Hospice enjoys fourfold Gift Aid boost thanks to new tech

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North East Wales hospice charity’s Gift Aid revenue has increased fourfold since the management swapped its manual till system to an electronic solution.

In order to boost its Gift Aid income, Nightingale House Hospice rolled-out CHARiot Electronic Point of Sale (EPoS) system by Nisyst in its 11 shops and distribution centre in autumn 2015 and has since seen a great revenue boost.

Nightingale House Hospice 1John Donnelly, retail development manager, from Nightingale House, said: “We had always used a manual till system which meant we only collected Gift Aid on big donations such as furniture and white goods.

“We knew we were missing out on an additional 25% on other eligible items and wanted to introduce an EPoS system that would help us collect Gift Aid efficiently while being easy to use for our managers and volunteers.  We spoke to other charities and hospices to see what systems they had in place and came across the CHARiot system by Nisyst.”

CHARiot ensures that Gift Aid is captured consistently by all personnel and in all shops by preventing a sale from being completed until the unique bar code has been scanned for each item.

Following a successful pilot in two Nightingale House high street locations, Nisyst installed the CHARiot system in Full Scan Mode (FSM), in the remaining stores and carried out training with all the charity shop managers, who then trained the team of volunteers.

“CHARiot’s Gift Aid feature is the main reason we took the leap and switched to an electronic till system and the results have exceeded our expectations in the first year. In addition, we’ve started to use the system for management information and evaluating product performance, average transaction values and managing stock.

“Just recently we launched a scheme of refurbishing and selling donated bicycles across all stores. Thanks to CHARiot, we can quickly overview these transactions.

“We chose the CHARiot system because it’s so intuitive and the ongoing technical support provided by the Nisyst helpline gives us the peace of mind that comes with knowing that our team has experts to call upon for advice whenever they need it. We’ve been delighted with how quickly and smoothly we’ve been able to move across to the CHARiot system and our team of managers and volunteers has adjusted really well to the transition,” added John.

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Hospice receives five-figure boost thanks to Gift Aid on Rags

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Hospice to add a five-figure sum to its annual funds thanks to the introduction of Gift Aid collection system for donations that are sold as ‘rag’.

Sale at St Peters Hospice shopSt Peter’s Hospice is Bristol’s only adult hospice, caring for more than 2,670 patients each year as well as supporting family members. The charity needs to generate enough funds to continue supporting its patients, costing around £19,000 every day.

Specialist charity EPoS (Electronic Point of Sale) provider, Nisyst, developed the innovative Gift Aid on Rag (GAoR) functionality as part of its CHARiot EPoS system for charity retailers.

St Peter’s Hospice runs CHARiot software in its 50 stores and has been using the free add-on feature since its introduction in March 2016.

Paul Chivers, head of retail at St Peter’s Hospice said: “Before Nisyst introduced the new feature, we didn’t have a system in place to claim Gift Aid on items marked as rag. CHARiot’s GAoR solutions has been fundamental in maximising our revenue and we’re expecting that within a year of its launch it will have paid for more than a full-day of our operations. This equates to going from zero income to around £25,000.

“I only see this figure growing year-on-year as our staff and volunteers become more familiar with the process.”

The new system is HMRC recognised, ensuring that all Gift Aid captured can be fed into the charity’s revenues. Staff and volunteers can operate the software by using a hand held scanner in the stock room to scan the barcodes specifically for rag bags that are being collected on that day.

Any rag donations that have been Gift Aided by the donor are eligible for the full 25 per cent of the sale price in Gift Aid, but the fluctuating price of rag and the varying levels of rag collected each week make it notoriously difficult capture this revenue.

The rag price for that day is programmed into the EPoS system by the team at the charity’s head office, ensuring that any shop in their network processing rag that day does so at the correct price per kilo, allowing all Gift Aid on rag to be captured in an HMRC-compliant manner.

Dave Chunilal, technical director at Nisyst, added: “St Peter’s Hospice is a testament of our team’s dedication to helping charities across the UK to generate more revenue. We’re constantly investing in product development based on user feedback to ensure that it continues to offer users the most advanced functionality – which is how GAoR was born.”

For more information about Nisyst’s CHARiot system, visit www.charityretailsystems.co.uk and follow Nisyst on Twitter – @NisystEPoS

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Hospice Doubles Its Gift Aid Revenue Thanks To Nisyst

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Specialist charity EPoS (Electronic Point of Sale) provider, Nisyst, has helped a Surrey-based hospice double its Gift Aid revenue with the introduction of its CHARiot software. Read more

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