❓What's the difference between an Annual Receipt and a Statement of Giving?

❓Why is a payment missing from the receipt run?

❓Can I undo Annual Receipts once they have been generated?

❓Can I generate receipts for only one donor?

❓Can I regenerate an Annual Receipt after making changes?

❓How can I test my Annual Receipts before sending them?

❓Can I use different receipt templates for different donor groups?

❓Should I use Annual Receipts or send receipts throughout the year?

❓Can I generate Annual Receipts before the end of the financial year?

❓ What's the difference between an Annual Receipt and a Statement of Giving?

Both the Annual Receipt and Statement of Giving summarise donations made during a selected period, but they serve different purposes.

When should I use an Annual Receipt?

Choose Annual Receipt when you want to issue an official end-of-financial-year tax receipt for donations that have not already been receipted. This is commonly used for recurring donations, where donors receive a single consolidated tax receipt at the end of the financial year.

When should I use a Statement of Giving?

Choose Statement of Giving when you want to provide donors with a complete summary of their giving for the selected period. This includes donations that have already received individual receipts throughout the year.

If the Statement of Giving includes eligible payments that have not already been assigned an Annual Receipt Number, Vega will automatically generate one during processing. This allows you to provide donors with both a comprehensive giving summary and any outstanding annual tax receipts in a single process.

Tip: If your organisation issues receipts throughout the year, a Statement of Giving is a great way to provide donors with an annual summary of their generosity while ensuring any outstanding Annual Receipt Numbers are also assigned where required.

❓ Why is a payment or contact missing from the receipt run?

If a payment does not appear in the Annual Receipt Generator, it may have been excluded based on your receipt settings, query criteria, or payment details.

Check the following:

Confirm the payment details

• The payment date falls within the selected Financial Year.
• The payment meets the criteria selected in your Annual Receipt query.
• The total amount being receipted is greater than $5.

Check receipt settings

• The payment has not already been excluded because a receipt document has previously been generated.

• If the 'Tax Receipt' tag setting is enabled in your Financial Settings, check whether the payment already has a document assigned with the Tax Receipt tag.

  

Check contact settings

• The contact has not been excluded by an Exclude List.
• Check the contact is Active.
• The contact does not have an excluded Attribute applied.
• The contact meets any selected Contact Type requirements (for example, Email Only or No Email Only).

• Ensure the contact has Send Receipt set to Yes or Annual in their Contact Settings.

  

Check whether the payment has already been included

• Confirm that the payment or contact has not already been processed in a previous Annual Receipt query.
• This can be verified by opening the payment and checking whether an Annual Receipt Number and Annual Receipt Date have already been assigned. If these fields have been populated, the payment has already been included in an Annual Receipt run.

If the payment still does not appear, review your Annual Receipt query settings and Receipt Settings to confirm the payment matches the criteria selected for the receipt run.

❓ Can I undo Annual Receipts once they have been generated?

No. Once an Annual Receipt has been generated and an Annual Receipt Number has been assigned, it cannot be reversed through the Vega user interface.

If an Annual Receipt has been generated in error, don't panic—our support team can reverse the Annual Receipt directly in the database.

To request a reversal, please contact Vega Support at support@vega.works with details of the Annual Receipt(s) to be reversed.

Important: Reversing Annual Receipts requires a database update by Vega staff and is not included as part of standard product functionality. This request will be processed as a General Support request and will incur the current support fee of $50 + GST per ticket.

❓Can I generate receipts for only one donor?

Yes. To generate an Annual Receipt for only one donor, add the contact to a list and use this list as an inclusion filter when creating your Annual Receipt query.

Create a list for the donor

1. Navigate to Contacts.
2. Select Add → Add/Remove to List.
3. Select Create New List and complete the required fields.
4. Click Save.

You will receive an alert once the list has been successfully created.

Generate the receipt

1. Navigate to Money → Receipt Generator.
2. Create a new Annual Receipt query.
3. Under Include Lists, select the list containing the donor.
4. Continue through the Annual Receipt process.

Only contacts included in the selected list will be included in the receipt generation process.

Note: Ensure the selected donor meets the Annual Receipt criteria, including having eligible payments within the selected financial year and a receipt amount greater than $5.

❓ Can I regenerate an Annual Receipt after making changes?

Yes. You can regenerate an Annual Receipt by creating a copy of an existing Annual Receipt query.

This is useful if you have made changes to your receipt document, email content, or attachment and need to generate updated receipts using the same recipients and payments.

Important: Regenerating an Annual Receipt does not update the payments included in the original query or assign new Annual Receipt Numbers. It simply generates a new set of receipt documents using the existing Annual Receipt query.

To regenerate an Annual Receipt

1. Navigate to Money → Receipt Generator.
2. From the Receipt Query drop-down, select the Annual Receipt query you want to regenerate.
3. Click View Recipients.
4. Review the contacts and payments included in the query.
5. Click Generate Copy.
6. Select your preferred Delivery Method (Email or PDF).
7. Select the Receipt document you want to use.
8. Click Generate Copy.

A new Annual Receipt query will be created using the same recipients and payment information as the original query. The copied query will be saved with the original query name followed by - Copy.

Example: If your original query is named Annual Receipts 2026, the regenerated query will be named Annual Receipts 2026 - Copy.

