Extending external match request approvals for last year's donations

You can allow administrators up to 90 days after the financial year end to approve external match requests (EMRs) for last year's donations and have them draw from last year's budgets. Employees can also submit requests during this time, according to your donation date range setting.

• During the approval extension, approved EMRs are drawn from the active budget and matching offers on the donation date. This means that:
  • EMRs for donations in the previous fiscal year have the match drawn from the previous fiscal budget.
  • EMRs donated and submitted during the approval extension draw from the current year’s budget.
• After the approval extension, approved EMRs with a donation date in the previous fiscal year draw from the active budget and matching offers on the request submitted date (in the current fiscal).
• If there is no extension, all approved EMRs submitted after a fiscal year ends will not draw from the previous year’s budget. 

How this works is similar to common insurance plans where individuals can submit claims for the previous policy year for up to 90 days after the year ends.

All approved EMRs follow these budget allocations, whether they are manually approved or automatically approved. The rate used for the match request depends on the active matching offer available at the time of donation, including limited-time match offers (special match campaigns). 

Permissions

Any user with the budget manager role can update the approval deadline extension. 

Setting an EMR approval extension 

You can set an approval extension between 0 and 90 days and update it at any time, even after it has finished. For example, you could increase the number of days from 30 to 45 on the 35th day. 

The approval extension allows both administrators and employees extra time to submit and approve requests after the fiscal year ends. 

To update your approval extension period: 

1. Go to Manage > Match Request Settings > Approval extension.
2. Enter the number of days after your fiscal year when administrators can approve EMRs for donations in the previous year and draw from the previous fiscal budget. Note that employees can also submit EMRs during this period and the accepted donation date is controlled by your donation date range setting.
3. Select Save.

• If a user has reached their match limit for the year, and the EMR is approved during the approval extension period, then the user will not receive a match. This represents a change from the previous policy, under which users received matches from the current fiscal year.
• The approval extension period is based on midnight UTC. The total extension period is calculated from the budget year-end date in UTC, plus the specified extension. This calculation is independent of the administrator's local timezone.
• When users input a donation time for the EMR, an approximate time is acceptable. This helps ensure the correct matching rate is applied, especially if the donation was made during a special matching campaign. Users should provide the following:
  • The timestamp from the nonprofit email confirming the donation.
  • If no time stamp is available, 12:00 AM (midnight) on the donation date is acceptable.

Example

• Fiscal year: Jan 1st to Dec 31st, 2025
• Employee donates outside of the platform on December 1st, 2025
• Employee submits an external match request on January 28th, 2026

Applicable budgets:

• If the approval extension is 30 days, the EMR approved on January 29th will draw down from the 2025 corporate and user budgets.
• If the approval extension is 0 days, the EMR approved on January 29th will draw down from the 2026 corporate and user budgets.

Limited-time offers

External match requests may be submitted for limited-time match offers during the approval extension period. 

Recommendation: To ensure the request is not drawn from a limited-time offer budget, decline the EMR. If you’d like to allow late submissions, you can accept the request. To avoid this capability, set the approval extension to 0 days.

Notifications 

An Action item appears on your Admin Dashboard when your approval extension period is active. 

Related Resources

Training course:

Managing External Match Requests
A guide to managing external match requests for donations made outside of your program.
⏰  5 minutes