|
A charity's accounts are of utmost importance; remember a good Treasurer is worth their weight in gold!
You don't need to spend a fortune in software, but having a robust and consistant system in place to manage your accounts is essential. Some small charities do their bookkeeping using a manual ledger book, others use spreadsheets, but the most common way is to use a computerised accounting package, such as Sage. Ensure that you keep on top of the accounts and file everything as you go along.
The purpose of keeping accounts are as follows:
- To process the receipts and payments of the organisation
- To keep accurate records of all the financial transactions of the organisation
- To manage the cash flow of the organisation
- To compile budgets for trustee approval and control expenditure
- To safeguard against risk and fraud
- To report to management (trustees) on the organisation's financial performance
- To report to funders on the use of their resources
- To prepare annual accounts which comply with statutory regulations
- To arrange an audit/independent examination (unless exempt)
Financial Year:
When preparing annual accounts an organisation will need to decide upon when it wants its financial year to run from and to. In the voluntary and community sector it is most common for organisations to have a financial year which runs from 1st April to 31st March. There is, however, no legal reason why a different twelve month period should be chosen and a few organisations do have a year which runs from 1st January to 31st December. |
Tools for the VCS 
