A mentioned above, Gift Aid is a vital source of revenue for UK charities. It provides a 25% uplift on eligible donations to the nonprofit organisation when claimed from the HMRC. The challenge with Gift Aid is to organise the paperwork with efficiency so that the organisation - or their bookkeepers - isn’t weighed down with the effort. So, how can the task be made seamless, thereby ensuring the claims are made frequently and the organisation’s cash flow is improved? 

Use reliable tools to simplify the process

Doing your bookkeeping using Xero means that you have a straightforward tool for managing your day-to-day accounting and periodic reporting requirements. Add infoodle to the mix, and you have a powerful system to ensure your Gift Aid can be processed, at minimal cost. HMRC requires strict formats – infoodle ensures these are correct, giving you clear warnings before there is any problem. infoodle also has specific features to ensure seamless integration with Xero.

As an accountant, you can carry on your day-to-day bookkeeping in Xero knowing that infoodle is working in the background to pull the data required out of Xero at the appropriate time. infoodle intelligently uses the data items to bring together a claim, ensuring that the right people with the right approval are being used - and the right transactions are utilised to ensure the claim is accurate. It does all this for you, you simply review the claim. After the data has been transferred to infoodle and reviewed, your claim can be submitted. Once set up, it only takes a few clicks to prepare and file your claim, no spreadsheet manipulation required!

Get your donors’ permission to claim Gift Aid on their donations

In contrast with many other countries where donors receive tax relief directly into their bank account, the UK nonprofits can make claims for tax returns on donations made to them, making their fundraising efforts go further.

The infoodle Gift Aid Plus package, which was recently introduced to the market, provides you with a new feature of running reports. Reports give a comprehensive overview of your organisation’s transaction history. While before you were only able to view how many donors donated and how much of those donations are Gift Aid claimable, now it is possible to access more data concerning the donor community, their permissions around Gift Aid and the financial donations they have made.

Strengthen ties with donors by using statements

Statements are a powerful ally in your organisational admin life and can help build stronger relations with your communities, customers, and donors, as well as save you potential headaches down the track when it is time to file your claim. With infoodle Gift Aid Plus, charities are now able to take their communication with donors to the next level by providing them with regular updates on their donations. Statements can be customised, so organisations can design their own adding their logos and other brand elements. Sending out Statements is a great way to keep in touch with the people donating to your organisation. Open and consistent communication builds trust, keeps the donors thinking about you and your cause, and results in more donations being made.

Bringing all the required information together can be time consuming, inaccurate and frustrating, which is why some nonprofits put off or avoid claiming Gift Aid. Using infoodle Gift Aid Plus and Xero can be the first step to making the bookkeeping process easy, so you can file your Gift Aid claim more frequently and accurately, thus increasing the income of your organisation.