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How do I issue one Section 18A certificate for all of a donor's donations in a year?

In short: Open the donor, select that year's receipts, and issue a combined (batch) certificate. ActiveDonor puts all the selected donations on one certificate — one number, one PDF — as long as they all fall within the same tax year (1 March to end of February). This is the usual way to certificate a donor who gave many times, such as monthly debit orders.

How to do it

  1. Open the donor and find their Section 18A donations (receipts) for the year.
  2. Select the receipts you want to combine — all from the same donor, all within one tax year.
  3. ActiveDonor opens the Generate Batch Certificate for N Receipts modal (N is how many donations you picked).
  4. Check the combined details: the amount should be the sum of the selected donations, and the donation date should show the range from the earliest to the latest donation.
  5. Click Issue Batch Certificate for N Receipts. ActiveDonor assigns one certificate number, attaches all the receipts to it, and generates a single PDF.

⚠️ Important: All donations must be in the same financial year. If your selection spans two tax years, you'll see "Batch certificates should only contain donations received within one financial year." — remove the out-of-year donations and put them on a separate certificate. Issue one batch certificate per donor per tax year.

💡 Tip: To do this for many donors at once, use 18A Management → Pending Certificates, choose the tax period, and bulk-issue — the job runs in the background and appears in Batch History.

Common issues

What you see What it means How to fix it
"Batch certificates should only contain donations received within one financial year." The selection spans two tax years. Remove the out-of-year donations; issue them separately.
A donor's receipts won't combine. They're not on a Section 18A project, or already certificated. Only uncertificated receipts on a Section 18A project can be combined.
  • Batch and combined Section 18A certificates