Receipts & year-end statements
Year-end statements, explained
What counts toward a donor's annual total, how in-kind and refunded gifts are handled, and why re-running is safe.
2 min read · Updated October 31, 2026
A year-end statement is a single document per donor per calendar year listing every gift and the deductible total. It is a numbered receipt in its own right (YE-2026-000045), so a donor can use it instead of the individual receipts.
What counts
| Included | Not included |
|---|---|
| Online gifts that succeeded, including recurring charges | Failed or pending payments |
| Gifts recorded by hand (checks, cash) | Soft credits (they're attribution, not money) |
| Imported gifts dated in the year | Gifts fully refunded (they net to zero and are shown as such) |
| Partially refunded gifts, at the net amount | |
| In-kind gifts, listed by description only |
Deductible total = sum of gift amounts − refunds. In-kind gifts are listed so the donor has the record, but the IRS asks the donor to value them, so no dollar figure is included in the total.
Which year a gift belongs to
The gift date in your organization's time zone (Settings → Organization). A card gift made at 11:45 pm on December 31 Eastern belongs to that year for an Eastern organization. For bank transfers the gift date is when the donor initiated it, not when it settled.
One live statement per donor per year
Running the year again never creates duplicates:
- Donors whose total is unchanged keep their existing statement.
- Donors whose total changed get a corrected statement; the earlier one is voided and the new one says "Replaces YE-…".
- Donors who are new to the year get a statement for the first time.
The run also checks every statement's total against your gift ledger to the cent before it's issued.
Delivery
- Emailed as a PDF attachment with a cover note from your Year-end statement template, unless you generated without email.
- Donors with no email, or marked do not contact, are generated but not sent; download and mail those.
- Every statement is also available to the donor in their portal.
Minimum total
You can set a threshold so very small totals don't get a statement. The IRS requires a written acknowledgment for single gifts of $250 or more; most organizations send statements to everyone anyway, because donors expect them.
Tax advice
DonorFinch produces accurate records. It doesn't know a donor's tax situation and can't say what they may deduct. Point donors to their tax adviser, and see What DonorFinch can and can't say about taxes.