If your non-profit organisation is small and the secretariat is staffed mainly by volunteers, it might be helpful to brief volunteers on some standard operating procedures (SOP's) relating to online donations or payments.
Such donations could be from individual or corporate well-wishers or sponsors, or they could be payments for CSR projects or events involving your non-profit organisation and other .
If the donation is from an individual, the donor may not ask for a receipt. It's still a good idea to issue one though, as it also helps your organisation keep track of amounts donated.
As for corporations, there is a tendency to request non-profit organisations to issue invoices. Generally speaking, unless the non-profit is also a social enterprise, issuing invoices could complicate matters in terms of financial reporting. Personally, I've found that it helps to explain to the corporate sponsor/donor that the organisation does not issue invoices - and most of the time, the corporate sponsor/donor will just accept a letter or other document containing some information about the upcoming event, instead.
Corporate sponsors/donors will almost always require a receipt. It's usually a good idea to inform them upfront, even before they make any donation or payment, whether your organisation is able to issue a tax-exempt receipt or not. Only organisations with tax-exempt status under Section 44(6) of the Income Tax Act, 1967 are able to issue tax-exempt receipts. Other organisations should just issue ordinary receipts, and the donation/payment is not tax-deductible from the perspective of the sponsor/donor. It's best to communicate with the donor/sponsor on this earlier on, to avoid any misunderstanding arising at the point of payment.
When a donor or sponsor contacts your organisation, it's also helpful to have a simple factsheet ready that will guide them on how to make online donations/payments. The factsheet could include details such as the full name of your organisation as the payee (here, it's important to ensure that the name you provide, matches the name of your organisation's bank account exactly), as well as the bank and account number.
Most important, do request for an email notification from the donor/sponsor informing you that the donation/payment has been made. Otherwise, most small non-profit organisations who rely on monthly bank statements to verify online transactions, might find that they are not able to identify who donated what and when by the time the bank statement arrives about a month later. This applies even if the non-profit organisation is able to log in and immediately view their transactions online, as the full details of the donor are not always visible.
When issuing receipts, it's a good idea to get in touch with the corporate donor/sponsor first and ask for details of the payee (full name and company number) and also, how the activity should be described in the receipt to be issued. This is to avoid situations where the non-profit organisation issues a receipt, only to be told that the corporate sponsor/donor requires the receipt made out to another entity, or would like to change the description of the activity in the receipt to match their own internal criteria. This then results in the non-profit organisation having to reissue the receipt -which means added paperwork! :-)
Hopefully, these tips will help volunteers manage online donations and payments to their non-profit organisation, a little more easily :-).
