Giving Statements

Giving statements are year-end summaries of each donor's contributions, used for tax documentation purposes. TimelyChurch can generate, preview, download, and email individual or bulk giving statements as PDFs.

Plan note: Giving Statements is a Pro-tier feature. If your church is on the Starter or Growth plan, the Statements page is locked behind an upgrade prompt. Upgrade to Pro to generate statements.

Accessing Giving Statements

The Statements page lives under your financial reports. You can reach it two ways:

1. From the admin sidebar, go to Finances > Accounting > Reports, then open the Giving Statements card.
2. From the Giving page, click the More Actions (⋮) menu in the top-right and choose Print statements. This opens a "Generate Statement" dialog where you pick who the statements are for and a time frame; clicking Generate takes you to the Statements page with those options applied.

The Statements page shows all donors with giving for the selected year. The breadcrumb at the top reads Dashboard / Accounting / Reports / Giving Statements.

Selecting the Year

Use the Year dropdown at the top of the page to select which year's statements to view. TimelyChurch lists every year that has donation data, limited to the last 2 years.

Data preservation policy: Giving statements are limited to the last 2 years of data. If you select or request a year older than that, TimelyChurch will not generate the statement.

Donor List

The Statements page displays all donors who have a person record in your church directory and made statement-eligible donations during the selected year, sorted by total giving amount (highest first). For each donor, you see:

• Donor -- The donor's name and, if applicable, their family.
• Email -- For sending statements electronically.
• Total (Year) -- The total amount donated during the selected year.
• Actions -- Preview, Download PDF, or Email.

Only donors linked to a person record in your church directory appear in the list. Donations with no linked person (for example, online gifts from an unmatched email address) do not appear until you link them to a person.

At the top of the page, three summary cards show Total Giving for the year, the Donors count, and the Average Gift.

Previewing a Statement

1. Click the Preview (eye) icon next to a donor's name.
2. A web-based preview of the statement opens, showing:
   • Church name, address, and phone.
   • Donor name and, if available, their family address.
   • The tax year and total tax-deductible contributions.
   • A quarterly summary (Q1-Q4).
   • Contribution details grouped by month, each line showing:
     • Donation date
     • Fund
     • Payment method
     • Amount (the net tax-deductible amount)
   • A monthly subtotal for each month.
   • A Summary by Fund box, shown only when giving spans more than one fund.
   • The IRS tax-disclosure block.

From the preview you can also Print, Download PDF, or Email Statement using the buttons at the top.

Downloading a Statement as PDF

1. Click the Download PDF icon next to a donor's name (also available from the preview screen).
2. A PDF file is generated and downloaded.
3. The file is named [church-slug]-giving-statement-YYYY-PersonID.pdf.

The PDF contains the same information as the preview, formatted for printing or attaching to an email.

IRS Tax Disclosure Included on the PDF

Every statement PDF ends with a legal block containing the IRS-required charitable-giving disclosure. The wording adapts to the donor's gifts:

• When no goods or services were received in exchange for any gift, the block reads:

Tax Information: No goods or services were provided in exchange for these contributions. [Church Name] is a tax-exempt organization under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. This statement is provided for your tax records. Tax ID: [Tax ID, if set on the church profile]. Please retain for your files.

• When one or more gifts included goods or services (a "quid pro quo" gift, such as a fundraising dinner), the block instead states the total value of goods or services received, the net tax-deductible portion, and points to the per-line-item footnotes in the statement.

The Tax ID line only appears if you have populated your church's federal Tax ID (EIN) under church settings. If your church is not a 501(c)(3) organization, this default language may not be appropriate -- consult your accountant or attorney before distributing statements.

Emailing a Statement

1. Click the Email icon next to a donor's name, or open the donor's Preview and click Email Statement.
2. Optionally customize:
   • Subject -- Defaults to "Your YYYY Giving Statement from [Church Name]."
   • Message -- A rich-text editor with a default thank-you message you can edit. (Both subject and message are required when sending from the preview screen.)
3. Click Send Email.

The email includes:

• A greeting using the donor's first name.
• The year of the statement.
• A thank-you message.
• The PDF statement as an attachment (named giving-statement-YYYY.pdf).

Requirements:

• The donor must have an email address on file.
• If no email is available, the email option is disabled for that donor.

Bulk Generating Statements

To create statements for all donors at once:

1. On the Statements page, select the Year.
2. Click Download All.

A single PDF file is downloaded containing one statement per page for every qualifying donor. The file is named [church-slug]-giving-statements-YYYY-all.pdf.

This is ideal for printing and mailing statements to all donors at once. (For very large donor lists, TimelyChurch caps a single bulk download at 500 donors and asks you to generate statements individually instead.)

Statement Data Details

What Is Included

• All statement-eligible donations linked to the donor's person record for the selected year, including donations marked anonymous (anonymity is a public/leaderboard flag only -- the donor's own tax record reflects every gift they made).
• Fund allocations -- if a donation was split across multiple funds, each fund's portion appears separately, showing the net deductible amount for that fund.
• Payment methods for each donation.

What Is Excluded

• Fully refunded donations -- A gift that was fully refunded does not appear on the statement. Partial refunds are included at their net deductible amount (the refund is subtracted automatically).
• In-kind / goods donations -- Non-cash (in-kind) gifts are not included in the cash-contribution statement.
• Goods/services value -- When a gift included goods or services in exchange (quid pro quo), only the net tax-deductible portion is counted; the goods/services value is subtracted.
• Unlinked donations -- Donations without a person_id (e.g., online donations from unmatched email addresses) do not appear in any statement. To include them, edit the donation and link it to a person.

Fund Grouping

In the statement detail, donations are grouped by month. When giving spans more than one fund, a Summary by Fund box also appears, showing each fund's total. If a donation was split across multiple funds, each fund's portion is allocated proportionally and shown on its own line.

Quarterly Breakdown

Statements include a quarterly summary:

• Q1 (January - March)
• Q2 (April - June)
• Q3 (July - September)
• Q4 (October - December)

This helps donors verify their giving patterns throughout the year.

Year-End Statement Workflow

Here is a recommended workflow for producing year-end giving statements:

1. Verify data -- Before generating statements, review the Giving page for the year to ensure all donations are recorded and correctly linked to donors.
2. Link unmatched donations -- Check for online donations or manually entered gifts that are not linked to a person record. Edit them to add the correct person.
3. Review refunds -- Confirm that any refunds were processed in TimelyChurch so the statements reflect the correct net deductible amounts.
4. Generate and review -- Preview a few individual statements to verify accuracy.
5. Bulk generate -- Use Download All to get the bulk PDF for printing, or email statements individually.
6. Email statements -- For donors with email addresses, use the email function to send statements electronically.
7. Print and mail -- For donors without email, print the bulk PDF and mail physical copies.

Troubleshooting

"This donor does not have an email address"

The donor's person record does not have an email field populated. Go to People > find the person > edit their record > add their email address.

A donation is missing from a statement

Check the following:

• Is the donation linked to the correct person? (Check the person_id field.)
• Was the donation fully refunded? Fully refunded gifts are excluded.
• Is the donation an in-kind (non-cash) gift? In-kind gifts are not included on cash-contribution statements.
• Is the donation date within the selected year?

Statement totals do not match the Giving dashboard

The Giving dashboard shows all donations, including unlinked gifts and gross amounts. Statements only include statement-eligible donations linked to a person record, shown at their net tax-deductible amount (refunds and any goods/services value subtracted). The difference comes from unlinked donations, fully refunded gifts, in-kind gifts, and goods/services adjustments.