Before a donor can claim a tax deduction for any single contribution of $250 or more, the IRS requires a written acknowledgement of the contribution from the nonprofit organization.  Nonprofit organizations typically send these acknowledgments to donors no later than January 31 of the year following the donation.  

QuickBooks Premier for Nonprofits has a nice built-in report called Donor Contribution Summary which can be used by many nonprofits to prepare their year-end donation acknowledgement statements.  However, this report includes all revenue including fees for services that aren't tax deductible.  But you can create a custom report in QuickBooks that excludes these fees.  Here are the instructions:

    1. Go to Reports > Custom Transaction Detail Report

    2. Click on the Modify Report button

    3. Select your date range, most likely "Last Fiscal Year"

    4. Select Cash for report basis

    5. Select Customer in the Total box

    6. Check the columns you want on the report and uncheck the columns you don't want – at the very least I recommend using Date, Name, Memo and Paid Amount

    7. Select the Filters tab

    8. Select Account in the Filter box, Multiple Accounts in the Account box and check off the revenue accounts you want to include on the report

    9. Select the Header/Footer tab and change the report title to Donor Contribution Summary

   10. If you want each donor printed on a separate page, check the box next to Page break after each major grouping after clicking the Print box

   11. Once you have the report looking the way you want it, click on the Memorize button

Written by +Ruth Perryman, CMA, CFE, CFM, MBA

Ruth has provided QuickBooks help to thousands of businesses around the world since 1996. She is an Intuit Solutions Provider, an Advanced Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor, and a member of the Intuit Trainer/Writer Network. She is also certified in QuickBooks Point of Sale and QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions.


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