Creating donation receipts

The generation is done on the results of a search. One may use the searches already provided by CiviCRM, under the condition that it is a search leading to contacts as a result, for the receipts will be assigned to the donating contact in the process. Custom and advanced searches as well as aggregate tools allow the user to preprocess the contacts in any convenient way. Therefore one will not find further searches or selectors built into the extension. On the results of the performed search, a further selection ist done by the software in order to distinguish between deductable and non-deductable amounts according to the following:

• Only contacts with unreceipted donations (in the chosen period) will be considered
• For receipting, donations will have to have the status "completed" and to be of a financial type where the "deductible" option is set to "yes"

The extension can securely handle large data sets (i.e. Contacts). The processed data will be transferred into a snapshot and secured against modification in the course of the receipting action. When receipting a donation, it is automatically assigned a "receipted"-status. With that status, a donation must not and cannot be altered or receipted again, meaning that it is protected against changes in order to assure consistency of data. With the extension, one can also reset, delete and copy receipts as well as transfer donations to another contact. For these procedures, a deliberate set of user permissions is provided.

In addition to search results, receipts can also be generated for a single contact, which a button can be found for in the Donation Receipts tab on the contact overview page.

Parameters

For receipting a donation, the following parameters can be chosen and set:

Type of donation receipt

Available values: bulk receipt, single receipt The generation of receipts is done using a message template, stored in the Donation Receipts profile, which is an HTML/Smarty template optimised for PDF generation. Please note that the existing templates are user-specific and designed according to german tax requirements, they will have to be modified for use with other organisations and in other countries. When chosing the type of receipt, one has to bear in mind that when "single receipt" is chosen, only single receipts are rendered, no matter how many donations exist in the current snapshot. In contrast, when "bulk receipt" is chosen, the template switches to single receipt when there is only one deductable donation to be receipted. This is all done utilizing one single template. Some expertise in HTML and/or the Smarty template engine is required for modifying the template.

Time period of the receipt

Available values: this year, last year, custom range of dates * "this year" renders receipts for the actual year, starting with 01. January and including the actual day of receipting. * "last year" renders receipts for the whole of the calendary year that is the last before the current year. * "custom range of dates" behaves according to other searches using the parameter date/ range of dates. As it is a custom search, the user may choose a range of dates appropriate for the task at hand. On the other hand, care has to be taken in order to produce meaningful results. Bulk receipts may be rendered over a period of several years. Whether this may be acceptable under your tax laws ist to be assured by the user.

Note

There is no link between the date of an official permit to receipt donations and the date of the donation. You may receipt donations that have been received before the date of the permit to do so. It is under the responsibility of the user to assure compliance to local law and rules!

Minimum total (currency) necessary for rendering a receipt

There is no such threshold to be set within the extension. All selections of data may be performed by the search tools already provided by CiviCRM. For setting am minimum total, the search tool "contributors by aggregate totals" may be used.

Format to be rendered

The extension provides several different formats for rendering donation receipts through the following exporters.

Note

In the process of setting the rendering options, you may choose "don't generate files". This setting is overruled by the global setting on the administration console "store original *.pdf files". Check there to see whether settings are consistent. When choosing the options "don't generate files" and "store original *.pdf files", the pdf is rendered and saved with the contact but not displayed automatically.

individual pdf file(s)

The receipts may be rendered as pdf files. For handling a vast number of files, archives are generated. Under Linux, the suitable tools are provided with the most of distributions. Under MS Windows, the use of "7zip" is recommended. You may render a pdf, that will be stored with the donating contact, or you may regenerate the receipt for single use in order to save disk space. Please note that the rendering process can only make use of the actual template. When not storing receipts as pdf files, they will change according to the template in use.

csv file(s)

For printing in a lettershop, you may use the csv format. When rendering a csv file for use in a lettershop, the default coding will be UTF-8.

pdf files grouped according to number of pages

The pdf files may be grouped according to the number of pages when pdfinfo is installed on the server. This is a useful option when printing on front and back of the pages

Receipts merged into a single PDF file

Note

This section is yet to be completed.

PDF files sent via e-mail

Note

This section is yet to be completed.

PDF with CiviOffice-generated cover letter

Note

This section is yet to be completed.

Generating donation receipts

The procedure to be followed for the generation of donation receipts is described in the following:

In the first place, one has to choose from the basic settings in the administration console what is suitable for the task at hand and save these settings. In the Drupal access control one has to grant to certain roles (user groups) the appropriate rights i. e. create, view, reset or delete donation receipts. This, of course, has only to be done once when setting up the extension.

Second, a search is performed. In most of the cases, this will be a custom search or aggregate totals search. Of cause, also smart groups can be used. The receipting of donations always starts with a contact or a group of contacts as a search result. On the search result, the contacts for whom a receipt has to be created are chosen (for a suitable search, the option is "all") and the action "create donation receipt(s)" is triggered. If the option does not display, check the Drupal access control. From CiviCRM 4.6.9 upwards there is no "start" button, and the highlighted action starts immediately. As described before, time period and type of receipt have to be set. A message will be shown, describing the action to follow on the search results, i.e. number of chosen results, number of valid results and number of donations to be receipted. Now, a testing action and a receipting action are offered. In order to avoid the breakdown of the proper receipting when doing so on a great number of contacts, the testing is highly recommended. The procedure is the same, only will it not tag donations as receipted and produces receipts with a watermark, the text for which is set in the administration console. If the testing does not break down, perform the proper receipting action. Do NOT close the active window or reload it, for the receipting is triggered by the workstation, not by the server! Normally, of course, the action can be restarted after it has been interrupted, as long as the snapshot is not deleted. Still, making sure that everything remains consistent is difficult and should thus be avoided.

When receipting, always bear in mind the following:

• The process of receipting, as already mentioned, ist triggered by the active window on the workstation. Shutting down the workstation, closing or reloading of the window will result in a disruption of the process. Do NOT do that. The process should run at a rate of about 2000 PDF files per hour.

• A snapshot of the data is used for receipting. The snapshot is valid for 24 hours. As long as the snapshot is valid, an interrupted process can be continued. The snapshot belongs to the user that created it. With a different login, it will not be possible to restart an interrupted process with that snapshot!

Test run: Tapping this button will result in the receipting process, except that no donation will be tagged as receipted and the resulting pdf will have a watermark and ist NOT subsequently stored in the contact information. The testing is in place as a possibility to check whether all fields have the proper structure and content. If the process runs smoothly, then check on some of the pdf whether the template in use displays all the correct fields an sums, then acknowledge with the appropriate button. The window from which the run was started is displayed again.

Issue donation receipt(s): Tapping this button will result in the receipting of the chosen contacts and their valid donations, respectively. The processed donations will be tagged as receipted and secured against modifications. Should there arise necessity to change amount or date of the donation, rebook or cancel it, you will first have to delete the receipt (the tag "receipted" is automatically removed from the donation, then). Great care has to be taken when doing so with respect to tax laws, document integrity and other judicial issues. It is strongly recommended to consult a lawyer and to reserve the right to reset and delete receipts for admins. As a software in international use, CiviCRM or its extensions cannot be strictly consistent with regulations. What can be done might not be legal to do, so check first.

Note: The tag "receipted" can not be removed from a donation by direct manual action.