This program was designed and originally intended for Canadian churches and charities. In particular, the original format of the receipts incorporated features and requirements for Canada.

Since version 2.30 (released early in 2001), there has been a completely redesigned receipt format for U.S. users. This includes printing the following sentence on all receipts: "Pursuant to Internal Revenue Code requirements for substantiation of charitable contributions, no goods or services were provided in return for the Tax Deductible contributions".

About two-thirds of the users of DONATION are from the U.S.A. Here are a few issues that U.S. users should be aware of:

• In the U.S., donors are not required by the IRS to submit receipts for individual donations of less than $250. As a result, some non-profits do not issue receipts for amounts less than $250. If you wish to do that, there is a Receipt -> Filtered Donors option that allows you to generate all outstanding receipts for amounts over a given dollar figure.
• To get the special receipt format for the U.S., make sure that you specify that you are a U.S. organization in Maintenance -> Receipt and Letters Options. There are a number of other options there that modify the receipt format as well.
• In the U.S. there is more distinction between cash gifts and gifts in kind, requiring different wording on the letters. Currently, you can already specify whether a donation is a gift in kind, by selecting the "Gift in Kind" value on the Check # / Paid By list for the donation. An upcoming version may have an automated change to the wording of the receipt when it is for a Gift In Kind.
• It is also possible to generate the receipts using mail merge, using your word processing program (Microsoft Word 97 or higher, or WordPerfect 7 or higher). That way if you have issues with the built-in receipt format in DONATION, you can format the receipts as you want them.
• Some U.S. users of DONATION wish to have their organization's Tax ID / EIN on the receipts; others do not wish to do so. If you wish to do so, fill that number in to the Charitable Number or Tax ID / EIN field on the Maintenance -> Organization Info window. (That window comes up as part of your first start-up of DONATION, but can also be used later.)

If you are aware of any other changes that would be required or helpful for the U.S. (or for that matter any other countries!) please contact support to inform Cooperstock Software of them.