Free Lite Version

This Lite version of DONATION is a completely free option, suitable for small charities and churches with limited needs. It allows you to process up to 100 donors with donations in each year.

Features of DONATION Lite

Lite is a feature-limited version of the the full paid Standalone version (check full features).

DONATION Lite lets you do the following:

• Record names, addresses and phone numbers of donors
• Use member or envelope numbers, if desired, and auto-assign the next available one to a new donor
• Specify various categories of donor and donation
• Record an annual pledge amount for each donor
• Record dates, amounts, donation categories and cheque numbers (or how the donation was paid) for individual donations
• Quickly and simply pick donors from a scrolling list, or search for them with two different Find features
• Print over 30 different reports on donors, donations, receipts and categories
• Export any report to various file formats, such as Excel or CSV (comma-separated value)
• Print numbered charitable receipts, for one donor at a time, in a simple standardized format, plus mailing labels for those receipts. *
• Include up to three sections in the receipt:
  • A section to send with your tax form that just gives the total
  • An optional 2nd section with the details of each individual donation during the year, and
  • An optional 3rd section with the totals by category of the donations
• Select different receipt formats for users in the U.S.A., Canada, Australia, and other countries
• For Canadian receipts, properly handle what the Canada Revenue Agency calls "split receipting" - the handling of donations where the donor receives an "advantage", by the use of an optional Eligible Amount field
• Optionally print bilingual (French/English) or French-only receipts for users in Quebec, with an extra copy for the donor's provincial tax form
• Print duplicate receipts (e.g. if someone loses one)
• Print corrected receipts (if something in the receipt was incorrect)

Good to Know

• DONATION has context-sensitive help and a full manual online.
• It uses a powerful open source SQL-based Firebird database, which allows data to be accessed for other purposes (with appropriate tools).
• It has a simple option to backup all of your data to diskettes, your hard drive, or elsewhere (for example, a writeable CD or USB memory key). It also has an option to restore such backups.
• DONATION reminds you to do backups of your database weekly, or at a frequency of your choosing.
• While the program is entirely in English, some entry of accents and characters for foreign languages is possible.
• Currency and dates are displayed in your regional format, as defined in Windows Control Panel's Regional settings.

Restrictions on the Lite Version

Users of the Lite version are entitled to free support for installation and startup issues for one month from the date on which they register the program. After that a small annual support fee will be required if you need support. See PRICING/PAYMENT.

DONATION Lite does not let you do the following tasks, which are all enabled in the paid full version:

• Have over 100 donors with donations in any one year
• Record donors' email addresses
• Record three user-specifiable fields about donors, plus a comments field of virtually unlimited length
• Record a free-form description for donations
• Use a special data entry form to speed entry of weekly donations, collections or offerings for churches
• Automatically re-assign all envelope numbers
• Use an optional limited-entry password for volunteers to do entry without seeing full details on donors or donation history
• Optionally use a Network version of DONATION to access the same database from multiple computers on a network
• Use either of two different ways to create custom reports
• Use a powerful ability to create mail merge letters for one, all or some donors
• Print receipts for all donors with unreceipted donations in one batch, or for a selected subgroup of all donors with unreceipted donations
• Email receipts to donors with email addresses
• For Canadian receipts, create special receipts for Gifts in Kind / Non-Cash donations
• Generate receipts in a format that you design, instead of the built-in formats, by using the mail merge features
• Send encrypted, compressed backups to yourself or a colleague by email, and restore those backups
• Store donations for multiple organizations on the same computer
• Import files of donors from assorted file formats, or import donations

You can always start with DONATION Lite, then upgrade to the full paid version if you require these additional features to meet your organization's needs.

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* In Canada, you need a charitable registration number to issue charitable tax receipts. While other organizations do send other types of receipts, these cannot be used for tax deductions, and the receipts printed by DONATION may not be suitable for that use.