The spring appeal went out in March. Three cheques came in by post, a few online gifts arrived with a note saying 'for the roof', and someone handed a card in at the church door. By the claim date, the declarations are in the treasurer's inbox, the chair's email and a drawer in the church office. Nobody can say which bank line each one belongs to.
That is a common shape for a small charity that depends on appeals and one-off gifts rather than standing orders. Gift Aid can only be claimed on gifts where the donor has made a valid declaration and is a UK taxpayer. Most of the work is keeping each declaration linked to the money it covers.
Single-gift and enduring declarations
Appeal money usually sits behind one of two kinds of declaration. A single-gift declaration covers one donation. It might be a reply slip, a paper form or an online tick box. An enduring declaration covers qualifying donations from that person until they withdraw it. It suits a regular giver more than a one-off appeal donor.
For each appeal gift, record the donor's name and home address as they appear on the declaration, the date of the declaration, whether it is single or enduring, the amount and date of the gift, and the bank line it arrived on. Keep a copy of the form or the online record, not just a note that someone said they would send one.
This is general information only. Check current HMRC guidance on declarations, including the wording and details that must appear. The rules are the thing to follow, not this article.
Tie each declaration to the bank line
This is where most claims go wrong. A gift that cannot be matched to its declaration has to be left out, and a claim built from guesses is hard to defend later.
Give each appeal gift a short reference, such as APP25-014. Write it on the reply slip, in the cash book line and on the declaration record. When you tick the bank statement, tick the gift, then the declaration. Cheques paid in as a batch need the batch sheet filed with the paying-in slip, so you can see which cheque went with which form.
Gifts that arrive without a declaration can stay unclaimed until one is collected. They still count as income in the cash book.
A legacy from an estate is a different kind of receipt. Keep it out of the Gift Aid pile and check HMRC guidance before treating it as claimable.
What a claim build should check before it goes
Before anything is sent to HMRC, check each line against the declaration behind it:
- a declaration exists for every gift in the claim
- the declaration date is present and is consistent with the gift date
- names and addresses are complete
- the donor is a UK taxpayer, as the declaration states
- the amount matches the bank line
- no gift is counted twice across a single and an enduring declaration
Vasker's Plus plan validates the claim build and flags missing or incomplete items, so they can be fixed before anything is sent. It cannot confirm that a donor is a taxpayer. That stays a question for the declaration and for your own records.
Who sends the claim
The treasurer or chair sends the claim using the organisation's own Government Gateway login, the same one used for Charities Online. Vasker does not store Government Gateway passwords. The sender ID and password are typed only at the point of submission and then discarded.
Agree in the committee minutes who holds that login, and check that the person sending the claim can actually get into it before the deadline. Finding out the password is lost in the week the claim is due is a common reason for delay.
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.
Where the Plus plan fits and where Free is enough
The Free plan (£0) gives you a starter cash book with one fund. While you are sorting the appeal records, working out which declarations are missing and moving the old spreadsheet across, that may be enough.
Standard (£59 a year) adds full books, members, subscriptions, reports and grant matching. Plus (£119 a year) adds Gift Aid and Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme (GASDS) claim tooling, claim build with validation, IRmark, and retention of the request and response XML as dispute evidence. GASDS is a top-up on qualifying small cash donations without individual declarations, and it is subject to HMRC rules and caps. It does not replace declarations for named regular gifts.
If the claim is the main reason you are looking, Plus is the plan that includes the claim tools. If you only need to get the cash book into shape first, start with Free and move up when the records are ready.
Worked arithmetic
Worked example only: £2,000 of eligible donations from UK taxpayers, each with a valid declaration, gives £500 of Gift Aid at 25p in the pound. That is arithmetic, not a typical or promised result. Your figure depends on what came in, which gifts have valid declarations and the status of each donor.
To see roughly what your own records might be worth before you start tidying them, Estimate your Gift Aid gap. It is free, needs no account and gives a rough estimate for planning, not a claim.
A short note before you start
This is general information, not tax advice. Check current HMRC Gift Aid guidance, and the guidance from the Charity Commission, OSCR or CCNI that applies to your organisation. HMRC expects Gift Aid records to be kept for at least six years. Keep the declarations, the bank lines and the claim confirmations together for that period, so the paperwork is in one place when someone asks.