Gift Aid is a tax relief scheme set up by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) where UK donors can give a UK registered charity permission to reclaim the tax on their donation.
REMINDER: It is your responsibility to ensure you comply with all UK legislation regarding Gift Aid. To get further information on Gift Aid in the UK, including terms, eligibility and making claims, you can read Claiming Gift Aid as a charity or CASC on the HMRC website and the Charities Detailed Guidance Notes on Gift Aid on the HMRC website.
In this article, we’ll cover how to submit a Gift Aid claim to HMRC.
- Processing a Gift Aid Claim in Spektrix
- Previewing a Gift Aid Claim
- Submitting a Gift Aid Claim
- Correcting Gift Aid Claim Errors
- Reporting and Segmentation on Gift Aid
Before reading this article, we recommend looking at the following:
Processing a Gift Aid Claim in Spektrix
When you’re ready to submit a Gift Aid Claim to HMRC, Spektrix can prepare your claim by looking for any Donation that has:
- Been marked Gift Aid Claimable in your system
- A Date Transaction Confirmed or Accounting Date (if the Accounting Date feature has been turned on) that falls within the time period you have selected
- A valid Gift Aid Declaration covering the time period you have selected
You are able to submit claims from the first date you can make automatic claims to 30 days prior to the date when you make the claim.
REMINDER: As Donors can cancel a Gift Aid declaration, Spektrix has limited claims to Donations made more than 30 days ago.
You can submit your claims to HMRC in the Admin Interface > Other > Gift Aid Claims.
TIP: Making Gift Aid claims takes place in the Admin Interface. In order to navigate to and access the Admin Interface you’ll need the General Administrator role.
If you don’t have this User Role, contact a Settings Administrator in your organization to edit your User Account and add the General Administrator role.
Submitted claims will be listed with the following information:
- Status: Whether the claim Succeeded or Failed
- Start: The earliest date for Donations to be claimed on
- End: The latest date for Donations to be claimed on
- Created by: The User who made the claim
- Created on: The date that the claim was made
- Error details: Details on what may have caused the claim to fail
- View donations buttons: Buttons to download a spreadsheet of successfully claimed Donations.
Previewing a Gift Aid Claim
VIDEO: Jump ahead to our Spektrix Training: On-Demand video - Claiming Gift Aid for a guided walkthrough of this process.
We recommend previewing a claim, which will analyse eligible Donations and determine if they’ll be submitted successfully or not. To check a claim before submitting it to HMRC:
- Click the Preview Claim button.
- On the Preview gift aid claim screen, select a start date and end date for your claim.
REMINDER: The end date can be no later than 30 days prior to today, the date you are previewing the claim.
- Click the View preview button.
- When the Report has been generated, click the Excel file link in the upper right corner to download the file.
Understanding the Report
The Report will include details on the Customer, the Gift Aid Donation and the Declaration.
In addition it will also include the column Ready to send. If a Donation is ready to submit, the column will show TRUE. If it is not ready to submit it will show FALSE and the Notes column will explain why.
Donations that return errors, if they are not corrected, will not be submitted.
Submitting a Gift Aid Claim
Once you are ready to submit your claim, click the Make claim button to begin the process.
- In the New gift aid claim screen, select a start date and end date for your claim.
REMINDER: The end date can be no later than 30 days prior to today, the date you are previewing the claim.
- Click the Send claim to HMRC button.
A new line will be added to the table for the claim you just submitted.
- If the claim succeeds, you will see a status of Succeeded, and an additional View donations button which will allow you to view the donations on which the claim has been made.
- If the claim fails, you will see a status of Failed and some information in the Error details field regarding why the claim failed.
View donations
Once you've made a successful claim, you can view the Donations that were submitted by clicking the View donations button.
This will download an Excel file listing every Donation covered by this claim.
The Report will include details on the Customer, the Gift Aid Donation and the Declaration.
