Tax receipts

You issue an official donation receipt for a single gift, then download it as a PDF, email it to the donor, void it, or reissue a corrected copy. Every receipt freezes a snapshot of the donor, the gift, and your charity identity at the moment it was issued.

Receipts need your account's Giving module and Donor management both switched on. Neither alone is enough, and missing either redirects you away from Receipts. (There is one exception to this: see If Giving is turned off below.)

Charity verification is required first

Before Mercleo will issue, void, or reissue a receipt, Mercleo staff have to verify your charity registration. This is separate from filling in your charity identity: you supply the details on Charity details, but a person at Mercleo confirms them before receipting turns on.

While unverified, every issuing action across Mercleo is blocked with "Tax receipts are paused until Mercleo confirms your charity registration, contact support." This is the first thing to check if a gift meets every eligibility rule below and still refuses a receipt: open Charity details and look at the verification banner at the top of the page.

Issuing a receipt for a gift

There is no "new receipt" button on the Receipts page. You issue a receipt from a gift: open the Transactions page or a contact's Giving tab and click Issue receipt next to the gift. On success you land on the new receipt. Once a gift has a receipt, the button changes to View receipt.

If the gift does not meet every eligibility rule, no receipt is created and the reason appears inline next to the button (for example, "Charity is not configured for receipting."). A newly issued receipt is recorded as Issued and the source gift is marked as receipted.

What makes a gift eligible

Eligibility is checked in order, and each failing rule returns its own message. A gift must clear all of the following:

• Receiptable gift type: only cash, in-kind, pledge payment, matching gift, and gift transactions can be receipted. Any other type returns "Gifts of type <type> are not receiptable."
• CAD currency: non-CAD gifts return "Only CAD gifts can be receipted in Phase 1."
• Positive amount: the gift amount must be greater than zero.
• On or after registration: the gift date may not precede the charity's effective registration date set in Charity settings; a gift before that date is blocked, with both dates named in the message.
• Donor name and address: the donor contact must have a name and at least one of city, province, or country on record. Missing either returns "Donor name and address are required for a receipt."
• Advantage within limits: if the gift records an advantage value, an advantage at or below the lesser of $75 and 10% of the gift is treated as de minimis and ignored. An advantage over 80% of the gift blocks the receipt with "Advantage exceeds 80% of the gift; no receipt may be issued." Otherwise the eligible amount is the gift amount minus the advantage.

Beyond those rules, issuance also requires a configured charity identity and at least one active signatory. With no charity configured you see "Charity is not configured for receipting."; with none active you see "No active authorized signatory."

Reading the receipt record

Each receipt page is headed Receipt <serial> and groups the frozen record into four cards plus an audit log:

• Gift: gift type, gift date, date issued, gift amount, advantage value, eligible amount, and currency.
• Donor: name, address, and a View contact link back to the donor contact.
• Issuing charity: legal name, BN/RR, and the authorized signatory.
• Record: serial, issuance mode, a content hash, a retention-until date, and whether the PDF reads "Generated" or "Not generated yet".

A status badge sits at the top: Issued, Void, or Reissued. A void receipt shows its void reason in a banner; a reissued receipt shows a "Replaces receipt #…" link back to the receipt it replaced. The append-only audit log lists every action taken on the receipt with the actor and timestamp.

Serial numbers

Serials are allocated per account, per fiscal year, and they never reuse a number. The fiscal year is derived from the gift date and the fiscal year end you set in Charity settings. Each serial reads as a head segment, a hyphen, and a five-digit counter (for example 2024-00001). The head is your charity's serial prefix when one is set, otherwise the fiscal year; a prefix of ORG2024 produces ORG2024-00001.

Downloading and emailing a receipt

The action bar on the receipt page offers Download PDF and Email donor. Download opens the receipt PDF in a new tab through a short-lived signed link; the PDF is generated on demand the first time you ask for it. Email sends the donor their receipt PDF as an attachment from your account's sending domain, addressed to the donor contact's email, and confirms with "Receipt emailed to the donor."

If the donor contact has no email on file, the email action returns "No donor email address is available for this receipt." Download and email work for issued, void, and reissued receipts alike.

Voiding and reissuing

A receipt is immutable once issued: its amounts, snapshots, and serial never change. To correct a receipt you void it and reissue a fresh one, which leaves a two-receipt trail. The Reissue and Void buttons disappear once a receipt is already void.

Clicking Void prompts "Void receipt <serial>? Enter a reason (recorded on the audit log):" The reason is required, submitting a blank one returns "A void reason is required." The reason is stored on the receipt and added to its audit log. Voiding does not touch the gift's recorded amount.

Clicking Reissue asks to confirm: "Reissue receipt <serial>? A new receipt is issued under a new serial that replaces this one." The new copy carries the original's donor, charity, amounts, and gift date under a fresh serial, takes status Reissued, and links back to the original; you are taken straight to the new receipt.

Behavior	Void	Reissue
Creates a new receipt	—	✓
Allocates a new serial	—	✓
Requires a reason	✓	—
Changes the original	✓	—
Links the two receipts	—	✓
Hidden once already void	✓	✓

If Giving is turned off

If your account's Giving module is later turned off while you still hold receipts you already issued, Mercleo does not lock you out of them. The Giving section disappears from your sidebar and every new-receipt action stays gated, but Receipts and an individual receipt page both stay reachable, in a read-only view, so you can still download or email copies of what you already issued. A banner explains why: "Giving is no longer active on this account, issued tax receipts remain available for re-issue."

Because the Giving section is hidden from the sidebar in this state, reaching Receipts this way means using a direct link or a bookmark to a receipt you already have. Issuing new receipts, voiding, reissuing, and all of Charity details stay gated behind the module, exactly as they would be for an account that never had Giving.