Gift Aid

The four menu options relating to Gift Aid are:

• Gift Aid Donations-showing the gift aid donated amount and the tax year it is associated with along with whether the donation is still to be claimed in a future gift aid claim or has been claimed already.

• Gift Aid Claims-where all aspects of creating, editing, completing and submitting a gift aid claim to HMRC can be found.

• Item Sale Proceeds-showing each gift aided items sale/claimed/excess proceeds and the donor's revenue commitment. The end of year sending of notifications to donors can be actioned from within here.

• Item Sale Proceeds Events-showing any events and their status, which have been issued to donors. The end of year sending of notifications to donors can be actioned from within here also.

Gift Aid Donations

You can view all gift aid donations between certain dates. There are also filters on Region, Area and Location. Filters are useful to limit the amount of data in your results table.

The Donor Linking Checkbox, when checked, will only display primary donor name against any donations made by replica donors. If unchecked, the replica donor name is displayed against the donation.

Clicking the VIEW link in the table, allows you to drill down into specific details relating to the donation and from here you are able to drill further down into the Donor and Donation Type.

Create Gift Aid Claim

You can view all gift aim claims between certain dates. The valid Claim Status filters are CANCELLED, COMPLETE, COMPLETING, DRAFT and SUBMITTED. There are also filters on Region, Area, Location. Filters are useful to limit the amount of data in your results table. New Gift Aid Claims can be created using the action button. 

The Date and optional Location cannot be altered once the giftaid claim has been created. The date can be entered or selected using the date picker. The remaining optional fields can be edited whilst the claim is still in DRAFT status. Gift aid claims can have a status of CANCELLED, COMPLETE, COMPLETING, DRAFT and SUBMITTED.

Edit Gift Aid Claim

On selecting to VIEW the gift aid claim, you have just created, from the Gift Aid Claims table, you are then able to EDIT the claim title, any overclaimed amount and notes pertaining to the overclaimed amount only. 

The 'Add Eligible Donations' button will add all eligible donations to the claim, up to the claim limit setup in the Organisations SETTINGS. The user will confirm to add all eligible donations to the current claim, starting from the oldest eligible donation.

The Claim Summary details the total donation amount and the amount of gift aid in the claim, along with the date of the earliest donation within the claim.

Only superusers at your organisation will have the DELETE option. It is also from this screen you COMPLETE the gift aid claim in preparation for submission to HMRC. The COMPLETE CLAIM action is only active once any issues relating to the claim have been resolved.

The Entries TAB shows the total number of entires, donors and donations in the claim which can be expanded by clicking the downwards arrow.

The Issues TAB shows any issues which require resolution before the claim can be completed. Issues can relate to donors who are no longer eligble for gift aid, invalid postcode details (you can use the links in the table to access the donor details to amend any incorrect postcodes) or donors requiring notification that they have exceeded their agreed donation amount. 

On issuing an excess proceeds notifications, donors have 21 days to contact your organisation, after which the exceed notification is resolved automatically by the system. 

If you would like to progress the gift aid claim without resolving outstanding claim issues, you have the ability to remove all donations with issues from the claim by clicking 'Remove Donations With Issues' button.

Should you wish you export a list of Draft Claim Entries, this is facilitated with the Export CSV (Comma-Separated Values), from which the fields required can be selected, before downloading the CSV file.

In the expanded table, beside the donor name, the checkbox can be checked and either pressing 'Remove Donor From Claim' from the same row in the table to just remove the checked individual donor, or a selection of donors can be checked and the 'Remove Selected Donors From Claim'  pressed to remove the selection of donations from the claim.

Should you wish you export a list of Draft Claim Issues, this is facilitated with the Export CSV (Comma-Separated Values), from which the fields required can be selected, before downloading the CSV file.

Manage Excess Notifications

As mentioned above, if the amount donated by the donor is now larger than the amount the donor has agreed to donate to your organisation, an excess notification must be issued. This is achieved via the action 'Manage Excess Notifications', from the Donor Item Sale Proceeds page.

