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How to Issue and Send Tax Receipts - Canada Only: https://help.pm.leapevent.tech/a/1120152
If your organization is located in Canada, we've developed a way for you to create tax receipt records and issue them to your patrons. In this article, we'll go over how to issue and reissue tax receipts, as well as the ways you can send tax receipts to your patrons. Specifically, we'll cover:
- How to issue a receipt for the first time
- How to reissue a tax receipt
- How you can send tax receipts to your patrons:
- Using Conga Composer
- Building a report for a bulk mail merge
- Configuring a mail merge button to generate individual mail merges
Finally, we'll cover why Salesforce's native email template function doesn't comply with Canadian regulations and is thus not a viable option for sending tax receipts.
Are you a Canadian client who doesn't have the Tax Receipt feature set up in your account? Learn more about tax receipts for Canada here. When you're ready, submit a support request, and we'll get Tax Receipts up and running for you.
Here's a Donation record with a New Tax Receipt action on it.
1. How to issue a tax receipt
When your patrons make tax-deductible donations, you'll want to issue a receipt for the tax-deductible amount. Let's learn how!
1. Create your donation
Make sure to fill in the Tax-Deductible field on the Donation record!
2. Once your donation's been processed, click the "New Tax Receipt" action
3. Click "Save"
The Account, Contact and Donation name fields will auto-populate based on the Donation record.
4. To access the Tax Receipt record you just created, hover over the Tax Receipt quick link and click on the Tax Receipt
5. If you want to issue an tax receipt for the donation right away, click the "Mail Merge" button
Learn more about your tax receipt sending options here.
Don't see a Mail Merge button? You may need to build it. Click here for step-by-step instructions.
6. Select the corresponding Tax Receipt mail merge template to generate a mail merge document based on the Tax Receipt record
If you need to create a mail merge template for issuing tax receipts, learn about individual mail merges here.
2. What if I need to reissue a tax receipt?
No problem! We've built some functionality to facilitate organized Tax Receipt record keeping.
Let's say our donor, Bunny Ryle, called the development office because she lost her original tax receipt. You can reissue her tax receipt while retaining the original tax receipt number, and you can also record the date you reissued the tax receipt for reference whenever you need.
1. Head to the Donation record that needs a reissued tax receipt
You can easily find it from the Contact record in the Donations related list.
2. On the Donation record, hover over the Tax Receipt related list in the Quick Links section, and click on the Tax Receipt record
Don't create a new tax receipt!
3. Click "Edit"
4. Scroll down to the Reissue Date field, enter today's date, and click "Save"
5. Now, you can mail the reissued tax receipt using the Mail Merge button
If you have Conga Composer, you'll see a button to generate a mail merge PDF.
Or, if you prefer to send tax receipts in bulk, run a report for tax receipt records and export it to excel for your bulk mail merge.
Don't see a Mail Merge button? You may need to build it. Click here for step-by-step instructions.
6. What if I need to reissue the tax receipt more than once?
Totally fine! Every time you update the Reissue Date field, the Tax Receipt History related list on the Tax Receipt record will record those changes.
3. Send tax receipts to your patrons
After generating a tax receipt, you'll need to send it to the patron! Check out your options below.
Conga Composer
If your organization has the Conga Composer app, you can use it to set up complex bulk mail merges and generate PDFs to email - perfect for issuing tax receipts to your patrons!
Conga Composer is a paid app - if you don't have it but you're interested, learn more about Conga Composer and how to install it here.
Reports for bulk mail merges
The Tax Receipt object comes with a few packaged reports types you can can built to export to excel and generate your bulk mail merges. In this step, we'll show you the best one to use, along with some tips on setting up a report for tax receipts issued for the first time, and a report for reissued tax receipts.
3.1. Navigate to the Reports tab
3.2. Click "New Report"
3.3. Search "tax receipt" to see the available report types - select Donations with Tax Receipts and click "Continue"
We recommend using the Donations with Tax Receipts report type instead of the other packaged report types.
3.4. Here's the report! In the Columns section of the Outline tab, click the "x" next to any unnecessary fields you wish to remove
You almost certainly won't need the following fields for your mail merge:
- Owner Role
- Donation Owner
- Age
- Created Date
- Next Step
- Lead Source
- Type
- Stage
- Probability
3.5. Add Billing address fields and the Tax-Deductible Amount field as columns
Feel free to organize the columns however you wish.
3.6. Now, let's adjust some filters - toggle to the filters tab
3.7. Set the following filters:
- Show me: Make sure it's set to "All Donations"
- Close Date: Choose a date range based on the close date - this filter is helpful if you send tax receipts weekly, or monthly, etc.
- Donation Status: Choose "Closed Won" to show only closed/won donations
Need a refresher on report filters? Check out this help article.