❓ How can I test my Annual Receipts before sending them?

Before generating Annual Receipts for all donors, it's recommended that you perform a test run to ensure your document, merge tags, and query criteria are correct.

Create a test recipient

You can test your Annual Receipt using:

• Yourself
• Another member of your organisation
• A dedicated test contact with sample payments

Note: If you create test payments, remember to delete them once you have finished testing.

For the easiest testing experience, add your test contact(s) to a dedicated list. This allows you to generate Annual Receipts for only those contacts.

See Can I generate receipts for only one donor? for instructions on creating and using a list.

Complete the Annual Receipt query

Navigate to Money → Receipt Generator and create your Annual Receipt query using your test contact list.

Review the recipients before generating

After configuring your query, click View Recipients to review the contacts and payments that will be included.

From this screen, you can review:

• Summarised Results – Displays one row per contact, including the total donation amount and number of payments included.
• All Results – Displays every individual payment that will appear on the Annual Receipt.
• Excel – Exports both the Summarised Results and All Results for additional review before generating receipts.

Reviewing these results helps confirm that the correct contacts and payments have been included before proceeding.

Save or exit the query

If you're not ready to generate receipts:

• Click Back in the top-right corner to close the window without saving the query.
• Click Save to keep the query and return to it later.

If you're happy with the results, click Select Delivery Method to continue generating your Annual Receipts.

❓ Can I use different receipt templates for different donor groups?

Yes. Vega allows you to generate Annual Receipts for different groups of donors using different receipt templates. This is useful if you want to tailor the wording, branding, or acknowledgements for specific donor groups.

Common examples

You may wish to use different Annual Receipt templates for:

• Major Donors – Include a personalised thank-you message or acknowledgement.
• Corporate Donors – Use a template with corporate branding or specific messaging.
• Regular Giving Donors – Thank supporters for their ongoing monthly contributions.
• Trusts and Foundations – Use wording specific to grant funding or organisational giving.
• General Donors – Use your standard Annual Receipt template.

Step 1 – Create your receipt templates

Create the Annual Receipt documents you want to use for each donor group.

Important: Ensure each document contains the required Annual Receipt merge tags so the receipt information is generated correctly.

Step 2 – Create your donor groups

Define the donor groups you want to receipt separately.

You can use:

• Vega Preset Queries
• The Custom Query Tool

Once you have identified the required contacts, add the results to a List.

For instructions, see the article Adding Query Results to a List.

Step 3 – Generate Annual Receipts

When creating your Annual Receipt query, use the available filters to target each donor group.

You can filter recipients using:

• Include Lists
• Exclude Lists
• Include GL Codes
• Exclude Attributes

Complete the Annual Receipt process for each donor group, selecting the appropriate receipt template for that group.

Important: Before generating receipts for each group, carefully review the recipients to ensure a contact has not been included in multiple Annual Receipt queries. A payment can only be assigned one Annual Receipt Number, so including the same payment in multiple receipt runs may cause it to be excluded from subsequent queries.

Tip: Use the View Recipients screen to review the contacts and payments included in each query before generating your receipts. This helps ensure every donor receives the correct receipt template and prevents duplicate processing.

❓ Should I use Annual Receipts or send receipts throughout the year?

The best approach depends on how your organisation manages donations and communicates with its donors. Many organisations use a combination of both methods.

Annual Receipts

Annual Receipts are ideal for organisations that receive regular recurring donations. Rather than sending a receipt after every payment, a single consolidated Annual Receipt is issued at the end of the financial year covering all eligible donations.

This approach can reduce administrative work and provides donors with one official tax receipt for the year.

Immediate Receipts

Immediate receipts are typically used for one-off donations, fundraising campaigns, membership payments, events, or other individual contributions where donors expect confirmation soon after making a payment.

Providing an immediate receipt also serves as a prompt acknowledgement and thank you for the donor's contribution.

Using both approaches

Many organisations choose to use both methods.

For example:

• Recurring donors receive one Annual Receipt at the end of the financial year.
• One-off donors receive an immediate receipt when their donation is processed.

This allows donors making regular contributions to receive a single annual tax receipt while ensuring one-off donors receive timely confirmation of their donation.

Tip: Your organisation's Send Receipt setting can be configured on each contact to control whether receipts are sent immediately or included in the Annual Receipt process. This gives you the flexibility to manage receipting based on each donor's preferences or your organisation's policies.

❓ Can I generate Annual Receipts before the end of the financial year?

Yes, you can generate Annual Receipts before the end of the financial year; however, we recommend waiting until the financial year has ended and all payments have been entered and reconciled.

Generating Annual Receipts before all payments have been recorded may result in donors receiving an incomplete receipt, as any payments received or updated after the receipt has been generated will not be included.

Before processing your Annual Receipts, we recommend confirming that:

• All payments for the financial year have been entered into Vega.
• Payments have been reviewed and reconciled where required.
• Any payment corrections or adjustments have been completed.
• Your receipt settings and Annual Receipt documents are ready for processing.

Tip: Many organisations complete their Annual Receipt process after the financial year closes to ensure all eligible payments are included and donors receive one complete and accurate receipt for the year.

“Some content in this article may have been developed with the assistance of AI tools and reviewed by staff.”