If the donor has an email address, they will be sent an email based on your organisations' excess notification email template and if no email is registered against the donor, a letter will be created, again based on your organisations excess notification document template, which you are able to download to post to the donor.

If your organisation has more than one gift aid plan/year, these are shown in different tabs. From each tab you have the ability to send all outstanding notifications:

• • which are in a current gift aid claim

  • as letters only

  • letters as well as emails.

The summary on the tab details the number of emails to send and documents to create.

Once excess notifications have been issued, the expiry date will be added to the claim details and donors have 21 days from date of issue to respond to your organistion to request a refund, otherwise the organisation can go ahead with the donation in the claim. 

There is the ability to download the letters to post to donors as a PDF or CSV format.

Please see HMRC website for full guidance.

Should the donor contact you with the 21 days to confirm your organisation can keep the donation, you can navigate to the donor and RESOLVE DONOR EXCESS NOTIFICATION. You can see against the ITEM SALE GIFT AID PROCEEDS EVENTS tab, there is a yellow timer clock to highlight there is an excess notification which requires resolution, and the extension event is detailed in the table with a PENDING status and the expiry date of the excess notification.

On pressing the RESOLVE DONOR EXCESS NOTIFICATION button, you can resolve the excess immediately be entering the amount the donor wishes to reclaim rather than waiting the 21 days, when it will automatically expire.

Once all excess notifications have been resolved, either manually or automatically after the 21 days, the gift aid claim issues will automatically be updated and no longer appear in the CLAIM ISSUES tab.

Complete Gift Aid Claim

The gift aid claim is now ready to be completed. This changes the status of the claim from DRAFT to COMPLETE. 

A new action SUBMIT CLAIM is active from the view gift aid claim screen and the claim is now ready for submission to HMRC.

Should you wish you export a list of Completed Claim Entries, this is facilitated with the Export CSV (Comma-Separated Values), from which the fields required can be selected, before downloading the CSV file.

To submit your gift aid claim directly to HMRC, enter the HMRC login username and password. 

The Charity Suite portal does not save these HMRC credentials.

You will be notified of the submission status from HMRC and it will be shown in a new tab, HMRC Submission.

End Of Year Gift Aid Process

Please see HMRC website for full guidance.

Your organisation must notify donors at the end of the tax year how much the organisation has raised by selling their donated items and if this amount is in excess of their agreed donation amount.

Please see the SETTINGS page to amend your organisations email and document templates prior to sending end of year emails/letters. By sending the end of year letters this also covers excess notifications, therefore when you come to complete the end of year gift aid claim, the excess notifications will already have been issued.

The end of year process is accessed via the action 'Manage End of Year Notifications', from the Donor Item Sale Proceeds page.

If the donor has an email address, they will be sent an email based on your organisations' end of year notification email template and if no email is registered against the donor, a letter will be created, again based on your organisations end of year notification document template, which you are able to download to post to the donor.

If your organisation has more than one gift aid plan/year, these are shown in different tabs. From each tab you have the ability to send notifications:

• • as letters only

  • letters as well as emails.

The summary on the tab details the number of emails to send and documents to create.

There is the ability to download the letters to post to donors as a PDF or CSV format.

You can then navigate to the NOTIFICATIONS page to check the delivery status of the emails and letters.

Item Sale Proceeds

From the main left hand side bar menu, Item Sale Proceeds, will show the gift aid plan for the tax year along with the commitment and proceeds of the item sale. There are fields available to filter your search and thus limit the data returned in the table.

By selecting to view an entry from the item sale proceeds table, the specifics relating to the item sale proceeds can be viewed.

You can then further drill down into specific details relating to the donor and view any notifications.

Item Sale Proceeds Events

The Item Sale Proceeds Events page can be filtered to find events against a certain gift aid plan and in a certain tax year.

There are also filters on Dates, Region, Area and Location. Filters are useful to limit the amount of data in your results table. Clicking the VIEW link in the table, allows you to drill down into specific details relating to the event.

You can then further drill down into specific details relating to the donor and view any notifications.