Collecting Gift Aid and exporting the HMRC report

If you run a charity, a Scout group or a CASC, Gift Aid is money you are probably leaving on the table. Adminished puts the declaration in front of every parent from the moment they join, chases the stragglers for you in one click, and produces the report you hand to HMRC — no separate form, no mail-merge.

What Gift Aid does

When an eligible UK taxpayer makes a donation, Gift Aid lets your charity reclaim the basic-rate tax already paid on it — an extra 25p for every £1. Adminished keeps the declaration and the eligible amounts together so the figure you claim is the figure your records support.

Capturing declarations

Mark your club as a UK charity in Settings and every parent gets a Gift Aid prompt on their dashboard from the moment they join, linking to a one-minute online declaration. You never re-key anything — the declaration is stored against the guardian with the date it was made, so your audit trail is complete.

1. Go to Settings and enable UK-charity mode for the club.
2. Parents see a Gift Aid prompt on their dashboard until they declare (or they can go straight to it from their settings).
3. Each declaration is saved against the guardian, with the date it was made. Parents can withdraw it at any time from the same page.

Tracking who is eligible — and chasing the rest in one click

Go to Payments: the Gift Aid declarations card shows how many payers have declared and lists exactly who has not. Press Nudge all by email and every undeclared parent gets a short email with the declaration link — anyone nudged in the last fortnight is skipped automatically, so the button is safe to press whenever you remember. A parent who withdraws their declaration reappears in the list from then on.

Producing the HMRC report

When it is time to claim, go to Payments and export the Gift Aid report for a date range: who declared, what they paid, and the eligible totals, as a CSV. The export comes marked DRAFT — review before claiming, because Gift Aid can only be claimed on genuine voluntary donations. Check it, then submit your claim to HMRC yourself — Adminished produces the figures, but does not file the claim for you, so you stay in control of what goes in.

Estimate before you start: the Gift Aid calculator

Want to see the found money before you set anything up? The free public calculator at /gift-aid-calculator works out roughly what Gift Aid could be worth on a given amount. It is an estimate to help you plan — your actual claim depends on HMRC's rules and your records.

An honest word on membership fees

Gift Aid is for genuine donations. Membership or class fees only qualify in specific cases — broadly, where the payment is a true gift and the member gets no significant benefit in return. The rules for clubs, charities and CASCs differ, and they change. This article explains how the feature works; it is not tax advice. Check the current HMRC guidance, or ask your accountant, before you claim on anything other than clear donations.

Related articles

• Custom forms & waivers

  How to create custom consent forms (photo, medical, marketing) beyond the standard waiver, enforce them per class, and bump the version to trigger re-signing.

• Taking payments

  Generate monthly charges, record cash or bank-transfer payments, and see who still owes money at a glance.

• DBS & safeguarding

  How to record DBS check dates and safeguarding training per team member, get 60/30/7-day expiry alerts, and export the team's compliance state for auditors.

• Parent portal

  How parents join your club with a join code, access the parent portal, view their child's class schedule, and pay online.

Was this helpful?

👍 Yes 👎 No

Need more help? Email [email protected] — we reply within one working day.