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Some entire donors or individual donations should never be included in official charitable receipts created with the Receipt menu options, for various reasons.
An example of a non-receiptable donation would be if the donor is actually purchasing something of value for the money they gave you.
An example of a non-receiptable donor, at least in Canada, is another charity or foundation - you are not supposed to give them official charitable receipts. (More generally, for Canada, this applies to what the Canada Revenue Agency calls a "qualified donee".)
It is ultimately your responsibility to understand which donations can receive an official tax receipt, and to record them in DONATION accordingly.
Non-Receiptable Donations
Sometimes you receive donations that should not be included in a charitable receipt. Most commonly, this would be because the donor has already received a receipt from a 3rd party source, such as an Internet charitable donation service. Or, it could be a donation to you from another charity, or another type of income that you are recording, such as membership dues, that are not eligible for tax deductions. It could be a donation that is so small that your policy is to not issue receipts for that small an amount.
For Canadian users, there is also a rule about what the Canada Revenue Agency calls donations with advantage. In general if the advantage amount (the difference between the entered Total Amount and Eligible Amount) is more than 80% of the Total Amount, the donation should not be receiptable.
There are two ways to prevent a specific donation from ever being included in a receipt, either of which is sufficient.
1.Use any Category value that is exactly "Non-Receiptable" or starts with "NR " ("NR", plus a space), or ends with " NR" (a space, plus "NR"). Some examples are "General NR" or "NR General". (Do not include the quotation marks in the Category name!) These values are set up with the Maintenance ⇒ Donation Categories window. ("NR" is an abbreviation for "Non-Receiptable".)
2.Select one of two special values available in the Cheque No / Paid By field for the donation: "Non-Receiptable" or "Pre-Receipted". (You can select them from the drop-down list of options for that field.) Both "Non-Receiptable" and "Pre-Receipted" have exactly the same effect. Both are provided because you may feel that one or the other covers the situation of a given donation more accurately.
NOTE: These rules are not actually case-sensitive, so Category or Cheque No / Paid By values like "NON-RECEIPTABLE" or "non-receiptable", or Categories staring with "nr " or ending with " nr", will also have the same effect of making the donor non-receiptable.
Non-Receiptable Donors
To prevent a specific donor from ever having its donations receipted, set the donor's Category 1 or Category 2 value to "Non-Receiptable", or anything starting with "NR " ("NR", plus a space), or ending with " NR" (a space, plus "NR"), such as "NR Member" or "Member NR". ("NR" alone is not sufficient - it must start or end with that, and have an extra space as explained in the previous sentence. Again, do not include the quotation marks in the Category name!) If there is currently no such value on the drop-down lists for those fields, you can set it up on one of those lists with either the Maintenance ⇒ Donor Category 1 or the Maintenance ⇒ Donor Category 2 window.
As with the rules for donations, these rules are not case-sensitive.
When you add new donations for a donor whose Category 1 or Category 2 value is Non-Receiptable, you may optionally also optionally set the Category or Cheque # / Paid By value for that donation to a Non-Receiptable value. However, that is not required. No donation for a Non-Receiptable donor will ever be included in a receipt, no matter what its donation Category or Cheque # / Paid By value is.
Note: in versions prior to 3.23c of DONATION, when you added new donations for Non-Receiptable donors, their Cheque # / Paid By value was automatically set to "Non-Receiptable". That is no longer the case, starting in version 3.23c, since it is not required, and doing so could make you incorrectly think that it was required.
Correspondence for Non-Receiptable Donations
Although non-receiptable donations should not be included in official charitable receipts created with the Receipt menu options, you will almost certainly want to acknowledge those donations in some way.
For individual non-receiptable donations, a thank-you letter of some sort could be done, with the Letters ⇒ One Letter menu option, using the Current Donation Information option in section 1 of the window that comes up.
For non-receiptable donors, who have multiple donations, a thank you letter could be done with the same menu option, but using the Total Donations Information option in section 1. These letters could also be done in a group with the Letters ⇒ Mass Mailing menu option, using that window's ability to Filter the donors the letters are going to, to restrict to only the Donor Category 1 or Category 2 value that you use to indicate that donors are non-receiptable.
Non-Receiptable Donations and Bank Deposits
If you have configured bank deposits in DONATION with the Maintenance ⇒ Configure Bank Deposits menu option, part of that configuration is to associate accounts in your accounting program with donation categories.
You may want to have non-receiptable donations associated with different accounts in your accounting program than receiptable donations. The only way to achieve that is in the window for associating accounts with categories, by having different donation categories associated with different accounts.
If a specific donation is considered to be non-receiptable either because the donor is marked as non-receiptable (with a Donor Category 1 or Category 2 value), or because the Cheque # / Paid By value "Non-Receiptable" or "Pre-Receipted" is used, the elements of the program that associate accounts with categories for bank deposits will not notice that distinction. They will still be associated with whatever account is matched with the donation category that was used. The only way to ensure that a specific non-receiptable donation is associated with a different account, is to use a different donation category for it (not a category that is also used for receiptable donations). That could be a donation category that implies to the program that it is non-receiptable (one starting with "NR " or ending with " NR"), but does not absolutely have to be, as long as its use will be clear to you. Once you have a separate donation category for it, you can associate a different account with it.