The giving page report says a good number of donors ticked the Gift Aid box this year. The bank statement shows one transfer from the platform, and the figure is lower than the total you expected. The claim needs each gift, with a valid declaration behind it. If you are the volunteer treasurer of a small charity, that gap between one payout and many gifts is where the evening goes.
This piece is for the person who inherits that job. It walks through what to take from an online giving page, where to keep the declarations, how to record the payout, and what to check before you build the claim.
Why the payout rarely matches the gifts
A giving platform does not usually send you each gift as it arrives. It settles card payments in batches, often covering several days or weeks of donations. Before the money reaches your account, it takes its fees. Refunds and chargebacks can come out later, and they may not line up with the original gift in the same month.
So one transfer is the net result of many gifts, minus fees, plus or minus timing. Gift Aid is worked out on the gross amount each donor gave, not on the amount that landed. Your job is to put the two side by side. Check your platform's own settlement terms, because they differ, and they change.
What to export from the giving page
Download the donation-level export, not only the summary. Exact column names depend on the platform, so look at what you actually have. You need these items for each gift:
- Donor name, as it appears on the declaration. This is what HMRC matches against the declaration record.
- Address and postcode. A Gift Aid declaration needs these. If they are missing, the gift cannot go in the claim as it stands.
- Date of the gift. The claim is built by period, and the date tells you which one.
- Gross amount. This is what the donor gave before any fee was taken off.
- Declaration status. Whether the box was ticked, when it was ticked, and whether the declaration was captured in full.
- Transaction reference. This lets you match each gift to the payout that carried it.
Save the export as a dated file. Do not overwrite last year's.
Keep the declaration beside the gift
The platform's export folder is not your record. Accounts get closed, platforms change, and old downloads disappear. HMRC expects Gift Aid records to be kept for at least six years, so keep a copy of each declaration with the gift it supports.
In Vasker, that means entering the gift in the cash book and attaching or recording the declaration details alongside it, so the two stay together. When a donor's details change, record the change and the date. When a donor asks to stop Gift Aid, record that too. This is general treasurer practice, and the detail HMRC expects is in its current Gift Aid guidance.
Record the payout against the gifts that make it up
In the cash book, the payout arrives as one bank line. Do not enter it as a single income figure. Break it down:
- each gift at its gross amount, with the donor's Gift Aid status noted
- the platform fee as a separate expense line
- any refunds or chargebacks as their own lines
The net of these lines should equal the bank transfer. If it does not, look for timing differences first. A gift from the last day of the month may sit in the next payout. Reconciling this way means that when the committee asks why the bank is lower than the giving page total, you can point to the fee line and the batch that is still settling, rather than guessing.
Check the list before you build the claim
This is the step most worth an evening. Go through the export and look for:
- Gifts from non-taxpayers. A Gift Aid claim relies on the donor paying UK income tax or capital gains tax at least equal to the tax claimed on their gifts. You cannot check this yourself, so rely on the donor's declaration and the HMRC rules. Do not include gifts you have reason to doubt.
- Gifts with something given in return. If a donor receives goods or services, such as a ticket, a place at an event or a thank-you item of value, Gift Aid may apply only to the part of the gift above the benefit limit. Check the current HMRC rules for benefits before you include the full amount.
- Missing details. A name, address or postcode is missing, a declaration field is blank, or the date is unclear.
- Duplicates. The same donor may appear twice because they gave twice, or because the platform exported a refund as a second line.
- Withdrawn consent. A donor who has asked to stop Gift Aid should not appear in the claim for later gifts.
Note what you removed and why. The record of exclusions is as useful as the claim itself if a question comes later.
Build the claim on Plus
On Plus, Vasker builds the claim from your recorded gifts and declarations. It covers single declarations for one-off gifts and enduring declarations, which cover ongoing gifts from the same donor. The claim build runs validation before anything is sent, so missing fields show up on your screen rather than in an HMRC response. The request and response XML are retained as dispute evidence, so you have a record of exactly what was sent and what came back.
Plus is £119 a year. It is the plan with Gift Aid and GASDS claim tooling and examiner access tooling. Vasker does not guarantee that any claim succeeds. The validation helps you catch errors; it does not replace your own checking of eligibility.
Who sends the claim
The treasurer or chair sends the claim, using the organisation's own Government Gateway login. Vasker does not store Government Gateway passwords. The sender ID and password are typed only at the point of submission and then discarded. Make sure at least two people on the committee know how the login is kept, so the claim does not depend on one person's memory.
The arithmetic, and only the arithmetic
Gift Aid adds 25p to every eligible pound donated by a UK taxpayer, at current basic-rate relief. As a worked example only: £2,000 of eligible donations from UK taxpayers with valid declarations means £500 of Gift Aid. That is arithmetic, not a typical or promised result for any charity. Your figure depends on how many of your gifts are eligible and how complete your declarations are.
If you want a rough planning figure before you start the work, the Estimate your Gift Aid gap tool is free, needs no account, and gives a rough estimate for planning. It is not a claim. When you are ready to build one, look at the claim tooling on Plus.
General information, not tax advice
This is general information for volunteer treasurers, not tax or legal advice. Check current HMRC Gift Aid and Charities Online guidance before you claim, and check the Charity Commission, OSCR or CCNI guidance that applies to your organisation.
Vasker is listed by HMRC as commercial software for filing Gift Aid and charity repayment claims online through Charities Online. HMRC does not endorse or approve any software supplier.