3.8. When your report is ready, save the report, click "Save & Run"
3.9. Save your report in a public folder, give it a description, and click "Save"
3.10. Click "Export"
3.11. Choose "Details Only" and click "Export"
Your report will export to an Excel spreadsheet you'll use for your mail merge.
If you've already created a report for issuing tax receipts, you can use that as a template for a reissued tax receipt report. We'll go ahead and start from the report we made in the previous step.
3.1. Search for the Tax Receipt report in the global search bar, and click on it
3.2. Click "Edit"
3.3. Click "Save As" so you don't save over your original report
3.4. Give your report a new name and description, and click "Save"
Now we're ready to edit it!
3.5. Add the Reissue Date field as a column on the report
3.6. Toggle to the Filters panel
3.7. Click on the Close Date tile
3.8. Change "Close Date" to "Reissue Date", set your range, and click "Apply"
In this example, we've chosen "This Week" - you can put in a custom time range, or choose from the available list of ranges.
Want this report to go to your inbox weekly? Set the time range to "Last Week" if you want to send reissued tax receipts weekly, and then schedule the report.
3.9. Click "Save & Run"
3.10. The report now shows all tax receipts with a reissue date within the range you've specified!
3.11. Click "Export"
3.12. Choose "Details Only" and click "Export"
Your report will export to an excel spreadsheet you'll use for your mail merge.
Individual Mail Merge
You can also issue Tax Receipts via an individual mail merge from the Tax Receipt record. We'll show you how to set up a mail merge button on the Tax Receipt object and add it to the Tax Receipt page layout.
Before you forge ahead, you'll need to set up your mail merge templates ahead of time. We suggest you create two mail merge templates:
- One for the first time you send a tax receipt
- One for any time you need to reissue the tax receipt
Learn more about setting up mail merge templates to use within PatronManager here.
3.1. Navigate to Setup
3.2. Go to the Object Manager tab - search for and select Tax Receipt
3.3. Go to Buttons, Links, and Actions tab, then the "New Button or Link" button
3.4. Create the button!
The code behind the button automatically populates the letter with information from the specific record.
- Label: Mail Merge
- Description: Used to generate mail merge documents from the Tax Receipt record
- Display Type: Select "Detail Page Button"
- Behavior: Select "Display in existing window without sidebar or header"
- Content Source: Select "URL"
- URL: Paste the following text:
https://<CLASSIC DOMAIN>.salesforce.com/mail/mmchoose.jsp?id={!Tax_Receipt__c.Id}&1={! Tax_Receipt__c.Name}&retURL=https://<LIGHTNING DOMAIN>.lightning.force.com/lightning/r/Tax Receipt/{!CASESAFEID(Tax_Receipt__c.Id)}/view?0.source=alohaHeaderDon't click Save yet! We've still got work to do on this screen.
3.5. Update the Classic Domain in the URL with your organization's information
Replace <CLASSIC DOMAIN> with OrgName.My.
For example, our URL looks like this:
https://wonderfuled.lightning.force.com/lightning/setup/ObjectManager/TaxReceipt/ButtonsLinksActions/newButtonOrLink
So, we'll replace <CLASSIC DOMAIN> with WonderfulEd.My
3.6. Update the Lightning Domain in the URL with your organization's information
Replace <LIGHTNING DOMAIN> with everything after https:// and before .lightning.force.com in the web address. The text in red below is what we need:
https://wonderfuled.lightning.force.com/lightning/setup/ObjectManager/TaxReceipt/ButtonsLinksActions/newButtonOrLink
3.7. Double check your updated URL and click "Save"
Your URL should now look something like this:
https://WonderfulEd.My.salesforce.com/mail/mmchoose.jsp?id={!Tax_Receipt__c.Id}&1={! Tax_Receipt__c.Name}&retURL=https://WonderfulEd.lightning.force.com/lightning/r/Tax Receipt/{!CASESAFEID(Tax_Receipt__c.Id)}/view?0.source=alohaHeader
You've created the button - great! You can't use the button if you can't see it on the record, so let's go add it to the page layout!
3.8. Click on the Page Layouts option on the left sidebar and click on Tax Receipt Layout
If you're unfamiliar with page layouts, you can learn more about them here.
3.9. Click "Mobile & Lightning Actions" on the page layout palette
3.10. Click the "override" link in the Salesforce Mobile and Lightning Actions section
3.11. Drag Mail Merge onto the Mobile and Lightning Experience Actions bar, then click "Save"
Now you can access the Mail Merge button on any Tax Receipt record
Can I send tax receipts via a Salesforce email template?
We don't recommend sending tax receipts via Salesforce email templates. While it's possible to set up an HTML template, there's no way to guarantee that all patrons will receive the email in HTML format.
If they receive the email in text format, it will not have the required signature, which means it won't comply with Canadian regulations. Emails also don't print off nicely for the patron's tax records.
It's best to stick with Conga or a mail merge template.