GivingFire Support

Introduction to PDF generation

GivingFire's annual statement section has the ability to generate PDF giving statements, customized for your entire organization with just a few clicks. Once you've had the chance to review, GivingFire can automatically distribute PDF statements by mail or email, as well as making the historical statements available for download from the donor dashboard. To get the most out of the statement generator, we recommend two things:

1. Your organization uses GivingFire for all donation records, including offline (cash/check) giving.
   
2. Your organization requires an address on the online giving page, or your administrators keep the donor database up-to-date in GivingFire.

For security purposes, the PDFs are not editable after they've been generated. If your organization has incomplete records (as defined above) then GivingFire will generate statements as best as it can. You also have the option of downloading the giving information as a CSV and formatting the information from there.

Generating PDFs

To generate PDF statements, log into the Administrative Dashboard and go to Reports > Giving Statements. You'll see a "Generate Statements" box near the top of the screen.

Fill out the input fields (all fields are required) to generate the PDFs. The statement generator will pull all settled transactions that fit the date range chosen and create PDF statements for each eligible donor.

1. Statement Name - this is the internal name used to identify this statement set later. Your donors will not see this name.
2. Date Range - choose the current year-to-date, entire last year (choose this for year-end statements), and a custom date range.
3. Include Additional Letter - You can include a second page, like a dedicated thank you letter, to be included in the PDF. GivingFire will include this additional page in all individual mailed or emailed statements, as well as the statements available for download. (To reduce file size, the letter will not be included in the master PDF statement included in the PDF ZIP.
   The additional letter must be a 8.5x11, flattened, single-page PDF. If printed and distributed by GivingFire, the additional page will be printed in black and white.
4. Include Letterhead - GivingFire will add this image (PNG or JPG) as a letterhead to generated tax statements. Due to limitations in the automated mailing system that GivingFire uses, such statements will not be eligible for mailing. 
5. Organization Address - Enter in your organization's address. This will be used on the return envelope if mailed by GivingFire, or included as the hardcoded address if selected.
6. EIN Number - this is the federal tax ID that identifies your organization's non-profit status.
7. 2nd Paragraph/Legal Disclaimer - this is the paragraph section that goes underneath the donation line items. Change this paragraph to suit your organization's needs - if no goods or services were provided (other than intangible religious benefits), then put that down. You can also add in personal notes too (thanks for giving to our church - your donation means a lot to us, etc.) 
8. Include hardcoded address - If you plan on manually printing and mailing the statements yourself, check this box to include addresses on the PDF placed for a #10 window envelope. Do not check this box if you want GivingFire to mail statements - our mailing service will automatically include the required address.
9. Signor's Name and Title. 
10. Include Signature - GivingFire will add this image (PNG or JPG) in the signature line to generated tax statements. 
11. Date Inclusion - you can select settled/created dates for online donations, and deposited/created for offline donations depending on your bookkeeping practices. Most organizations choose Deposited Date for offline, and Created Date for online.