Receipts for Canada

Nate Laning

While our organization is located in the U.S, we were recently asked by a Canadian donor to make our tax receipts comply with Canada Revenue Agency regulations. I'm definitely no expert on tax laws, especially outside of the U.S, but I was asked to make a receipt that met the requirements. One of the requirements, however, is the inclusion of the donor's middle initial in the receipt. This is what is causing me the most difficulty. No matter what I try, I cannot figure out how to merge the donor's middle name field into the receipt letter. Typically, I use Mail > Receipts > then one of our already created receipt mail merges. I've even created a special letter in Config > Letters, but with not success. The latter includes the merge field for middle name, but it doesn't populate. Has anyone had success getting additional merge fields to work in a receipt? Or, if you're organization is in Canada, how do you comply in this way?

JoAnn Strommen

Nate Laning:
While our organization is located in the U.S, we were recently asked by a Canadian donor to make our tax receipts comply with Canada Revenue Agency regulations. I'm definitely no expert on tax laws, especially outside of the U.S, but I was asked to make a receipt that met the requirements. One of the requirements, however, is the inclusion of the donor's middle initial in the receipt. This is what is causing me the most difficulty. No matter what I try, I cannot figure out how to merge the donor's middle name field into the receipt letter. Typically, I use Mail > Receipts > then one of our already created receipt mail merges. I've even created a special letter in Config > Letters, but with not success. The latter includes the merge field for middle name, but it doesn't populate. Has anyone had success getting additional merge fields to work in a receipt? Or, if you're organization is in Canada, how do you comply in this way?

Nate,

What add/sal are you using in your receipt?  My suggestion would be to go to the donor's record and add their middle initial to that add/sal or choose a format that includes middle initial for that record. 

Then you should be able to just use your normal letters/receipts. 

My thoughts anyway....

 

Aldera Chisholm

Nate Laning:
While our organization is located in the U.S, we were recently asked by a Canadian donor to make our tax receipts comply with Canada Revenue Agency regulations. I'm definitely no expert on tax laws, especially outside of the U.S, but I was asked to make a receipt that met the requirements. One of the requirements, however, is the inclusion of the donor's middle initial in the receipt. This is what is causing me the most difficulty. No matter what I try, I cannot figure out how to merge the donor's middle name field into the receipt letter. Typically, I use Mail > Receipts > then one of our already created receipt mail merges. I've even created a special letter in Config > Letters, but with not success. The latter includes the merge field for middle name, but it doesn't populate. Has anyone had success getting additional merge fields to work in a receipt? Or, if you're organization is in Canada, how do you comply in this way?

Hi Nate, I am with a Canadian org and do all our receipting. Canada Revenue Agency states that receipts must show "the donors full name and address", Given (first) and Family (last) name are sufficient for their definition, so we do not need to use the middle initial for Canadian issued charitable tax receipts. You may already have this link, but just in case, here is the CRA checklist for receitping for your reference: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/chrts-gvng/chrts/chcklsts/rcpts-eng.html We do sometimes use the middle name, simply for clarity if we have multiple donors with similar names, and as such I have set up the addressee/salutation to include them if they are present on the file. Cheers Aldera