In addition it will also include the column Sent to HMRC. If a Donation is successfully sent, the column will show TRUE. These Donations will be marked Gift Aid Claimed and won’t be eligible for claiming twice. If it is FALSE, the Notes column will show details explaining why. Those Donations that return errors will have notes on why they errored. If these claims are corrected, they can be re-submitted.
Under rare circumstances you might find that your claim is marked as successful in Spektrix but you're later notified by HMRC that it was in fact unsuccessful. In that situation, please get in touch with the Spektrix Support team so that we can make any required updates to the claim.
Correcting Gift Aid Claim Errors
Before submission, the Preview Claim Report should indicate any errors to claimable Donations. The notes will indicate the reason for the possible error, for example, incomplete address information.
After submission, the View Donations Report should indicate any errors to claimable Donations. The notes will indicate the reason for the possible error. The Donations’ Gift Aid Claimed status will remain FALSE until resubmitted. These Donations should be submitted successfully after correction.
If the whole claim returns an error, check the Error details. You may have to correct your HMRC login details.
On-Demand Training - Claiming Gift Aid
In this section of our Spektrix Training: On-Demand video on Gift Aid, we cover the Claiming Gift Aid process.
This chapter is a guided walkthrough of:
- Previewing your claims in Spektrix before sending to HMRC
- Sending your Gift Aid Claim to HMRC
VIDEO TIP: With our Spektrix Training: On Demand videos- you can stop, restart or move to specific chapters. Click the CC option to turn on captions. Click in the Settings menu cog icon to control speed, captions and quality.
Reporting and Segmentation on Gift Aid
In addition to the Reports for previewing claims and submitted claims. You can also Report and segment on Gift Aid.
Gift Aid reporting and segmenting can be done in relation to a Donation’s claimable and claimed statuses. You can also report and segment on Customers who have current Gift Aid declarations.
Gift Aid Claimable and Gift Aid Claimed
Once you've turned on Gift Aid tracking, every Donation in your system will be marked with the following:
- Gift Aid Claimable = TRUE/FALSE
- Gift Aid Claimed = TRUE/FALSE
Once a Customer makes a Gift Aid declaration, their eligible Donations will be marked Gift Aid Claimable.
For example, a Donation made today which has a valid declaration will look like this:
The Donation is marked Gift Aid Claimable TRUE as it has been declared by the Customer. However, it is marked Gift Aid Claimed FALSE as it has not been submitted by your organisation to the HMRC through Spektrix.
Once you submit the claim to HMRC through the Spektrix, the status of this Donation will change, meaning it won’t be eligible to be claimed again:
WARNING: It isn't possible to manually change the Gift Aid Claimed status.
Gift Aid Declarations can also be backdated. This will change the status of past Donations.
For example, if someone donates today and a declaration isn't captured, the Donation will look like this:
If they make a second Donation in the future and a declaration is captured at that time and is backdated to cover the date of the last Donation, both Donations will now look like this:
Customer Lists and Auto Tags
You can segment on Customers with current Gift Aid declarations and/or if they have made Gift Aid Donations.
Here are some useful Segments, wrappers and metrics to include to segment on Gift Aid:
Purchasing Segments
-
Metric Wrapper Description and Use Gift aid claimable Donations Tick this box to include Customers who have made a Donation that can be claimed for Gift Aid. Gift aid claimed Donations Tick this box to include Customers who have made a Donation that has already been claimed for Gift Aid. Opt out of gift aid Donations Tick this box to include Customers who have made a Donation that has been explicitly opted out of Gift Aid. REMINDER: A Donation that is marked Gift aid claimed is also marked as Gift aid claimable.
Customer Segments
-
Metric Wrapper Description and Use Has a current gift aid declaration Customer Tick this box to include Customers with current gift aid declarations on the day the Customer List or Auto Tag is run. Has a current gift aid declaration Individual Tick this box to include Individuals with current gift aid declarations on the day the Customer List or Auto Tag is run.
