Canadian Tax Receipts

WeGive supports both United States tax statements and Canada-compliant donation receipts. Canadian receipting follows different legal and formatting rules, and WeGive is designed to handle those differences automatically for you.

This article explains how to enable Canadian tax receipting and how it behaves differently from U.S. tax documents.

How to Enable Canadian Tax Receipting

In your WeGive dashboard, go to Portal → Customization → Profiles → Tax Documents

1. By default, U.S. tax documents are enabled.

2. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click: Enable Canadian Tax Receipting

3. You will also see a second option: Allow donors to download tax receipts from their profile

You can turn Canadian tax receipting on with or without allowing donors to download individual receipts.

What Makes Canadian Tax Receipts Different

Canadian tax receipting follows CRA (Canada Revenue Agency) requirements, which are different from U.S. rules.

The most important difference is how individual receipts affect the year-end statement.

United States behavior

• If a donor downloads a receipt for a single donation, that donation still appears on their year-end tax statement.

Canadian behavior

• If a donor downloads an individual donation receipt, that donation is removed from their year-end tax statement.

This is intentional and required for Canadian compliance — donors should not be able to claim the same gift twice.

Controlling Whether Donors Can Download Individual Receipts

If you want to prevent donations from being removed from the year-end statement, you can turn off individual receipt downloads.

You can configure this as follows:

• Enable Canadian Tax Receipting → ON

• Allow donors to download tax receipts from their profile → OFF

This keeps:

• Your tax documents formatted correctly for Canada

• But prevents donors from pulling out individual receipts that would change their year-end totals

Note: Organization admins can also issue individual Canadian receipts from the transaction detail view in the dashboard. When an admin issues a receipt, that donation is also removed from the year-end statement — the same CRA compliance rule applies regardless of who generates the receipt. The "Allow donors to download tax receipts from their profile" setting only controls donor-facing access; it does not affect admin-issued receipts.

What Canadian Tax Receipts Include

When Canadian tax receipting is enabled, WeGive automatically formats documents to meet Canadian standards. These receipts include additional required fields, such as:

• Issuer name — configured in Portal → Customization → Profiles → Tax Documents

• Issuer role — configured in the same location

• Receipt issuer signature — an image that must be uploaded to your organization's settings

Important: The signature image must be uploaded in advance. If no signature is uploaded, receipts may render without one. Make sure to upload your signature image before issuing Canadian receipts.

Each Canadian receipt also includes a unique receipt ID in the format YYYY-TransactionID-ReceiptNumber (e.g., 2025-1234-1) for CRA tracking purposes.

When a Receipt Becomes an Acknowledgement

Not every Canadian receipt is a tax receipt. WeGive will generate an acknowledgement instead of a tax receipt when either:

• The donor's profile has "receives tax receipts" turned off

• The individual transaction is marked as not tax-deductible

An acknowledgement confirms the donation was received but cannot be used for CRA tax purposes. If a customer asks why their receipt says "acknowledgement," check these two settings.

Per-Transaction Controls That Affect Canadian Receipts

WeGive provides two separate per-transaction settings that admins can toggle from the transaction detail view. These are independent of each other:

Visible in Tax Documents (Tax-Deductible Toggle)

Each transaction has a "Visible in Tax Documents" setting. When set to NO:

• The transaction is excluded from the donor's year-end tax statement (both U.S. and Canadian)

• A Canadian receipt cannot be issued for that transaction

• The transaction is reclassified as "Service Revenue" instead of "Donation" in reporting

• If a Canadian receipt was previously issued for this transaction, issuing/accessing it again will generate an acknowledgement rather than a tax receipt

This is useful when a transaction should not be claimed as a charitable donation — for example, event ticket purchases or service fees.

Hidden From Supporter

Each transaction also has a "Hidden" setting. When enabled:

• The transaction is hidden from the donor's view in the donor portal and public-facing pages

• The organization can still see the transaction on the dashboard

• This does not affect tax documents. A hidden transaction that is still marked as tax-deductible will still appear on the donor's year-end tax statement and can still have a Canadian receipt issued.

These two settings are independent — a transaction can be hidden but still tax-deductible, or visible but not tax-deductible.

Receipt Requirements

Canadian receipts can only be issued for transactions that meet all of the following conditions:

• The transaction status is successful or partially refunded

• The transaction is marked as tax-deductible ("Visible in Tax Documents" is YES)

• Canadian tax receipting is enabled for the organization

If a transaction is failed, pending, or marked as not tax-deductible, a receipt cannot be issued.

Receipt Versioning

If a transaction is updated after a receipt has already been issued (for example, a correction to the amount or donor information), WeGive will automatically replace the old receipt with a new one the next time the receipt is accessed. The old receipt is deleted.

Each new receipt gets an incremented unique ID — for example, 2025-1234-1 becomes 2025-1234-2. This ensures the most current information is always reflected on the receipt.

Customization Differences: U.S. vs Canada

At this time:

• U.S. tax documents → Can be fully customized using WeGive's tax document builder

• Canadian tax receipts → Must use WeGive's standard CRA-compliant format → Custom templates are not currently supported for Canada

This ensures all Canadian receipts meet compliance requirements.