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How do I issue a Section 18A for a past tax year or a backdated donation?

In short: A Section 18A certificate is built from a receipt, so the donation must exist as a receipt dated in that tax year. If the receipt isn't in ActiveDonor yet, capture it first with the correct past date (manually or via CSV upload), then issue the certificate — the certificate picks up the donation's date and lands in the right tax year automatically.

Why the receipt date matters

ActiveDonor doesn't have a separate "certificate date for a past year" — the certificate inherits the donation date from the receipt it's issued against. So the tax year a certificate belongs to is decided by the receipt's date. To produce a certificate for, say, the 2023 tax year, you need a receipt dated within 1 March 2022 – 28 February 2023 on a Section 18A project.

How to do it

  1. Check the receipt exists. Open the donor and look for the donation, dated in the past tax year, on a Section 18A project.
  2. If it doesn't exist, capture it first with the correct past date:
  3. Create a receipt manually and set the donation date to the correct past date, or
  4. Upload it via CSV with the right date in the date column.
  5. Issue the certificate against that receipt. The certificate takes the receipt's past date and falls into the matching tax year.
  6. To cover a whole past year of donations on one certificate, select that year's receipts and issue a combined/batch certificate — all the donations must stay within the same 1 March–end-February year.

💡 Tip: The Date issued on a certificate can't be in the future, but the donation date can be in the past — that's what places the certificate in a prior tax year.

Common issues

What you see What it means How to fix it
The donation won't appear when issuing. There's no receipt for it, or it's not on a Section 18A project. Capture the receipt first with the correct past date on a Section 18A project.
Backdated donations span two tax years. A batch can't mix tax years. Issue one batch certificate per tax year.
  • Issuing a single Section 18A certificate