Soft Credit Segments
-
Metric Wrapper > Sub-Wrapper Description and Use Has a current gift aid declaration Donations > Customer Tick this box to include Customers who have made or soft credited to a Donation, regardless of claimed or claimable status, and who have current gift aid declarations on the day the Customer List or Auto Tag is run. REMINDER: If you are looking for eligible Soft Credit Customers with current gift aid declarations and who have also made eligible donations, use the AND rule to connect a Purchasing segment with the Donations wrapper > Gift Aid claimable metric.
Customer List Outputs
For Customer Lists, you can output information from the Gift Aid Declarations wrapper, including:
- Gift Aid Declaration Type: Outputs declaration type.
- Gift Aid Declaration Start Date: Outputs the start date of the declaration time period.
-
Gift Aid Declaration Details: Outputs any details:
- Any details inputted in the text box.
- For verbal declarations with email confirmations, “Email sent” appears.
- For verbal declarations with letter confirmations, “Letter created” appears.
- For online declarations, “Declaration made online” appears.
- For declarations with an attachment, “Declaration uploaded” appears.
- Gift Aid Declaration Has Attachment: Outputs “0” for declarations with no attachments or “1” for declarations with an attachment.
Reporting on Gift Aid
Donations Report
The Donations Report is a Standard Report that outputs Donations during a date range broken down by fund, campaign, and donor with totals.
There is a Gift Aid column which reports on Gift Aid claimable Donations. Gift Aid claimable Donations are marked “True."
Criteria Sets
To report on Gift Aid, here are some useful metrics to include in your Criteria Sets:
Customer Reports
-
Metric Wrapper Description and Use Has a current gift aid declaration Customer Tick this box to include Customers with current gift aid declarations on the day the Report is run. Has a current gift aid declaration Individual Tick this box to include Customers with current gift aid declarations on the day the Report is run.
Analysis and Accounting Reports
-
Metric Wrapper Description and Use Gift aid claimable Donations Tick this box to include Donations that can be claimed for Gift Aid. Gift aid claimed Donations Tick this box to include Donations that have already been claimed for Gift Aid. Opt out of gift aid Donations Tick this box to include Donations that have been explicitly opted out of Gift Aid. REMINDER: A Donation that is marked Gift aid claimed is also marked as Gift aid claimable.
Soft Credit Reports
-
Metric Wrapper > Sub-Wrapper Description and Use Has a current gift aid declaration Donations > Customer Tick this box to include Customers who have made a Donation, regardless of claimed or claimable status, and who have current gift aid declarations on the day the Report is run.
Outputs
TIP: For more information on building Custom Reports, read How to Build a Custom Report.
To report on Gift Aid Donations and declarations, here are some useful outputs you can include:
In the Customers wrapper > Gift Aid Declarations sub-wrapper:
- Gift Aid Declaration Type: Outputs declaration type.
- Gift Aid Declaration Start Date: Outputs the start date of the declaration time period.
-
Gift Aid Declaration Details: Outputs any details:
- Any details inputted in the text box.
- For verbal declarations with email confirmations, “Email sent” appears.
- For verbal declarations with letter confirmations, “Letter created” appears.
- For online declarations, “Declaration made online” appears.
- For declarations with an attachment, “Declaration uploaded" appears.
- Gift Aid Declaration Has Attachment: Outputs “0” for declarations with no attachments or “1” for declarations with an attachment.
In the Donations wrapper:
- Gift aid claimable: Outputs TRUE or FALSE.
- Gift aid claimed: Outputs TRUE or FALSE.
- Opt out of gift aid: Outputs TRUE or FALSE.
Further Reading
You now have the information you need to track and record Gift Aid Declarations and submit claims to the HMRC. You also have the information you need to report and segment on Gift Aid.
If you are interested in more information on managing Donations and Memberships in Spektrix, take a look at the following articles: