How Brother and Cybertill are helping charities manage donations more easily and maximise Gift Aid revenues
Gift Aid is worth more than £1 billion to UK charities every year.
It means good causes can claim an extra 25p for every £1 donation they receive – free money that can help fund their work in communities across the country.
But for goods sold in charity shops to qualify for Gift Aid, the person who donates the goods first has to agree by signing a declaration.
HMRC rules also mean the charity must then track the donated goods so the sale proceeds can be linked back to the donor once they have been sold.
The process of capturing donor information and labelling donations can be a time-consuming burden for charity shop staff.
It creates the potential for human error too – and if the process isn't carried out correctly, the charity will miss out on the additional 25% Gift Aid.
How can charity shops claim Gift Aid more easily?
As Electronic Point of Sale specialists, we at Cybertill knew there had to be a better way for charity retailers to maximise their income and simplify their processes.
So, we created a complete solution, combining our CharityStore platform with Brother labeling technology to boost revenues for charities of all sizes, while also enhancing the retail experience for staff, volunteers, customers and donors.
This is how it works.
When a donor brings their pre-loved items to a shop or donation centre, the charity enters their details into a simple form on a tablet or electronic till screen in less than a minute.
The paperless system includes a postcode lookup function to help prevent any mistakes or duplication and the personal customer data held by the charity is secure, accurate and GDPR compliant.
A Brother TD-2120N desktop label printer then prints barcode labels that go on the donations, which contain the price and category of the item, as well as the donor’s details, so the shop can easily track who donated what.
User friendly, effective management
Software updates and regular data back-ups happen automatically and are free of charge, and charities don’t have to invest in central servers, because the whole system is hosted in the cloud.
Managers can access CharityStore securely from any location, even if they are out of the office on the road or at a conference.
It also gives a detailed oversight of all your stock in real time, so you can monitor what types of products are selling in which stores and online, as well as what price they are selling for, helping retailers manage donated items more effectively and grow revenues.
CharityStore is already used by more than a third of charity retailers in the UK and Ireland, including Sense, Cancer Research UK and Barnardo’s.
It is proven to help charities increase their Gift Aid payments while providing a return on investment within a year.
And it makes the whole selling process far more user friendly, encouraging more people to donate and volunteer to work in stores.
We’re really proud to have worked with Brother to enhance the CharityStore solution, which has transformed hundreds of charities’ retail operations and helped support their amazing work in communities across the country.
Find out more about how Brother’s Gift Aid labelling machine solution helps charities make the most of every donation.
