ThirdSectorBee creates a batch claim for a tax year and exports a CSV schedule. Submission to HMRC happens outside the application; Mark as submitted records that action and does not send anything to HMRC.

Create and review a draft

  1. Open Gift Aid and click New claim.
  2. Select Tax year. The selector offers the current UK tax year and the previous three years.
  3. Select Gift Aid or GASDS as the claim type.
  4. Choose Charities Online upload or Paper CHR1 form as the intended submission method, then Next.
  5. Review eligible donations, their count, estimated tax reclaimable and active declarations. GASDS also shows allowance information. These are summary totals, not a donation-selection table.
  6. Click Create claim draft. Return to the dashboard and open the claim to review its saved totals.

The form does not ask for one donor, a donation amount, currency or payment date. The server assembles the batch from its eligibility records. If it reports No eligible donations found for this tax year, check the donor declarations and payment eligibility before trying again.

Export and submit externally

  1. Open the draft and click Download HMRC schedule to download the CSV.
  2. Check donor names, addresses, amounts, tax-year coverage and possible previous claims against your own records. The current claim builder selects a tax year using the eligibility-check date, so pay particular attention to donations recorded or reassessed in a later year.
  3. Complete your external HMRC submission using the relevant official process. Choosing Paper CHR1 form records your intention; it does not generate a completed CHR1 form. The export contains standard Gift Aid donor schedule columns; choosing GASDS does not create a separate GASDS-specific export.
  4. Retain the submission acknowledgement and reference. Record submission in ThirdSectorBee only after the external submission succeeds.

Current status-update limitation

The API requires Draft → Ready → Submitted, but the current claim page has no Mark as ready action. It displays Mark as submitted on drafts, which the API rejects with INVALID_TRANSITION. Ask an authorised administrator or integration maintainer to move a reviewed draft to Ready through the Taxes API before recording submission.

For a Ready claim, choose Mark as submitted, enter the optional HMRC reference, and confirm. Updating claim status requires Gift Aid administration permission. There is no automatic HMRC status synchronisation.

See Reconcile a claim response for the payment and rejection limitations, and Claim statuses for allowed transitions.