Generating Filtered Receipts

You can print a selected subgroup of all outstanding receipts with the Receipt à Filtered Donors option. This brings up the Selection Criteria for Receipts window, where you can select criteria based on the Donor (a value of Category 1, a value of Category 2, or some text found in Other Info 1, 2, or 3) or criteria based on individual Donations (a minimum donation Amount or a donation Category). All donors and donations matching all entered criteria, which haven't yet been included on a receipt, where the donor's Category 1 or Category 2 field isn't set to "Non-Receiptable", and the donation isn't marked with the Cheque # / Paid By type "Non-Receiptable" or "Pre-Receipted", will have the receipts generated for them. Like Receipt à All Donors, this will print at most 500 receipts at a time.

If you enter a Minimum Amount for the donations, you also have to enter a Minimum Type. That has three options, each with a different meaning:

1.	Include all donations from donors with at least one donation >= the Min. Amount: This selects only donors who have at least one individual donation line whose Amount is at least the Minimum Amount, but then selects all unreceipted donations for those donors.

2.	Include all donations from donors whose donations total at least the Min. Amount: This selects only donors where the sum of the Amounts of all unreceipted donations for that donor is at least the Minimum Amount, and includes all of those unreceipted donations.

3.	Include only donations that are themselves >= the Min. Amount: This only includes unreceipted donation lines whose Amount is at least the Minimum Amount, and excludes any smaller amounts from the receipt for the donor.

Note that the options are not actually numbered on the Selection Criteria for Receipts window - they are just given numbers here for easy reference in the following discussion.

N.B. prior to version 3.04 of DONATION, the Minimum Type control was not present, and the Minimum Amount was always interpreted as in option (3) above, which is probably the least desirable option for most users of Filtered Receipts. (Sorry about that!)

Here are a couple of reasons you might use Receipt à Filtered Donors. U.S. charitable organizations are only legally required to issue receipts for donations of $250 or more, since for smaller donations, donors may use their cancelled cheque as a receipt. To get this effect, just enter "250" for "Minimum Amount", and select either option (1) or option (3) above for the Minimum Type. Technically option (3) is all that is legally required, but probably most organizations will prefer to use option (1). Of course, you are allowed to send receipts to donors with smaller donations, so option (2) is also allowed, and you may also use a smaller Minimum Amount, or just use Receipt à All Donors if you prefer.

One minor problem with options (1) and (3) is that if a donor gave $250, but it was split between two donation Categories (say $150 for "General" and $100 for "Special Project") then a receipt will not be issued with a Minimum Amount of $250 and Option (1) or (3), because each individual donation line you entered was for less than $250.

If this situation is a problem for you, you can use option (2) instead, because it is not affected by that problem. Alternatively, to check for such problems, you can use Reports à Donation à Unreceipted Donations to list all donations that have not received a receipt, and watch for this problem. The report is sorted by name then date, so you can look for two donations from the same person on the same date adding up to $250 or more. If you find any such donations, just use Receipt à Current Donor Original to issue a receipt for that donor individually.

Some Canadian organizations may also not issue receipts for very small amounts, say under $20, so again filtering on "Minimum Amount" would be useful, most likely with option (2).

One organization asked me about issuing sets of receipts separately for two major campaigns they were doing. This could be handled by giving either donors or donations to those campaigns a special Category value, then filtering on that category value.

If you have generated the receipts, and you look at them on-screen, and the wrong donors or donations seem to have been selected, do not print them. When you print them, they are saved to the database. Instead, just click Close on the Reports window on which the receipts are being displayed. You will be prompted about the fact that closing without printing does not save them to the database - you can answer Yes to the question about closing.

If you have printed the filtered receipts, and then decide that they are incorrect, in many cases you can delete them from the database, with the Receipt à Delete Range menu option.

After this, try again with Receipt à Filtered Donors, changing your criteria as appropriate, or just use Receipt à All Donors.