How to Set up Tax Receipts on Trellis

Automating your tax receipts will allow you to save time while still giving your donors exactly what they need. Keep reading to learn how you can easily add automated tax receipts to your Trellis account.

How to Set Up Tax Receipts (Overview)

There are three steps you need to take in order to set up tax receipting for your fundraiser.

1. Complete all Organization Profile Information
2. Create a Tax Receipt Template from your Dashboard
3. Enable Tax Receipts on your Fundraiser

Continue reading to learn more about each step.

1. Complete Organization Profile

• From the Dashboard > Profile complete the following fields:
  • Organization Name
  • Legal Organization Name
  • Organization Number
  • Minimum Tax Receiptable Amount
  • Short Organization Description
  • Organization Address
  • Organization Email
  • Organization Phone Number
  • Organization Website

2. Create a Tax Receipt Template

• Go to Tax Receipt Templates

  • From your Dashboard menu, click Tax Receipting

  • From Tax Receipt Templates, in the top right corner, click Add New Template

• Complete the required fields:

  • Tax Receipt Template Name: A descriptive name for the template. The template name is not donor-facing, it's for internal use only.
  • Tax Receipt Prefix: A prefix for receipt numbering (e.g., "TR", "[Fundraiser]", or “2024”). This is donor-facing and will appear on the PDF file name.
  • Tax Receipt Body Text: Customizable text acknowledging the donation and meeting compliance standards. This appears above the required tax receipt details. Our system has a default message that is generated, that orgs can edit.
  • Signer Name, Job Title, and Digital Signature: Information about the authorized individual signing the receipts.

• Publish the template

  • Once published, the template will now be available to use on fundraisers.

Additional Features:

• Test the Template: Send a test tax receipt to your account email to verify its appearance and content.
• Duplicate Templates: Use the duplicate function to create variations of an existing template for different fundraisers.
• Archiving Templates: Archiving prevents further use of the template but retains it for historical purposes. If you archive a template, it automatically removes it from connected fundraisers. If you unarchive an archived template, it will move it into draft. It will not reconnect it to previous fundraisers.
• Deleting Templates: Deleting a template erases it completely and removes it from connected fundraisers. Orgs should only do this to fix mistakes like they accidentally made a template copy that won't be used. 

3. Enable Tax Receipts on a Specific Fundraiser

Once your template is ready, link it to your fundraiser:

• Enable Tax Receipts on Fundraiser

  • In the Fundraiser Builder, go to Admin > Tax Receipts
  • Toggle on Enable Tax Receipts.
  • Select the tax receipt template you want to use.

• Configure Donor-Covered Fees

  • Toggle Include Fees Paid by Donors to decide whether donor-covered fees count towards the receipted amount.
    • If enabled, the fees covered by donors will be included in the tax receipted amount. If the only amount eligible on the purchase are the covered fees, then the covered fees must meet the minimum amount set under organization profile. 
      • I.e. If someone buys a $50 item that is not tax receipted and covers $5.50 in fees, but the organization's minimum tax receipt amount is $25, the donor will not receive a tax receipt for $5.50.

• Choose whether receipts send automatically during your event

  • Enable Send Tax Receipts Automatically at Purchase for receipts to be generated and sent automatically after each checkout.
  • Disable it to manually review purchases and issue receipts after the fundraiser.

• Receive copies of tax receipts

  • Enter email addresses to be blind-copied on purchase confirmation receipts whenever they include a tax receipt.

Below is a preview of a Trellis tax receipt for your reference.