Issuing receipts

Once receipting is configured, issuing is a run you make rather than a document you build.

Before you run

Check three things:

Everything is reconciled. A gift sitting in the review queue is a gift not on a donor’s record and not on their receipt. Clear the queue first.

Advantages are entered. Any gift where the donor received something back needs its advantage value recorded, by you. Gala tickets, benefit events, auction purchases, memberships carrying benefits.

Donor names and addresses are right. A receipt carries the donor’s name, and a receipt in the wrong name is a receipt to reissue.

Running receipts

Choose the run. A single gift, or a year’s annual receipts.
Review what is included and what is not. Relae shows which gifts are excluded and why, for example a gift carrying an advantage you have not yet valued.
Resolve the exclusions. Each one needs a decision from you.
Generate. Receipts are numbered uniquely and sequentially and produced as PDFs.
Send them. Relae does not email on your behalf. Download and send from your own email, or post them.

In-kind gifts are not receipted here

Relae does not issue receipts for gifts in kind at launch. Cash gifts only.

A non-cash receipt is a different document from a cash one. Canada Revenue Agency requires three things a cash receipt does not carry: a description of the property received, the name and address of the appraiser if the property was appraised, and the deemed fair market value in place of the amount of the gift. Relae’s receipts carry none of those fields, so producing one from this surface would produce a receipt that is missing what it needs.

Record in-kind gifts in Relae so they stay in the donor’s history. Issue the receipt itself outside Relae, the way you do today, and keep it with your other duplicates.

Donated services are not gifts under the same rules and cannot be receipted at all, by us or by you. See gifts and channels.

Annual against per-gift

Per gift suits major gifts, where a donor wants the receipt promptly, and first gifts, where the receipt is part of your thank-you.

Annual suits monthly donors and anyone with several small gifts. One receipt covering the year, which is what most donors prefer and what saves you the most work.

Gifts carrying an advantage generally need their own receipt rather than sitting inside an annual one, because the eligible amount has to be shown against the gift it belongs to.

Corrections

If a receipt goes out wrong, it is cancelled and replaced rather than edited. The sequence stays intact and the record shows what happened, which is what CRA expects of a receipt series.

Deciding to correct, replace or cancel is your charity’s call.

Keeping duplicates

Relae holds duplicates of issued receipts while your subscription is active, and lets you export them.

Retaining duplicates for the statutory period is your charity’s obligation. If you ever leave Relae, export your receipts first. That export is how you meet the obligation afterwards.

Sending thank-yous, which is a different job from receipting.
Exporting everything