact name of the addon, as define in our platform
• Third column needs to be an integer number with a value of 1 or higher. This shows the quantity of the addon you want to assign to the backer as freebie

You can have multiple lines with the same email and different addons. This is the way to assign multiple different freebies to the same backer.

Whenever you upload a CSV with freebies, the current freebies are deleted. This means that you can perform multiple tests, just in case you make a mistake in the first upload.

Once the PM Opens you can no longer upload freebies. The button will not be visible in your tab. If you need to make changes to the freebies of a backer (while the PM is Open), you can do that by opening their information popup. If you need to make mass changes to backers, then please contact us so that we can help you out.

Complete Data

By clicking the button "Download Backers" (inside the "Backers" tab of your project) our system will export all the information it has collected for all your backers and compile it in a CSV (Comma-separated Values) file. You can use Excel, OpenSheet or Google Sheets to open this file.

This file is the only one that has unfiltered and full raw information on your backers. Our platform supports multiple export formats from various sections (For fulfilment, reporting etc), but all of the other formats have filtered data, specifically for the function they are meant to. In this file you get everything!

This is the file you will need if you want to export information for your accountant, or perform your own data analytics.

Fulfillment Data

You can also export backer data from the "Fulfillment" tab of your project. When doing so, only the "Verified" backers are exported in those lists, because only they have fully completed their pledge manager (paying shipping costs, taxes and entering their shipping information).

In the "Fulfillment" tab of your project, you can create segments of backers, assigning their country to be fulfilled by specific hubs. Our system already knows most of the major fulfillment hubs around the world, and provides you with exports in the specific format that they expect.

You can read more information on how to export the fulfillment data in this article.

You should always direct your backers to update any information that has to do with their pledges on their own. You should really avoid doing changes manually.

Even when a backer has completed their pledge (and they are at "Verified" status), if the pledge manager is at a "PM Open" state, they can still access their pledge, click the "Re-open Pledge" button and then make any changes they wish. This means that you should ask them to do exactly that while your pledge manager is open.

Even in the case where a backer made a mistake and added something in their pledge they do not want any more. You need to direct them to "Re-open" their pledge, apply any modifications, finalize their pledge, and then if there is any remaining balance they should create a ticket and ask you for a refund. That way the entire process is recorded within Hive, and you have a reference for any possible future disputes.

That said, some times you may need to manually correct information that has to do with their Email, Shipping, or even add a Free item in their pledge. All these actions can be taken from the "Backer Information" popup you can see by clicking the relevant button inside the "Backers" tab of your project.

In that popup you can do the following:

1. View Pledge Information

In this popup you can see at a glance all the important information that has to do with your backer's pledge.

Most of the information is self-explanatory, but the "Final Balance" field requires a little bit more explanation. This field goes through all the costs and payments for your backer's pledge and gives you a grant total.

If that field is zero, then everything is balanced. If that field is negative, then the backer has overpaid. This can happen when either they decided to remove an add-on after they have paid, or maybe they paid extra in Kickstarter as a bonus. The system assumes that any extra amount in someone's pledge is a donation/tip towards the creator. That said, you can always "Request Refund" to even out a negative balance.

If the balance is positive, then the backer still needs to pay more money for their pledge. This can not happen in "Verified" pledges, unless you manually changed/toggled their status from "Open" to "Verified"

2. Modify Email

There are cases where the email you have for a backer needs to be changed. For example if they used the Kickstarter mobile App to pledge via an iPhone, they could have selected to hide their email, in this case you get from Kickstarter an email ".apple.id" which is not usable for communication.

In other cases, our platform has marked that we have failed communicating with a certain email address (in the past). This can happen if the backer's inbox is full, or they have changed emails but forgot to update their Kickstarter profile.

By clicking the button "Update Email", you can set a new email for this specific backer.

3. Toggle Early Bird Status

If you need to manually change the Early Bird status of the backer, use the "Toggle EB" button. This switches the backer from being an Early Bird Backer to not being one.

You need this functionality in cases where you have defined rewards and/or add-ons that are specific to Early Bird backers, and not available to anyone else.

4. Modify Shipping Information

If you need to change any of the Shipping Information of the backer's pledge, then click the button "Update Address". When you do so, a popup will appear where you will be able to make any changes you need.

5. Add Freebies

Sometimes you want to give a free item to the backer. To do so, click the "Add Freebie" button and select the add-on you wish to assign to the backer.

That add-on will stay as "Freebie" for the backer, which means that the system will not ask them to pay for it. BUT, please note that the system will still calculate the weight of the item and will require the backer to pay its shipping cost (if any is associated with it).

6. Add Internal Notes

By filling in the "Notes" field and clicking the button "Update" you can add any notes you want that have to do with this backer's pledge. Those notes are for your own eyes only, they are not visible to the backer.

As every project has its own unique requirements and marketing strategy, you may need to assign different types of bonuses to different groups of backers. Hive provides flexible tools to help you do this, whether you want to:

- Add free items (freebies) directly to pledges, or
- Provide free credits using our coupon system.

In this article, we’ll walk you through both options and explain how to choose the best approach for your project.

1. Freebies (Free Items)

If during your campaign you promised an "Early Bird" bonus to some backers, or you run a pre-campaign marketing budget and you want to give a bonus item to everyone that pre-registered, then the best way to do is by assigning "Freebies" to those backers.

To do so, you can click the button "Upload Freebies" in the "Backers" tab, and upload a CSV file. That CSV needs to have 3 columns:

• The email of the backer.
• The EXACT name of the add-on you wish to add as Freebie.
• The quantity you wish to add for free (should be minimum 1).

If you want to assign more than one Freebie to a backer, you need to add one row per freebie in the CSV.

Do NOT include any "Header Line" in your CSV.

WARNING! When you upload a new CSV file, the existing information of ALL freebies of ALL backers will be reset.

2. Coupons (Free Credit)

For larger groups, such as VIPs, it’s much easier to use the “Upload Coupons” function in the “Backers” tab.

1. Create a CSV file with the following format:
   Column 1: Backer’s email address
   Column 2: A note describing the coupon (e.g., “VIP Shipping Credit”)
   Column 3: The discount amount you want to provide
2. Upload the CSV into Hive. The system will:
   - Automatically generate a coupon for each matching backer.
   - Apply the discount directly to their pledge.
   - Ensure the coupon is already visible and active when the backer logs in.

👉 In this case, the backer does not need to enter or apply a coupon manually, the discount will already be there for them.

1. Open

This is the state that all backers that have been imported into our system start. As long as a backer is in this state, it means that they have NOT yet finalized their choices, and as such have not completed their pledge.

2. Pending Payment

This is a temporary state that is visible during the time that a backer has finished their selections in our platform and has been redirected to the payment method of their choice (e.g. Paypal, Stripe, Square etc).

While they are in the payment platform completing their payment, this is the state their pledge will be. Once our platform receives payment confirmation from the payment processor, then the status will change automatically to "Verified". This may take from seconds to 15 or 20 minutes.

If the payment doesn't go through for 24 hours, then our system will return the backer to "Open". In addition, the backer does have the option to "Re-open" their pledge at any time simply by following the on-screen instructions:

The above image is a screenshot of what the backer see in their pledge when they access it in our platform.

Please note that there is no way for us to verify whether a payment has failed. Due to privacy laws and GDPR, the institutions involved (Banks, Paypal, Stripe, etc) will not report anything to us until the transaction has been completed successfully. The only person that has access to any information before that is the backer themselves by contacting their bank and asking for it.

As such, in these cases, you should urge the backer to verify with their bank that the transaction has not gone through, and then simply follow the on-screen instructions to "Re-open" their pledge and place a new payment.

3. Verified

When a pledge is in this state, it is considered completed. The backer has finished making changes, provided shipping information, responded to surveys, selected add-ons, and completed any required payments. These backers are the ones you will need to fulfill.

In addition, when a backer is in this state, the following actions are available:

• Request Refund: This option is accessible on your Backers' list, allowing you to request a refund directly from our platform. For more details, you can refer to the relevant article.
• Download Invoice: Backers can access this feature. Within their pledge details, they will find a green button labeled "Download Invoice." Clicking this button generates an invoice using the information provided in the "Account Information" section and the pledge details of the backer.

4. Closed

A backer will end up in this state in two ways:

• Never completed PM: If a pledge is "Open" when you switch your project to "PM Closed (Hard)", our system automatically switches it to "Closed", to mark the fact that this backer never completed their pledge manager.
• Abandon Pledge: Backers have the option to "Abandon" their pledge. This is useful for backers that pledges $1 and they do not wish to keep their pledge. In the image below you can see the instructions a backer sees in their pledge about how to "Abandon" it:

Pledges in "Closed" state are not eligible to receive any rewards.

Once you switch your project to "PM Closed (Hard)", you should check your backer list for any backers that are "Closed (With Hive Payment)". there is a chance you will find backers that although they are "Closed", they have fully paid their shipping costs and taxes. Those backers usually re-opened their pledge, made no changes, ignored all the warnings and never completed the process again. After you verify that they actually do not owe you any balance, you should switch them to "Verified".

5. Refunded

This is the state backers end up after a "Full Refund" has been issued for their pledge (read the section below on how to request such a refund).

6. Shipped

When you complete your fulfillment and upload tracking information in our platform, the pledge's status automatically switches to "Shipped."

In this state, backers can visit their pledge and view any tracking information you have uploaded.

The ultimate goal for you as a creator should be to have all your backers end up in one of the following three states: Shipped, Closed, or Refunded. Achieving this ensures that you have successfully completed your project and actually taken care of all your backers.

Sometimes a backer overpays, or wants to make a change in their pledge, or they simply want to cancel their pledge. In those cases you will need to issue a refund.

For the amount collected by Kickstarter, you will have to issue a refund from within the Kickstarter platform. For the amount collected by Hive, you have the option to request either a Partial or a Full refund.

Requesting a refund is done by first finding your backer's record in the "Backers" tab of your project, and then clicking the relevant "Request Refund" button:



This button is available only if your pledge manager is "PM Open" or "PM Closed (Soft)", the backer is "Verified", and their transaction is NOT older than 180 days. Please note that we can not request refunds for older transactions, and if you need to do so, you will have to find a different way to support your backer.

Both types of refund are explained below.

1. Partial Refund

When to ask for a partial refund?

You should never request partial refunds for amounts that do not match up with the calculations of our system. You run a high risk to not be able to figure out what really happened is a dispute is raised in the future.

The right way and time to request a "Partial" refund is AFTER a BACKER (not you), has logged in to their account and applied any changes THEY want to their pledge. Then IF there is some amount that they have "overpaid", our system will show it to you, and you will be able to request a refund for it.

Let us give you some examples of common cases:

a) a backer has paid a higher shipping cost because of a mistake in the shipping rules or a wrong price at an add-on when you opened the PM. If you have already fixed that mistake, then the backer needs to access their pledge, "Re-open" it, and go through the process to finalize it again. At the end of that process, if there is a balance, they can create a ticket, ask a refund, and you can put a request for that amount. Usual mistakes creators do in this case, is that they assume that the difference will be the exact shipping cost, forgetting taxes, and/or multiple packages (if the weight exceeds the max weight), or multiple add-ons and shipping costs. That's why it is important to let the system do the calculations, the backer to see them, AND approve them, AND receive a confirmation email while THEY are making changes.

b) you have promised a discount to a backer and you forgot to apply it. You need to create a coupon, give it to the backer, and then they need to "Re-open" their pledge, apply the coupon and complete the checkout process so that again our system has the correct amount registered, and THEN you can issue a refund for the right amount. Again, coupons will affect taxes, which usually creators forget.

