CHARITIES
OUR CHARITY ACCOUNTING EXPERTISE
As a mission-driven organisation ourselves, we love working with charities and supporting the excellent work you do with minimal resources.
During the COVID lockdowns, we provided a full Outsourced Finance Department Service – including Interim Finance Director support – for a £2m turnover charity with multiple projects, who required face-to-face support. Situations like this really drive home the importance of charities carrying reserves.
COVID has been followed by a period of extremely high inflation, and charities carrying their reserves in cash will have seen those reserves eroded in real terms. Through our Finance Director support, we’ve supported investment strategies that balance short-term cash needs, medium-term cash deposits, and longer-term investments.
Taking care of charity-specific challenges
Managing multiple income streams
Working closely with charities has also given us a deep appreciation of the complexities of having multiple projects and income streams.
Charities are required to regularly report on restricted grants and donations in terms of income recognition and to track costs to the funder. We achieve this in Xero using our tracking categories add-on, and work with you to agree a basis of apportionment (which is based on science but favourably allocates all possible overheads to restricted funds) so core costs are kept as low as possible. We understand that these are the hardest of all costs to fundraise for.
Following frameworks & meeting financial obligations
Despite having limited resources, charities also have their own reporting framework (the Charities SORP) to contend with. We have a deep understanding of this and ensure our bookkeeping is in line with its requirements.
Many charities fall into the trap of assuming you don’t have VAT or Corporation Tax obligations. You can actually have very complex requirements that you’ll accidentally fall into while trying to develop additional revenue streams. We’re familiar with these complexities and keep a watchful eye on our clients to alert them if they might be straying into areas of concern. Of course, we encourage them to run things past us first!
Charity trustees have important obligations when it comes to governing the organisation’s finances and ensuring donations are protected. For smaller charities outsourcing their finance department to us, we can ensure the segregation of duties and fraud control mechanisms (that aren’t possible within the budget required for an in-house finance team).
Lowering environmental impact & resource use
Increasingly, charities also need to consider their environmental impact and resource use. Our carbon accounting service can provide you with data to include in impact reports and identify potential areas of wastage, leading to both environmental and financial benefits.
Reviews
Andrew Wallis OBE
Unseen, UK
Warren Madlin
MadlinHanna
Harriot Pleydell-Bouverie
Mallow & Marsh
WHO WE SUPPORT
OUR SERVICES
CARBON ACCOUNTING & BOOKKEEPING
Get the accurate and timely CO2 and GHG emissions data you need to reduce your organisation’s environmental impact, meet customer and regulatory requirements, and save money.
OUTSOURCED FINANCE DEPARTMENT
Receive quality financial data that will help you make the best decisions for your organisation – while saving time and worry. Check out our outsourced accounting, bookkeeping, management accounts, payroll and financial strategy services.