OPAS:Gift-Aid/Correcting Errors And Faults

Adding in donations to GA without first going through the parish accounts side

(★ BE VERY CAREFUL – do not do this unless you are sure the donation did go through the bank but was not recorded in OPAS as such (usually only used when initially setting up a parish)

Go to Admin > Gift-Aid tab, then enter donations, type in parish no and then click show turnround change tax year if needed. Then add donations and change the date from the default end of tax year to the date which it actually was received.

Gift Aid Envelopes – delete an entire weekly allocation

This is most likely to happen if a 2nd collection has been taken for another charity, e.g. CAFOD, where donations are not eligible for Gift Aid for the parish. Simply remove the tick from the split line, and update the transaction. This will remove it completely from the Gift Aid side, even if the donations had already been allocated to donors.

Bounced cheque given via offertory envelope which is Gift Aided

Enter using the money out screen and code the bounced offertory cheque to whichever original category was used.

In the accounts side of OPAS alter the mix split of the original weekly income sheet so that the GA total is reduced by the amount of the cheque and the Offs Non GA is increased by the same amount so that the total banked stays the same. This will mean the total originally balanced to in the GA side of the programme changes. The batch of envelopes will return back to the unallocated or saved envelope folders within the donations black tab within the GA side of OPAS. Open the batch and delete the bounced cheque allocation donor line. This will then re-balance and get rid of it and make the donor record correct.

You will also need to make a note on the paper copy of the w i sheet to complete the audit trail.

It is worth noting that bounced cheques can be dealt with at parish level but users may well need help and support and this topic is not covered in the parish user manual.

Other Common Mistakes

Not ticking the “One Off” box when entering one off G A donation in the weekly income

This will cause it to appear under the Envelope tab in the Gift Aid side. This can be corrected at parish level in the accounts side. For a single donation, ticking the one off box will move the donation in the GA side from the Envelope tab to the One Off tab. If multiple One Off donations are added as a single split line, and only ticked as Gift Aid. It must be corrected by first unticking the Gift Aid box, and clicking the update this transaction button. This will remove the envelope transaction from the G A side, and will also remove from the donors records any donations allocated by envelope number from this split. The weekly income transaction should then be edited to show each One Off on a separate split line, with the relevant donor name against each one, and both Gift Aid and One Off boxes ticked. CARE- make sure the overall total for the transaction remains unaltered.

Not setting up a new recurring transaction for a GA Standing Order if a donor’s spouse becomes the Gift Aid donor

If the donations wrongly posted to the original donor record have not been reconciled, this can be corrected at parish level, by simply deleting them. If they have been reconciled, or if the corrections require the year end to be rolled back, they have to be done by an Admin user.

Not closing an envelope number when a G A declaration is terminated

This means that the donations by the new user of the envelope number go onto the terminated record. This can be rectified at parish level by deleting the donations from the weekly envelope transactions, closing the envelope and then adding it to the correct donor and reallocating the donations.

Closing the envelope number on the wrong date

This can only be changed by an Admin level user.

Using the wrong template when adding a new GAD

One Off Donor instead of 99yr and vice versa. The only way out is to unallocate any donations, delete the wrong form and add the correct one, then re-allocate any donations.

A One Off donation has been allocated to the wrong donor

Go to the One Off tab under donations, and click on the blue cross to the left of the relevant donation. This will bring up the list of donors, select the correct one and then click on the “allocate donation” button.

A Standing Order has been allocated to the wrong donor, or the wrong GAD This should only be done if the SO has genuinely been allocated to the wrong donor

Go to Gift Aid, Donations, Standing Orders, allocated. Select the entry from the list and click on the red word “edit” at the right of the row. This opens up the allocation screen. Enter the name of the correct donor in the text boxes at the bottom left of the screen, select the correct Gad from the matched parishioner list, and click update Standing Order. This can be done at parish user level but it might be best not to publicise this too widely