Why you can't edit an issued receipt
Once a receipt has been emailed or mailed to a donor, you can no longer edit it in place. This isn't a limitation — it's a compliance requirement. A donor's copy already exists outside the system, so silently changing the numbers behind it would leave two different versions of the same official document in circulation. Instead, corrections go through Correct / Replace: cancel the original, and issue a new receipt with a new receipt number that carries the fix.
How cancel & replace works
The two receipts stay linked everywhere they appear:
- The original is stamped CANCELLED on its retained PDF and marked cancelled in your records — it is never deleted.
- The replacement gets a new receipt number (see Custom Receipt Numbering) and its PDF carries a required statement noting what it replaces, in English or French depending on the run's language.
- Both receipts reference each other, so anyone reviewing either one can find the other.
Doing a correction
From the receipt's row action or its detail page, choose Correct / Replace. This opens the Correct & Replace Receipt page — a form pre-filled with the receipt's current values — donor name, address, amount, eligible amount, and donation date — which you edit as needed. A reason for the correction is required before you can continue.
The flow is two steps: after you fill in your changes and click through, a confirmation panel locks the form (read-only) and summarizes what will happen — cancelling the original and issuing a replacement — before anything is submitted. This prevents a correction from going through with an incomplete or forgotten reason.
What it costs
Cancel & replace does not consume an extra credit. It's treated as a correction to an existing receipt, not a new generation, so your credit balance is untouched. Cancelled receipts also don't count against your billing usage counters, since they no longer represent a valid receipt on their own.
Finding cancelled receipts
By default, the receipts list hides cancelled originals to keep the view focused on valid receipts. A Show cancelled toggle brings them back into view alongside their replacements, with badges linking each pair so you can trace a correction's history — useful when reconciling with a donor's records or answering a question about why a receipt number changed.
Related
- Custom Receipt Numbering — how the replacement's new number is generated
- Advantage & Eligible Amount Calculation — how the eligible amount is calculated before a receipt is first issued