Donation Receipts - New Zealand

Legal church name

Set the church's "legal name" option on the church settings page. You only need to set this if it's different from the name the church go by.

Note: You must be an administrator to change the legal name setting. If you're not one, be sure to just ask your Church Social administrator to make this change for you.

Church mailing address

Also found on the church settings page is the church address. This address is used to display your church location in the map in the members section. Meaning, this is really your worship address, not necessarily your mailing address. For many churches, the worship address and mailing address are the same. 

Since it's important to show the mailing address on the receipts, you can set the mailing address option on the church settings page. The mailing address will be preferred over the worship address when generating giving statements and receipts.

Note: You must be an administrator to change the church mailing address setting. If you're not one, be sure to just ask your Church Social administrator to make this change for you.

Member mailing address

If a mailing address is set for a member, receipts will prefer the member's mailing address over their home address.

Authorized (treasurer) Name and Signature

On the Giving settings page, Churches are able to upload an authorized signature that will be included on the receipts. When the name of the treasurer is set, the receipt will change from "Authorized signature:" to "Authorized signature of John Doe:". Unlike the signature, the authorized name is not required. Simply use this if you want it.

You can upload an authorized signature image that will be used to sign receipts generated by Church Social.  To create your signature we recommend that you sign a white piece of paper using a black felt-tipped pen and either scan that page or take a picture using your phone.  You will then need to convert the image into a valid SVG file. No other image formats are supported. Use picsvg.com to convert a scanned signature (Black and White scans work best).

Charitable Registration and IRD Numbers 

On the Giving settings page, Churches must add their New Zealand Charitable registration number.  You may also include your IRD number.  Both these numbers will be displayed on the receipt that is provided to your members.

Church Logo

Also on the Giving settings page, Churches must add a black and white SVG image of their church logo.  This image will appear in the top right corner of your official donation receipts along with your congregation's name.  The logo must be no larger than 15kb in size since a copy of the logo is saved with each receipt generated by Church Social. 

The Donation Receipt

Church Social generates a donation receipt in accordance with the New Zealand IRD requirements.  Donation receipts are versioned and immutable, meaning any changes to the member information or contributions results in a new, replacement receipt.

Further information

For more information on IRD requirements please check the following web pages from the New Zealand government: