You can quickly create Gift Aid Declarations for both new and existing constituents from within the File Uploader. To do this follow the process below:

Prepare your data

Download the data preparation template from Data Management > File Upload

Remove the worksheets which you don’t need from the template, leaving just the Gift Aid Declarations sheet

Add the data about the constituent Gift Aid Declarations which you want to add into the remaining worksheet, as follows:

• Declaration Date - enter the date the declaration was made
• Declaration Start Date - enter the date the declaration started, if a date is not provided (e.g. the supporter requested it to start 1 year ago)  the start date will need to be set to 4 years before the declaration date (you can use the formula  =F1-(365*4) to work this date out for you)

• Declaration End Date - enter the date the declaration will end, if a date is not provided (e.g. the supporter requested the declaration to end in two months time) the end date will be set to 99 years after the declaration date (you can use the formula  =F1+(365*99) to work this date out for you)

• Declaration Method - this should be a valid gift aid declaration method - as set up in Settings > Configurations > Gift Aid Declaration Methods

• Tax Payer Title, First Name, Last Name - the name of the person making the declaration
• Confirmation Required? Enter Yes if a confirmation must be sent before you can claim using the new declaration - see this article for more info

You also need to include enough data to find the constituent the Gift Aid Declaration belongs to (see Matching Gift Aid Declarations to Constituents below), or sufficient data to add new constituents for the timeline items.

Matching Gift Aid Declarations to Constituents

Gift Aid Declarations that you import need to be added to the timeline of the constituent they belong to, you can provide the following information so Donorfy can find the right constituent

• Constituent Number - Donorfy will link by the constituent number
• Email Address - Donorfy will attempt to find an existing constituent with the email address provided
• Phone Number - Donorfy will attempt to find an existing constituent with the phone number provided
• External Key - if when you imported constituents, you specified an external key you can link timeline entries via that key - see the knowledge base article about external keys for more help

Donorfy will try and find a match by each item in the order given above - e.g. if a match is found by email address then items lower down the list (e.g. phone number) will not be checked.

The result of trying to match the items is shown in the Status column added to the worksheet

Attaching Documents

AttachedDocument - this allows you link a document (e.g. scan of a gift aid declaration) to the gift aid declaration.

In order to link correctly to a constituent record, the documents need to have a unique name - this could be based on the type of document, constituent number and date, e.g.

if you were uploading pdfs for gift aid declarations your file name might be in the format GAD<Constituent Number>_<Year> e.g. GAD1234_2017.pdf

The document name must include the file extension i.e. if it is a Word document, it must include the docx or doc extension, e.g. mydocument.docx

Please see Step 3 in this article for more information about how to add the documents once the upload has been completed.

Save the workbook

Once all the relevant data has been inserted into the sheet, and the page contains only values (i.e. no formulas within cells), Save the workbook.

Uploading the file

From within Data Management > File Upload, upload the file by dragging and dropping it into the shaded area.

Donorfy will check the file and report any problems – see this article for more information about fixing problems within file uploader.

When you are happy with the file, click on Apply Changes to add the Declarations to the constituent timelines.