the process


Making a repayment claim is extremely easy on Fund Filer. There are five simple steps described below, after which your claim is submitted as data straight through the Government Gateway to HMRC.


There are no spreadsheets and no uploads.


To make a claim, being by selecting ‘start new reclaim’ in the reclaims section of Fund Filer.


step 1. find records

Step 1 of the process after selecting ‘start new reclaim’ is an invitation to find the donations you wish to claim. Either ‘find all’ to find everything not yet claimed, or find donations for a specific date range. 


step 2. create claim

Fund Filer presents the records you’ve requested, with summary donation totals for each person, plus any other donation types such as ‘Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme’ gifts, aggregated donations and adjustments. 


Select ‘create claim’ to lock the found records and create a claim in draft form. This will be listed with a purple heading marked ‘draft’ under ‘repayment claims to date’.


step 3. check organisation

Fund Filer will present the vital references for the charity: HMRC number, charity number and regulator where appropriate and authorised signatory information. It is essential that all these details are correct and the same as those held on HMRC’s systems.


If any details are not correct, the claim will fail once it reaches HMRC, often after a significant delay of several weeks. Incorrect authorised signatory information is the biggest cause of such failed claims.


See authorised signatories and change of officers and compliance for further guidance on avoiding problems.


step 4. check summary and errors

Fund Filer presents a final summary of your repayment claim. As part of he process, Fund Filer validates for data errors such as incorrect post codes. Any problems are presented here, with an invitation to click and amend. You are returned to the claim process after making corrections. There is no need to restart the claim.


step 5. submit claim

The final page shows the same declaration that appears on HMRC’s own website. Check the box where indicated, enter your Government Gateway username and password and click ‘submit’.


Fund Filer will show a striped bar indicated the submission is in progress. This will take up to about a minute depending on your internet speed and Gateway traffic. Once complete, Fund Filer will display a ‘submission receipt’ number. 


Sometimes the claim does not submit properly and will return with an error code. The most common of these is a ‘1046 authentication error’. See our claiming FAQs on this for guidance.