IT3(d) · Tax year 2025/2026

Every receipt you issue, in the shape SARS expects.

Section 18A certificates your donors can claim, and an IT3(d) submission file checked against the SARS spec before it leaves your hands.

Free to set up. Billing starts when you go live — R675 a month or R6 750 a year.

Pre-flight checkTax year 2025/2026
  • 1 240 receipts across 1 118 donors
  • No duplicate certificate numbers
  • Exemption reference presentField 313
  • Every individual donor has an ID numberField 412
All checks passed — ready to generate
IT3d_930001234_2026.txtLatin-1
GH|I3D2026053114220|L|I3D|HTTPSRE|930001234|Masakhane Community Trust|ASSOC_NOT_FOR_GAIN|NDE|001|8506155012087|MOKOENA|THANDEKADR|MAS-2026-00417|CASH|2025-11-14|12500.00T|1240|4183500.00
1 Mar — 28 Feb
The tax year a donation falls into. A gift on 1 May 2025 belongs to the 2026 tax year, not 2025.
31 May · 31 Oct
Two IT3(d) submission deadlines — the annual return and the bi-annual one. Most organisations only know about the first.
50
Certificates per IT3-01D form when you capture by hand on eFiling. Past that, SARS wants a file.

Deadlines and limits per the SARS Section 18A and IT3(d) third party data requirements. SARS has extended deadlines before — check the current year before you plan around a date.

REReporting entity

Your organisation, entered once

Every submission opens with a reporting entity record describing who issued the receipts. You fill it in on one settings page, and it flows onto every certificate and into every file after that.
Exemption reference (PBO)
Field 313
Income tax reference
Field 312
Registered and trading name
Fields 307, 308
Nature of person
Appendix A
Contact number and email
Fields 327, 328
Logo, signature and signatory
On the certificate

Certificate numbers are minted per organisation, per tax year, in a sequence you control — MAS-2026-00417. Nothing is reused, which is what keeps the duplicate check below meaningful.

DEDonor entity

Donors, with the details a deduction depends on

A certificate is only worth something to your donor if it identifies them the way SARS expects. Hopely asks for the right identifier per donor type, and will not issue a certificate that is missing one.
Individual
SA ID number
001
Company or NPC
Company registration number
004
Close corporation
CK number
004
No SA ID on file
An internal identification number stands in
009

Import what you already have

Bring donors and donations in from a spreadsheet or a bank statement rather than retyping a year of records.

Let donors register themselves

A branded public form feeds straight into your donor list, with new sign-ups held for review before they land.

Donors fetch their own certificates

They sign in with a link sent to their email — no password — to see their giving history and download certificates.

Take donations on the site you already have

Two lines on your existing Wix or WordPress page, no rebuild.

<div id="hopely-donate"></div>
<script src="https://hopely.co.za/embed.js" data-org="your-org"></script>
DRDonation record

The certificate, with every field that makes it valid

SARS prescribes the minimum a Section 18A certificate must show. Leave one out and it is not valid for a deduction — which your donor finds out at assessment, long after you issued it.

Masakhane Community Trust

NPO – REG NO 123-456 NPO

PBO: 930001234

Section 18A Tax Certificate

Ref no: MAS-2026-00417

Issued to

Thandeka Mokoena

ID no: 8506155012087

Amount
R12 500.00Twelve Thousand Five Hundred Rand only
Nature
Cash — EFT
Date
14 November 2025
Tax year
2025/2026

We hereby confirm that no goods or services were provided in exchange for this donation.

Issued in terms of Section 18A of the Income Tax Act, No. 58 of 1962. The donation has been or will be applied solely towards approved public benefit activities listed in Part II of the Ninth Schedule to the Act.

Sample data · shaded fields are required
  • The issuing organisation and its PBO number

    Without Section 18A approval, a certificate is worthless for tax.

  • A unique certificate reference number

    Sequential per organisation and tax year. Duplicates fail the file.

  • The donor's full name and identifying number

    ID number for individuals, registration number for companies.

  • The amount, in figures and in words

    Written out automatically — "Twelve Thousand Five Hundred Rand only".

  • Whether the donation was cash or in specie

    Goods donations are blocked until you describe the items.

  • The date the donation was made

    Which also settles the tax year it belongs to.

  • A statement that nothing was given in exchange

    The wording is fixed, and prints on every certificate.

Certificates go out by email from your own address, as a PDF, one at a time or in a batch. A donor can never unsubscribe from their own certificate — that stays transactional, however firmly they have opted out of your newsletter.

TFile trailer

The check that happens before SARS sees it

A submission is a pipe-delimited text file built to a 272-page specification. It closes with a trailer carrying the record count and the sum of every donation, so the whole file has to reconcile — one missing donor ID does not fail one record, it fails the year.
Pre-flight checkTax year 2025/2026
  • Thandeka Mokoena is missing an ID numberField 412Fix
  • Duplicate certificate number MAS-2026-00417Fix
  • 3 donors have no tax reference numberField 414 — CW

Errors block generation. Warnings do not — SARS accepts the file with a conditional field missing, so that call stays yours.

“SARS will reject an entire file under the following conditions: File is corrupt, i.e. the file could not be read; File fails structure validations…”

SARS External BRS · IT3 data submission

Fix it where it broke

Every error names the donor, the certificate and the BRS field, and links to the record that needs the missing value.

Generate stays disabled

You cannot produce a file while an error stands. The button unlocks when the last one clears.

Issued nothing this period?

You still have to file. Hopely produces the null declaration, which SARS requires so nobody can claim against your PBO number.

Upload it and you are done

Out comes IT3d_930001234_2026.txt, ready for eFiling or the HTTPS channel.

Hopely generates the submission file. Filing it with SARS, and the declaration that goes with it, stays with your organisation.

Pricing

One plan, per organisation

No tiers and no per-donor pricing — an organisation with 4 000 donors pays what one with 40 pays. Set up your organisation and look around at no cost; billing starts when you go live.

R6 750

a year, or R675 a month

Paying annually saves R1 350 2 months free

Start free
  • Unlimited donors
  • Unlimited Section 18A certificates
  • IT3(d) validation and file generation
  • Donation tracking and submission review
  • Invoices, receipts and appreciation letters
  • Branded donation pages and donor portal
  • Newsletters and automated reminders
  • Multi-user team access
Contact

Ask us anything first

Whether Hopely fits how your organisation already works, what moving a year of records looks like, or what happens if your Section 18A approval is still pending — send a message and we'll answer properly.

Start with the tax year you're in

Set up your organisation, bring in the donors you already have, and issue your next certificate from Hopely instead of a template.