Generating a Tax Receipt Letter

BigSIS will generate your tax receipt letters at the end of the year so donors know how much they've paid throughout the year and thus have accurate numbers for IRS reporting.

PRO TIPS!

If you are going to publish your Tax Receipt Letter, please make sure the Donors Tab is turned on. To do this please go to System> Settings> Portal Setup> Donors- Portal Tab> check the Show In Portal box.

If you need to re-publish all or just one of the Tax Receipt Letters, you will need to Restrict to Selected Donor Profile (or not if you need to publish all) set the rest of your Report Parameters and click Publish to Portal (at the bottom of the page). The new version of the letter will replace the old one that is in the portal. 

The Tax Receipt Letter will only display payments during the calendar year. For example, if a donor pledged $1000 in December 2020, but didn't make a payment towards that pledge until January 2021, then the $2000 pledge will not show up on the letter because an actual payment has yet to be received. This is because the IRS is only concerned with payments that have been made, not payments a donor has promised to make.

Though BigSIS allows you to adjust the calendar year dates, a true Tax Receipt letter only lists payments made during the calendar year.

Generating a Tax Receipt Letters with Examples

1. Go to Donations > Donation Reports > Tax Receipt Letter by Donor Profile
2. The Report Parameters will let you select a certain Campaign, Appeal, Find, the type of Donations, if you want to include anonymous donations, payment begin, and end dates.
   
   PRO TIP1 Though a true tax receipt letter will show every campaign, appeal, fund, donation type, and anonymous donors, you do have the option to limit the result based on these parameters.
   PRO TIP2 Payment begin and end dates should be calendar year's begin and end dates not the fiscal year's begin and end dates.
   PRO TIP3 Leave the Restrict to Selected Donor Profile field blank if you want to generate ALL letters or select a specific person to generate a letter just for them.
   
   
3. All Letter Page Options refer to the first page of the letter. Here you will be able to identify if you want to show your School's Logo, the Name and Address of the school, and preferred Greeting. 
   
   Although canned text is available for the body of the letter, the preferred closing, and the signature, you will be able to customize it here.
   
   You will also be able to add a space for a handwritten signature and or include an image of the signature. As well as a list of the donation payments and any additional text beneath the enclosure line.
   
   Here is an example:
   
   
   
4. The Payment Page Options refer to the second page of the report that lists only the payments. This section will let you add Text Above List of Donation Payments. Such as if you want to add EIN number and any government-mandated statements (e.g., about goods & services).
   This is also where you specify if you want to include In-Kind and Stock Gifts.
   PRO TIP! If you only want a letter page and not a Payment Page then scroll down to the Output Options and "Print Payment Page" checkbox and uncheck it.
   
   Here is an example (If your donors had In-Kind and Stock Gifts and you had checked the box they would also show up here):
   
5. The Output Options will let you change the font of your entire report, you will be able to uncheck the Print Letter Page if you would rather not have a letter page, and you will be able to uncheck the Print Payment Page if you would just like to have a letter page. You can also decide to only Print Reports for Donor Profiles with User Accounts. You can also choose to print letters for Donor Advised Funds. Lastly, when you are ready (after running the letters and previewing them for any mistakes) you can push the letters to the portal. The letters will appear in the Donor Tab under the Documents Subtab. 
   IMPORTANT!: to get tax letters to Donor Profiles without User Accounts, you must Download them as PDF, in order to print and physically mail them.