How do I generate custom donor summaries or EOY tax receipts?

It's never been easier to generate and send your members their donor summaries for tax purposes—not just at the end of the year but at any time and for any date range! Plus: there is no label-making or mail merge necessary 🎉 Please note that only Super Admins with giving privileges will be able to view and generate these reports.

Before you get started, please note that by default, all tax-deductible funds will be included in the end-of-year donation summaries. To exclude a fund from these summaries, simply uncheck the box when creating the fund or make this edit via the Fund Settings section.

To set the fund's tax-deductible status when creating the fund: 

1. Click the green Add Fund button on the main Giving Tracking page. 
2. Make sure the checkbox is selected that says "This fund is tax deductible."

To edit the fund's tax-deductible status after creating the fund:

1. Select the fund name from the Giving Tracking page to open that fund. 
2. Click the cogwheel icon at the top of the fund to access the Fund Settings. 
3. Select or deselect the checkbox that says "This fund is tax deductible" depending on whether you want the fund to appear in end-of-year donation summaries or not.

Funds that are not tax deductible and thus excluded from end-of-year summaries will be marked with an icon:

Creating your donor summaries 

To save time and ensure a smooth process, you'll want to make sure your members' addresses are as up-to-date as possible, and that you have entered all the giving data that you needed to. Once you are ready to create your summaries: click the Giving tab on the left-hand side panel to open up the main Giving page. You will see the Donor Summaries for Taxes section at the bottom of the page. There will be a section for each year you have tracked donations. Notice that the current year will be greyed out and you won't be able to create those reports until the year has ended.

A pop-up will appear outlining the features in our End-of-Year Tax Summary creator. You will see that your Donor letters are completely customizable, you can save your work at any point throughout the process and you will be able to preview the summaries to make sure that everything is in tip-top shape before finalizing them.

You can now select the exact date range that you want in a report. This means that in addition to running your annual reports at the end of the year, you can run as many custom reports as you need throughout the year! Select your dates and click "Let's Go!" 

Review your donor information 

To start this process, you will want to make sure that all of the contact info for the members that gave in the year you are creating summaries for is up to date. We will let you know if any of your donor contact information is missing (see the example below). Just note that without a home address listed in the system, the report will be missing the address that is meant to be used for mailing by hand, and without an email, members won't be able to receive an emailed copy of your donor letter. 

Do you have donor information missing but aren't sure how to correct it? Not to worry -  we’ve included detailed instructions to help you get your member information in tip-top shape. Just click Show me how to fix this. If you read through the handy guide but still have questions, feel free to reach out to us here at help@flocknote.com. You can also click Cancel, to make those updates yourself before getting started. 

Legal Information 

Next, add any necessary legal information to these donor letters. Just be aware that the legal requirements for your letters will vary by state and country. Add your church or organization’s unique tax ID at the top. Then, If any specific alerts or language is required for your letters, be sure to add that in the text box below. We’ve added some basic language already but you can edit or remove that as needed. Once you've added all the necessary information click Next to continue. 

Customize your Donor Letter 

Next, you can customize the message to your Donors. The donor name will be automatically added where it says "Dear name" for each individual head of household. Underneath that, we've provided an example message but feel free to customize that text however you would like. Spruce up your letter by adding custom formatting: bold or italicize text, add multiple paragraphs, or even organize your letter with various list types. Lastly, conclude the letter by adding the name of the person this letter will be coming from, and any relevant information about them. as well as upload a signature if you would like. 

Preview your Donor Letter

Last, it's time to preview your donor letter and select how you would like these letters to be sent out to your members. Please review these options carefully. Also, before finalizing, ask yourself:

• Are all members' addresses up to date?
• Have you entered all the giving data that you needed to?
• Did you check the signature in the letter from the pastor?

To send your letters out by email, select the “ Email PDF reports to each head of household” option. Once you click the green "Create Donor Summaries"  button, we will send an email to each head of household with their unique report. The Admin who creates and sends out the donor summaries will be set as the reply-to contact for members who receive their reports via email.

When they arrive in your member's inbox, the emails will look something like this 👀

*Note: archived members with giving information and a valid email address on file will still be sent an EOY Donor Summary.

To send your letters out by mail only, deselect the "Email PDF reports to each head of the household" box. Once you click the green "Create Donor Summaries" button, we will compile all of your donor summaries into a printable file. Each letter will have the head of the household's address positioned so that you can easily mail these letters out using standard #10 double window envelopes.

Once everything is ready, it's time to run your reports! Click "Create Donor Summaries." From there, we’ll start generating your letters in a jiffy and you’ll see the progress in the bottom left-hand corner. 

Once complete you can download your reports! If you would like to download reports for only those who will not receive them as an email, be sure to check the "Only include households that can't be emailed" box before you select the green download button.

A donor summary report will look similar to this (with your Church and Donor info):

Where to find your Donor Summaries 

After they’re done, you can view your donor reports in the Donor Summaries for Taxes section on the main Giving Page. Simply click on the box of the specific report you would like to view to download a PDF of all of your donor summaries.  These summaries will also appear on the Giving tab of each donor's profile.  

To view the sending stats for your donation reports:

Return to the Donor Summaries for Taxes section on the main Giving Tracking page. Hover over the year you would like to review until 3 dots (...) appear in the upper right-hand corner of the box. Click on the 3 dots and select "View More Details."

This will open up a sending report for that donor summary. Click on a category on the far right-hand side to bring up its list of member(s). The picture below shows that 1 file was created for Uno The Sheep. 

Still stuck? We're here to help! Send an email to help@flocknote.com.