Donor management
Anyone who donates money to your charity should be recorded if possible, even if they don't complete a declaration at the time. Remember that declarations can be backdated to 6 April 2000 so if your donor completes a form at any point in the future (assuming legislation doesn't change), you'll be able to go back and claim for any old donations. Contribution Manager makes it easy to record all your donations but only claim for the ones you can.
Although you claim back tax on the donation at the basic rate of tax (22% until 5 April 2008, 20% thereafter), the donor can also claim back the higher rate of tax on their own tax form. Contribution Manager easily produces a report that you can issue to any donor making such a claim.
Claim management
You can make as many claims as you want, at any time of the year. Contribution Manager shows how much can be claimed in each tax year and, when you start a claim, first produces a draft claim that you can check before finalising and sending to HM Revenue & Customs.
Contribution Manager marks each individual contribution to show in which claim it was included. It constantly compares the amount claimed with the amount eligible to be claimed and flags any differences. This also ensures that if you later spot a mistake, an adjustment is automatically made in a future claim. As an example, let's say that a Mr P Smith makes a donation, it's entered as being from Peter Smith, who has signed a declaration, and a claim is subsequently made for that donation. It later transpires that the donation was from Paul Smith who has not signed a declaration. If the donation is amended and allocated to the correct person, Contribution Manager will automatically pick up that adjustment and include it on the next claim made for that tax year.
Envelope management
Many charities with regular donors use numbered envelopes to manage contributions. This is particularly true of churches. Contribution Manager was designed from the outset for use with envelopes but the feature can be switched off for other sorts of charities.
The envelope management in Contribution Manager allows envelopes to be allocated to contributors at thestart of the year but they can, if necessary, be allocated to 'unknown' and reallocated when the information becomes available. The data entry screens show the envelope number and the name of the allocated contributor for quick checking.
Campaign management
Each fund-raising event can be allocated to a particular campaign allowing campaigns to be reported separately. In the case of a church or multi-parish charity, this would be used to assign services to congregations or to individual churches.
At a more detailed level, each individual donation can be assigned to an account allowing different activities to be monitored within an event - such as seeing how much was made by a tombola or by a cake sale. Scout or guide groups may wish to account for regular term fees separately to other donations. Churches may use different accounts for Christmas giving or for building funds.
An account can be flagged as being ineligible for Gift Aid so that all moneys received could be recorded without fear of them being inadvertently part of a claim. A church may wish to record church hall hire fees even though they cannot be claimed.