As reviewed earlier, a pledge in CiviCRM is a promise to make one or more payments in the future. A pledge is Pending until the first payment is received, at which point its status changes to In Progress. Once all payments have been received, its status changes to Completed. If one or more of the promised payments is late, no change occurs in the status of the pledge. In this way, think of a pledge as a container for multiple, promised, distinct contribution records.
If a person promises $360 to be paid in 12 monthly installments, spaced one month apart, CiviCRM considers this to be one pledge with 12 payments (contributions) of $30.
To manually create a pledge, navigate to Contributions | Pledges | New Pledge, or use Create New | Pledge. Alternatively, from a contact record, navigate to Actions | Add Pledge, or click on the Pledges tab and click on the Add Pledge button or link.
If originating from Create New or Contributions | Pledges | New Pledge, select a Contact...
