Comic Relief will offer its gift aid claim software to other charities for free from next week, after some charities revealed they might miss the deadline to update their systems.

The HMRC-accredited Gift Aid Interface Linked software will be available to other charities from 18 October on an open source basis, and IT managers should be able to integrate the software into their existing systems.

Colin Simon, business director at Comic Relief, said: “Comic Relief is a strong supporter of anything that makes claiming gift aid easier and more automated. Having developed this tool for our own use, and knowing it has the flexibility to work with other systems, we are pleased to share it with the wider sector.”

Earlier this year Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research released its gift aid claiming software as a free extension for fellow CiviCRM users.

All charities are now required to use the Charities Online service to claim gift aid, and batches of over 1,000 need to be processed by connecting the charity’s database to HMRC’s. Some charities have previously expressed concerns about being able to meet the deadline, and HMRC revealed that it was in discussion with individual organisations whose database would not be compatible in time.

Today’s announcement was welcomed by NCVO. Charlotte Ravenscroft, head of policy and research, said: “Innovation like this is always welcome and we hope it will help some of the charities that are still searching for an appropriate software solution.”

More information and access to the code (and full terms of use) can be found here.

Peter Mills, Charities Online programme manager at HMRC, will be speaking at the Charity VAT & Tax Conference, part the Charity Finance Summit, later this month. Book online here.