How to Make a PDF Receipt Template for electronic receipts
This article describes how to make a PDF tax receipt template using Open Office (Libre Office).
Societ offers a receipt template service - let us set up your receipts for you! For more information, book an appointment with your account manager here.
For best results, we recommend using Libre Office Writer as the word processor for building your PDF receipt templates.
2. Download the appropriate pre-made receipt template(s) attached to this article.
Attached to this article, you will find pre-made templates for:
- a standard Canadian Style Donation Receipt
- a Canadian Style Donation Receipt to use for creating copies of receipts
- a Canadian Style Donation Receipt to use when you are cancelling an old receipt and replacing it with a new one
3. Open the ODT template in LibreOffice.
4. In the View menu (top left), highlight Toolbars, and select Form Controls from the resulting menu. This opens the Form Controls panel (see below), which allows you do things with your form, like add new fields, edit fields, etc.
The Form Controls panel contains a number of icons. Most of the other icons are for creating new fields in the form, but there are only a few icons you need to be familiar with:
5. Edit your receipt document as required. Make sure to include your logo, address, etc.
In the original ODT template attached to this article, there are several areas highlighted in Blue. These areas should all be customized to suit your organizations needs.
The pre-made ODT templates attached to this article include all the necessary information that is required for a thank you letter and receipt (e.g. donor’s name, address, donation amount, receipt number, date received, date issued, etc.). However, if you need to add a new embedded fields – for example, to add a field for an in-honour contact’s name, follow these instructions:
a) In the Form Controls panel, select the Text Box icon.
b) Draw a text box to hold the field you want to merge into this document (in this case, the In-Honour contact’s name).
c) Double-click the new Text Box, and the Properties window appears for that new Text Box:
d) In the Name field, insert the formula for the Sumac field you want to merge in this Text Box, for example <<c_Name>>.
e) The default font will likely be set to Arial, 12 point font, but you can use the Font field to change this if necessary.
f) In the Border field, remove “3D look” and change it to “Without Frame.”
g) Make any further changes you’d like to this Text Box.
h) Once you’re done editing this Text Box, close the Properties window.
6. When you are done editing, save the document in ODT format in an appropriate place (e.g. on your server in a folder called “Tax Receipt Templates”).
7. Export the template as a PDF. In the File menu (top left), click “Export as PDF.” In addition to the default settings, make sure there is a check mark next to each of the highlighted settings in the image below:
Click Export and save the PDF template in the same folder where you saved the ODT version of the template.
8. Test your template!
In Sumac, expand Fundraising, then select Donations. If you have a donation record you want to use as an example, search in the Donations list to find that record. If not, create a new donation record for testing purposes.
When testing your template, you can run a Mail Merge on a previously receipted donation to make sure all of the data from your database merges into the resulting receipt document correctly.
9. Once you’ve tested your template and confirm everything is working well, proceed to creating your receipts and emailing them to your donors.
More Helpful Links and Resources
Canada Revenue Agency’s guidelines for sending and storing electronic tax receipts
Please note that the above link is for the Canada Revenue Agency website, and the advice contained on this page is from the CRA, not Sumac.
Please note that the above link is for the Canada Revenue Agency website, and the advice contained on this page is from the CRA, not Sumac.