What is the legal requirement?
- Section 386 of the Companies Act 2006 requires companies to keep books that record the income and expenditure, and enable the company to know what its assets and liabilities are at any point in time
- If not a company, you are still legally required to keep records sufficient to enable you to prepare a tax or VAT return. HMRC provide detailed guidance.
- Grant funders require charities to allocate expenditure to particular funding streams in accordance with the grant agreement, including allocation of overheads.
Monitoring performance – measuring impact
Although not primarily focused on profit/surplus, charities and social enterprises still need to know that they are making ends meet, and are able to address any financial problems based on sound knowledge of the financial position of the organisation. Financial measurement reporting can form a part of impact measurement which is an important consideration when looking for funding. Funders or lenders will generally only support an organisation which can show it is financially sound.
Why use Slade & Cooper bookkeeping services?
- We can provide a bookkeeping service tailored to your needs.
Our staff can be available to you all week during office hours. - We can provide staff at different levels of expertise to meet your requirements for bookkeeping.
- We can provide staff to cover long term sickness, maternity cover etc.
- When we do your book-keeping we will become aware of any tax issues (VAT, payroll or corporation tax), and be able to address them at the earliest opportunity; for example, we will know if the VAT threshold is being approached.
- We are familiar with the requirements of grant funders and use Quickbooks software to allocate income and expenditure between different income streams.
- We can prepare and submit VAT returns on your behalf, ensuring that any partial exemption method is correctly applied.
- We will be able to keep your books in such a way as to facilitate end-of-year reporting.
- We can provide temporary cover ensuring a smooth handover.
- Governance: having an independent bookkeeper provides good separation of duties which is part of best governance practice, and we are also able to ensure that proper financial procedures are adhered to.
- We aim to provide a good value service – see our pricing policy.
