Recurring Monthly Donations: How to Issue Consolidated Year-End Receipts

Two hundred monthly donors produce 2,400 transactions a year and, if you receipt each one, 2,400 receipts. CRA allows one cumulative receipt per donor for the year instead, but only for cash gifts, and the exception has edges that catch charities out at the December cutoff. This guide covers when the cumulative receipt is allowed, what it has to show, which gifts cannot go on it, and how it reconciles at year end.

Can you issue one receipt for a year of monthly gifts?

Yes, for cash gifts. A registered charity may issue receipts periodically through the year or, for cash donations, issue one cumulative receipt for the year.

Cash here means money, however it moved: pre-authorised debit, credit card, cheque or transfer. What it does not include is gifts in kind. A separate receipt is required for each non-cash gift, because the value of property is fixed at the date the gift was received and a single annual figure would obscure it.

The permission is administrative and practical rather than a requirement. Nothing forces you to issue one receipt rather than twelve, and some charities send monthly receipts on request while cumulating for everyone else.

One less obvious point: there is no requirement in the Income Tax Act for a registered charity to issue an official receipt at all, or to issue one within any particular timeframe. Charities choose to receipt because donors cannot claim a credit without a receipt, not because the Act compels it. Where a receipting decision turns on a legal question rather than a bookkeeping one, such as whether a particular payment is a gift at all, that is a matter for charity law advice. 

When do the receipts have to go out?

There is no deadline in the Act, and CRA suggests 28 February of the following calendar year. That date exists so donors can file on time, not because a rule imposes it.

Working back from it is what makes January manageable. The processor file has to be complete, December’s transactions have to be settled and matched through regular charity bookkeeping, and the donor records have to be clean before anything is generated. 

If you set a minimum receipting threshold or decide not to receipt certain campaigns, tell donors in advance. CRA advises charities to make potential donors aware of any circumstances in which a receipt will not be issued, and a monthly donor who assumed a receipt was coming will not be a monthly donor next year.

Send the receipt the way the donor gave. A donor who set up monthly giving online will expect the receipt by email, and a charity that mails it will field the phone call anyway.

What does a cumulative receipt have to show?

Everything a single-gift receipt shows, with the year in place of a date of receipt. The regulations require the day on which or the year during which a cash gift was received, which is what makes the cumulative form possible.

So it carries a statement that it is an official receipt for income tax purposes, your charity's name and address as recorded with CRA, your registration number, the serial number, the place of issue, the year the gifts were received, the date of issue, the donor's full name and address, the amount of the gift, the eligible amount, an authorised signature, and CRA's name and website.

The eligible amount is required whether or not any advantage was received. It is not a field you complete only when something was given in return.

Showing the underlying transactions is not required, but a schedule of dates and amounts on the same page answers the donor's first question and helps your own reconciliation. Our receipt examples show the required elements on CRA's own sample layouts.

Which gifts can go on it, and which cannot?

Cash gifts received by your charity in that calendar year, and nothing else. Four categories have to be pulled out before you generate the run.

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That last line is worth knowing if you registered recently. A charity may issue receipts for all cash gifts received during the calendar year in which it was registered. A non-cash gift received before the effective date of registration cannot be receipted at all, because the receipt has to show the day the property was received.

Where a monthly donor also bought a gala ticket, the eligible amount can be included, but keep the advantage calculation identifiable. A single annual figure with an unexplained advantage inside it is hard to defend later.

How does the year-end cutoff work?

On the date your charity received the gift, which is not always the date it reaches your bank. Three cases cover almost everything.

For gifts made in person or electronically, the date of the donation is the date your charity receives it. For gifts by mail, the date of the postmark is the date of the donation, and the stamped envelope belongs in your records.

The case that causes December arguments is the pre-authorised debit that runs on 31 December and settles in the new year. That is a question of fact, not a policy choice: work out from the processor and banking records when your charity actually received the funds, and receipt on that date. Keep the report that shows it.

Your fiscal year does not move any of this. Receipts run on the calendar year because that is the donor's tax year. Your annual return reports, on line 4500, the eligible amounts of gifts received in your fiscal period for which receipts have been or will be issued. Where the two periods differ, you reconcile between them rather than restating either.

What happens when a cumulative receipt is wrong?

The same rules as any other receipt, applied to a document covering twelve transactions. A replacement carries its own serial number, shows the serial number of the original, and states clearly that it replaces the original.

Mark your copy of the original cancelled and keep it. Never reuse a serial number, and never issue the replacement in a different name.

Retention runs on two clocks. Copies of receipts are kept for two years from the end of the calendar year in which the donations were received. Where receipts were cancelled or reissued, those records are kept for two years after the end of the calendar year in which they were cancelled or reissued, which may be the later date.

The frequent cause of a wrong cumulative receipt is a merged or duplicated donor record. Deduplicate before the run, not after, because a correction to a cumulative receipt means reissuing the whole year rather than one line of it.

What does the reconciliation look like?

One receipt, many transactions, tied to both the ledger and the processor. Do it before the receipts go out rather than after.

Start from the receipt register. The total eligible amount of receipts issued for the calendar year should agree with the donation revenue in your ledger for the same months, once you have taken out anything not receipted and put back anything receipted but recorded elsewhere.

Then reconcile to the processor. Declined and retried payments are the usual difference: a donor whose card failed in March and succeeded in April gave eleven gifts, not twelve, and the receipt has to say eleven.

Keep the run itself. The file that generated the receipts, the register and the processor report together are what answer a question about one line on your return three years later. Keeping the donation entries matched to the receipt register through the year is what makes January short, and it is the kind of routine ongoing bookkeeping support should own.

Frequently Asked Questions

Our fiscal year ends in June. Do we cumulate receipts on that basis?

No. Receipts run on the calendar year, because that is the donor's tax year. Your return reports on your fiscal period, and the two are reconciled rather than aligned.

A donor cancelled in March. Do they still get a cumulative receipt?

Yes, for the gifts they made before cancelling. Issue it in the usual January run with the correct number of gifts and the correct total.

Can we add a gift in kind to the annual receipt?

No. A separate receipt is required for each non-cash gift, because the value has to be fixed at the date the property was received.

We were registered in May. Can we cumulate the whole year's cash gifts?

Cash gifts received during the calendar year in which you were registered may be receipted. A non-cash gift received before your effective date of registration cannot be.

Do we have to issue receipts at all?

No. There is no requirement in the Act to issue an official receipt or to issue one within a specific timeframe. If you do issue them, they have to meet all the usual requirements.

A monthly donor receives a branded mug at twelve months. Does that change the receipt?

It is an advantage and has to be valued. If its value falls within the nominal threshold, being the lesser of 10% of the gift and $75, it can be ignored. Near-cash items such as gift cards are never ignored, whatever their value. Questions on particular donor benefits are the kind we answer on our FAQ page.

This article covers cumulative receipting for recurring cash gifts as at September 2026, following CRA's guidance on when a charity should issue a receipt and the receipt content requirements in the Income Tax Regulations. Gifts in kind, event tickets and corrections to issued receipts each carry additional rules and are covered separately. Confirm your processor's settlement dates before setting a December cutoff policy.