Charity customers working with Advanced have now processed half a billion pounds in charitable donations since the introduction of its Gift Aid portal. The cloud-based solution helps charities successfully manage the recently introduced online Gift Aid processing requirement for HMRC. It also offers key benefits including the guarantee that report submissions have been validated and the removal of paper-based administration.
Advanced has developed the Gift Aid portal for its not-for-profit clients, which integrates with its fundraising solutions, Donor Strategy and NG, as well as its membership and examination management solution, Integra.
Feedback from some of its leading charity customers, including Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund and Clic Sargent has highlighted the removal of the manual and time intensive administrative process of printing, signing, and posting each form as the biggest benefit in using the Advanced Gift Aid portal and the online process.
Simon Fowler, Managing Director, Advanced Business Solutions (Specialist Solutions), says: “We’re seeing strong momentum in the use of our Gift Aid portal, which was designed to help our customers when processing online claims with HMRC for Gift Aid. By letting customers know if there are any errors in the entry, prior to submission, they are able to speed up the whole process by not having to re-submit data unnecessarily.
“More importantly, it means they receive their Gift Aid rebate from HMRC much quicker helping their fundraising efforts. It’s a great milestone to have achieved.”
Gift Aid is worth nearly £1 billion a year to charities and their donors. It was introduced in 2000 by the UK Government as a way for charities or Community Amateur Sports Clubs (CASCs) to increase the value of monetary gifts from UK taxpayers by claiming back the basic rate tax paid by the donor on the donation. It increases the value of donations by a quarter at no extra cost to the donor.
All Gift Aid claims must now be made online directly to HMRC and organisations processing claims in excess of 1,000 records must be uploaded directly to the Government Gateway.