The login is not the hard part
Charities Online is HMRC’s door. The work that makes claim season late is everything you still have to prove before that door opens: which gifts are eligible, which donors have a live declaration, which addresses belong on the schedule, and which anonymous cash from which service might count under the Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme.
If those facts are still in envelopes, bank lines, and a side workbook, you are not preparing a claim. You are reconstructing a year. ChurchPay is built so the reconstruction is unnecessary: the declaration is captured when the gift is made, GASDS evidence sits on the closed service, and the export is a pack you can read before you file.
What “ready to file” means the morning you claim
A claim is ready when you can stand behind every row. Each Gift Aid donation needs a valid declaration from a UK taxpayer and a record of the gift. A gift should appear in only one claim. Names, house numbers, and postcodes need to match what you hold for that donor. GASDS, if you are claiming it, needs a total you can trace back to collections you actually counted and banked.
ChurchPay will not invent those figures. It will not put the same gift into two batches. It will not tell you that a particular cash collection is eligible if HMRC’s rules for your church say otherwise. The software holds the evidence. You still decide what you submit.
What is inside a ChurchPay claim pack
The pack is a ZIP you download. Inside is a ChR1-shaped CSV of the eligible gifts in that batch, copies of new declarations and the wording or scan the donor agreed to, and a manifest that lists what is in the folder. When a batch is tied to a closed service with anonymous cash, the pack can also include a GASDS summary so the small-donations figure sits next to the declaration-backed claim.
That is the working file for you or your adviser. It is not a login to HMRC. Some churches type or paste from a ChR1-shaped list into HMRC’s own schedule spreadsheet. Some file on paper. ChurchPay does not attach the file inside Charities Online, and it does not submit the claim as “eligible software” on your behalf.
GASDS belongs in the same sitting, on a separate scheme
GASDS is not Gift Aid with the names removed. It is a separate top-up on small cash or contactless gifts where you do not have a donor declaration. HMRC still expects you to keep records of what was collected, when, and that the money was banked. Official limits and conditions live on GOV.UK, not in a product page.
In ChurchPay those anonymous amounts are calculated when you close a service, so the evidence is dated to that Sunday rather than reconstructed from a paying-in book in March. You still claim GASDS through HMRC’s process, in the same claim season as Gift Aid if that is how you work, and you still follow the scheme rules for your church.
What you still do on Charities Online
You, or your adviser, still register and file with HMRC. GOV.UK explains how to add Charities Online to your HMRC account, how the schedule spreadsheet works, and when a claim is due. ChurchPay will not store your Government Gateway password or press submit.
That is an honest difference versus some UK church products. ChurchSuite can submit a claim if you store HMRC Online Services credentials. MyGiving.Online, from Data Developments, is widely used in parishes because it can send the claim without a treasurer opening Charities Online. If one-click government submission is the feature you need, say so in the demo. ChurchPay’s job is the pack you would take into that sitting: declarations already attached, GASDS already on the service, and no double-claimed gift in the export.
Official pages: Claim Gift Aid online, HMRC’s schedule spreadsheet, and GASDS on GOV.UK. On church-pay.com see ChurchPay Gift Aid software, claiming without a spreadsheet, and Sunday giving.
