Do you work in a charity shop which does Gift Aid

turnitround

I volunteer in a charity shop. At the moment we do not do Gift aid but will be starting shortly. I know they will be explaining it all to us but I would be interested to know how it works from the shops assistants point of view in advance so I can be prepared with any questions.

What extra work is involved at each stage, accepting the donations/sorting/pricing/selling etc. We are an extremely busy shop with loads of donations every day most of which are deposited into containers quite often without us even seeing the donor. Presumably when we start gift aid we will have to approach every donor, ask questions, fill out forms etc?

luvchocolate

You will be signing up new donors to claim gift aid...usually done on the till. 
They will a no given...every donation they bring in will be registered on the till and slips printed to put with their donations. 
When sorting the items will need labels printed with their no on. 
Yes it takes longer but a massive increase in takings. 

turnitround

Thanks for the reply. When you say every donation they bring in will be registered at the till are you saying that has to be done before they go for sorting?

I dont think it will be workable at our shop, there are several shops belonging to the charity in local towns around us but ours is the biggest and takes way above what the other shops take.
We get donations constantly coming in, more than we can deal with some days. On an average day we will be given in the region of 50-70 black bags plus dozens of small bags and boxes. Are you saying we need to record these at the point of arrival? Does each item have to be itemised and written down when we accept them?

We constantly have a queue as we are a 'pile it high, sell it cheap' type shop. We rotate the clothing stock weekly bagging what has not sold for the rag collector. I was reading one page regarding gift aid which said even things sent to rag have to be separate. if they are gift aid items. 

We have almost 20 volunteers and there are not enough hours in the day now, I'm a really positive 'course we can do it' type of person but I dont see how we can possible fit in all the extra that goes with gift aid. 

luvchocolate

When a donation comes in you count the bags enter donor on till and print off the number of slips for bags. Each bag will need a slip to identify it. 
Once in sorting room you need to sort all same donors together and sort in dept/price etc and tickets printed with donor no on. 

Yes it takes much longer...I worked in a Hospice shop and we had easily 80 plus black bags in daily. 

It's totally doable but time consuming