As you can understand, it is VERY important to make sure that a digital record of the "why" in EACH case is kept within our system. So that if a dispute is raised in a year from now, it will be a matter of one click to figure out what happened, rather than digging in emails, private messages, tickets and what not trying to remember and reconstruct the information.

In a nutshell

If the backer needs to make changes to their pledge, such as removing an add-on or adding another, they should access their pledge, click the "Re-open Pledge" button, apply the changes, and complete the process. Direct backers to apply changes themselves while the pledge manager is in the "PM Open" state to ensure a record of the change.

After they complete their pledge, you will be able to see inside the backer's information popup (from the "Backers" tab of your project), the exact amount (if any) the backer overpaid, and you can request a partial refund for it.

If changes are needed after the pledge manager has been switched to "PM Closed (Soft)" or "PM Closed (Hard)," you need to first manually re-open their pledge (they can not do it on their own), but after that the rest of the process remains the same. They need to apply changes, complete their pledge and then you can issue a refund for any remaining amount.

The process

When requesting a partial refund, follow these steps:

1. Change the type to "Partial Refund - Keep Pledge" in the relevant field.
2. Choose any amount for the refund, up to the amount collected by Hive. Refunding amounts collected by Kickstarter must be done on their platform.

After our team processes the partial refund, the backer's status will remain "Verified," indicating that they are still eligible to receive their rewards.

2. Full Refund

When requesting a full refund, follow these steps:

1. Change the type to "Full Refund - Pledge Cancelled" in the relevant field.
2. You can choose any amount for the refund, up to the amount collected by Hive. Refunding amounts collected by Kickstarter must be done on their platform.

After our team processes the refund, the backer's pledge status will change to "Refunded," and they will not be included in any fulfillment reports.

Notice: There is a chance you may need to request a refund of 0 (zero) amount! You will need to do this in the case where you gave a refund to the backer via Kickstarter, and that backer has NOT paid any amount through Hive. In this case you still need their status to change to "Refunded", and that can happen only if you issue a "Refund Request".

3. Refund Fees and Processing Time

When issuing a refund, the fee deducted by the payment method (Paypal, Stripe, Square, etc.) cannot be refunded. These services do not refund their processing fees.

However, our platform's fee (Hive Fee) will be returned to you.

It typically takes from 1 to 3 business days for a Refund to be processed.

4. Best Practices

When a backer requests a refund you may have up to two different amounts you need to consider how to handle. One is the amount they paid through Kickstarter and the other through Hive.

Refunding Kickstarter Amount

For this amount you have two options. You can either issue a full refund through the Kickstarter platform. This will probably charge your credit card for the amount, the backer will get the full amount and they will be "dropped" from the Kickstarter project, which means that their comments will be removed and they will be unable to comment and have access to "Backers Only" content.

The other option you have is to handle the refund manually. This will give you a little bit more control on the amount you may refund, by responding with a message like this:

*******
Hi, at this point in our project we can issue a refund but the following apply:
- we can only send you the amount via Paypal, so we will need a valid Paypal email from you.
- you will get 85% of the amount pledged due to fees that have already been applied by Kickstarter and Paypal.
Please let us know if you would like to proceed with a refund or keep your pledge.
*******

With this option, you can give an amount that accounts for your fees, and backers may thing it twice before cancelling now that there is a cost associated with their choices. That said, if you give a manual refund as described above, the backer will still have access to their pledge on Kickstarter and they will be able to comment on the campaign's page.

Refunding Hive Amount

For the amount they pledged through Hive, you can ask a refund using our platform. That said, you should not refund the full amount, because you still have fees that you will not get back. Best practice here is to still inform the backer with a message like the one below:

*******
Hi, at this point in our project we can issue a refund but you will get 85% of the amount pledged due to fees that have already been applied by the Pledge Manager and Paypal/Stripe. Please let us know if you would like to proceed with a refund or keep your pledge.
*******

Sometimes, backers pledge using the Kickstarter mobile app while simultaneously requesting Apple to hide their private information. This results in you receiving an 'appleid.com' email for the backer, instead of their actual email address.

