Max My Gift Gateway Porter

Gift Aid Management made easier.

G-Porter - Charities Online Submission Tool

The aim of the Gateway Porter tool is to make it as easy as possible to bridge the gap between a database and the HMRC Charities Online service.

The easiest common format that can be extracted from any database is a comma separated file and so this is the starting point for G-Porter.  The process is as follows:

  1. Read in the comma separated file extracted from the database.
  2. Check whether each field is valid.
  3. If a field is not valid in its current state, see whether it can be adjusted by stripping out illegal characters and spaces.
  4. Postcodes are given special treatment to reformat them in upper case with a separating mid space in the correct place. British Armed Forces postcodes are also translated into standard post office codes.
  5. Data lines that fail the tests are placed in a separate file that can be manually inspected. This file gives the reason for the rejection at the end of each line.
  6. Successful data is packaged into an XML message and given a checksum to verify the data integrity.
  7. The message is sent to the HMRC service and G-Porter waits for the expected responses and the final electronic receipt.

The tool is easy to use and is in regular use by a number of large charities submitting large reclaim volumes each month.

The easiest way to use G-Porter is via the graphical interface that enables easy configuration and submission of the files.  It can also be used as a command line tool so that an IT team can seamlessly integrate it into the monthly processing controlled by an external program.

What is Supported

G-Porter supports everything that might be required for a single charity to submit a reclaim from HMRC.

  • Donations backed by Gift Aid declaration forms.
  • "Other income" from bank and building society accounts, royalties, estate revenue etc.
  • Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme (GASDS) for the main charity, community buildings and connected charities.
  • Adjustments to previous claims where errors were made, without the need for separate correspondence.
  • Data cleansing including automatically mapping British Armed Forces postal codes into standard UK postcodes.

Evaluation is easy and free - just download it and extract the contents of the zip file.  The download includes everything needed to submit a test using some sample fictional data and can very easily be extended using your own data.  Tests are sent to the Charities Online test server which behaves like the live service but the submission will not be processed.  It requires the Microsoft .NET 2.0 Framework installed on the host computer and has been scanned for viruses before being digitally signed by Elegate Solutions.


A licence is needed to unlock submissions to the live Charities Online service.


The quick start guide here will give more information about the screens and even more detail is found in the comprehensive technical guide in the download.


Quick Start Guide (pdf)   (Opens in new window)

G-Porter Data Volumes

The G-Porter tool will cope with large volumes of data up to the maximum size in a single transmission. This is

  • 500,000 main gift aid donations
  • 2,000 "other income" entries
  • 1,000 community buildings
  • 1,000 connected charities

Reclaims containing more than around 50,000 are best submitted in compressed format (a configuration option) as there is a 20Mb file size limit at HMRC.  Compression also makes the submission process quicker.  If large submissions are made to HMRC without compression it is likely that the process will stall (at the HMRC server end).

Sample Screens

This is what the optional Windows interface looks like.

Main screen Main screen Charity configuration Charity configuration Gateway login configuration Gateway login configuration Donation extract file configuration Donation extract file configuration Output folder configuration Output folder configuration Example test submission Example test submission

Demonstration Video

Limitations

There are not many limitations, but G-Porter does not support claims made by an agent for multiple charities.


It also does not support aggregated claims because there is a limit of £1,000 on the total amount of the total claim when claims are aggregated.  It is assumed all claims using this tool will be for considerably more than this low limit.

G-Porter is in active use

This tool is a tried and tested application in active use making reclaims from HMRC by several large charities including The National Trust, NSPCC, Shelter, Barnardos, Great Ormond Street, London and Edinburgh Zoological Societies.  One quote from a user "it does what it says on the tin".


One of the main users reclaims around 600,000 claims for donations of just under £4,000,000 each month.


Cost

G-Porter costs just £200 for the initial licence for a new charity.  Payment unlocks the ability to send information to the live Charities Online service,  but it can be tested and fully evaluated against the test service beforehand.  Ask for references if you're unsure whether it is the right solution for you.  I believe it will save a great deal of cost, time and anguish.


An upgrade licence of £50 is required for existing users to activate the version 9.1.1054.18 or later that must be used from April 2019.


Download Page