Unfortunately, if you send an email to those "appleid" email addresses, the backer will probably never receive the content.

To resolve this issue, you need to send them a private message through Kickstarter and ask for their actual email address. You can do this from within the "Backers Report" section of your project on Kickstarter. Search for the backer by email or name and then send them a message like this:

************

Hi,

unfortunately you used Apple's "Hide My Email" feature when creating an account in your Kickstarter mobile app. As such, the email we got has the format "xxxxx@privaterelay.appleid.com" which is not usable and we can not communicate with you to send you the Pledge Manager invitations.

We need a valid email address which will be used by our Pledge Manager and the Courier company to deliver your rewards.

Please visit our pledge manager using the URL below, and enter your "appleid.com" email that is assigned to your Kickstarter account. Then follow the onscreen instructions on how to update it:

https://www.hiveinteractive.net/pledgemanager

If you have any questions please let us know and we will do our best to help you out.

Thank you very much for your support!

************

When the backer visits the above URL they will see this screen:

By entering their "appleid.com" email that matches their Kickstarter account, the system will ask them for their:

• Backer Number
• Personal Email

Once they submit this information correctly, their pledge will be updated and the backer will be sent an email to the new address they provided so that they can access their pledge.

Manual Update

If a backer with an apple id contacted you and asked your help, then you can ask them to send you their regular email. Then you can find them in your "Backers" list, open their popup information, and then click the button "Update Email". Enter the new correct email and the system will be updated.

You can afterwards use the button "Resend PM Invite", and the system will re-send their Pledge Manager Email Invitation, so that they can access their pledge.

AppleID Emails - Behind the Scenes

The appleid emails, are actually fully operational email addresses, that do not bounce. Our system does send emails to those addresses.

The main problem is that most backers, do not know what these emails are, and have no idea how to access that private inbox Apple provides them. Even if some of them do, they do not regularly check it. As such, this ends up being a huge issue during the entire process of pledge management completion, and communication with Support Tickets, Tracking Numbers etc.

Sometimes backers make mistakes or get confused on how to apply the changes they want in their pledge. In this section we will go through some of the common issues you may encounter.

1. Accidentally "Abandoned" pledge

In our platform, a backer has the option to "Abandon" their pledge. This is needed especially for $1 backers who do not wish to complete their pledge manager, or for backers that just wanted to donate an amount to the project and they do not want any rewards.

How can a backer abandon their pledge?

Backers see the panel shown below when they access their pledge.

By clicking the button "Abandon Pledge", a warning pops up asking them to re-verify that they want to abandon their pledge. If they approve again, then their pledge changes to status "Closed" (from "Open").

From now on if they access their pledge they will see this:

How can a backer re-open their pledge?

As long as your pledge manager is in "PM Open" state, the backer will see the panel below when accessing their pledge:

By clicking the "Re-open pledge" button, their pledge will switch to status "Open" and they will be able to complete it.

If your pledge manager is in "PM Closed (Soft)" state, then only YOU can manually re-open their pledge. You can do that from the "Backers" tab of your project, by clicking the "Toggle Status" button on the right side of your backer's record.

2. Changing Shipping Info

While your project is in "PM Open" state, the backers can access their pledge, click the button "Re-open pledge" and apply any changes they want.

If your project is in "PM Closed (Soft)" state, then they can not do that on their own, you will need to do switch their status manually (from your "Backers" tab) to "Open", and then they will be able to make any changes they want. This is a security measure to make sure that you have not already exported some backers and send them for fulfillment, and then they end up making changes to their pledges.

If your project is in "PM Closed (Hard)" state, then the backer can no longer make changes in their pledge, they need to open a ticket with you, send you their updated shipping information and then you have two options:
a) If you have already started fulfillment, then you will need to contact the appropriate hub and try to have the shipping information updated (if that is still possible)

b) If you have not started fulfillment, you can update manually the shipping address of your backer, so that the information in Hive is correct. Then when you export the fulfillment files, the new information will be included.