We are a National Heart Charity (Heartline Association) supporting children with heart conditions (1 in 133 children are born with a heart condition) and families. We have recently gone through tough times and were left with no choice but to close our office and run the charity on a full time voluntary basis by the trustees to avoid closing the charity for good.
Whilst we are surviving in this economy we also stopped using the accountant due to high costs.
I am the treasurer and now do the books each period in my spare time (I'm CIMA qualified and work long hours, and do this in my spare time). My concern is I don't have all the necessary up to date info around charities accounts (and will honestly struggle to keep on top of it), plus workloads are getting a bit much given day job and family commitments.
I keep detailed excel records to show the income and expenditure each period, plus known creditors and debtors, but would like to have some support around ensuring compliance and helping (i.e. doing) VAT returns each qtr. I currently work on cash accounting as we pay promptly and don't have much we pay for in advance (the annual reporting is the key element), and fall under the thresholds within HMRC guidelines.
To help free up my time to help me concentrate on taking the charity forward and providing the much needed support, I would also look for someone to do the bank recs each period for me (normally takes me a couple of hours a month to do as it's allocating the costs to the right activity in the income/exp statement).
We have an independant inspection done each year, who we have someone we use to do the SORPS etc., so this wouldn't be a necessity for you, but a nice to have if you can do these also as keeps it to one contact for me. Year runs Nov-Oct.
We don't currently have any staff (no-one paid this year), however we may look to get some part time workers at sometime in the near future, therefore there may potentially be some payroll work involved (again we could outsource to the prior payroll agent if necessary).
Ideally I'd love to ask someone do it for free for us, but appreciate you all have to make a living as well and it is a big commitment. However being a charity I hope you could look favourably upon us when considering your charges :)
We are based in London, however I am based in Reading, Berkshire, so ideal if you are close to me so we can arrange to meet etc. and provide the books and records when required each period.
Please feel free to ask any questions or email etc., and please let me know if you are interested in helping and what kind of hourly rate (if any ;) ) you be considering.
Thanks for reading and hope you can help us.
Kind Regards Darren
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www.heartline.org.uk
Supporting families whatever the heart condition, wherever they live
Thanks for your post which I have just come across. I have had a look at your website and it looks like a great charity doing some fantastic work, I have worked for a midwifery charity for over 5 years but also run my own bookeeping business too, so this looks really interesting.
I have a couple of general questions which I though would be worth posting on here as other people may also be thinking the same as me.
* Do you currently use any of form of accountancy software for the charity? if so what is this, or is it all based on Excel spreadsheets?
* I am based in Bristol, however have family not far from Reading - I understand that we would need to meet to discuss the accounts every so often - but would you be happy with some one taking on this role that was a bit more further afield?
* What type of independent inspection do you currently have? Are your accounts audited?
I potentially could be really interested in this (for a nominal fee) and coming from a charity background I do understand that you want to keep your costs down, however it is important to get the right person doing the work for you.
If you could reply to these questions that would be great, or maybe drop me an email ann-marie@smartiesbookkeeping.co.uk so I can reply in more depth about the possibility of moving this forward.
Thanks for your response. I'll drop you an email seperately, but answers for others as follows:
No software, just excel based, we don't have loads of activities to be honest and they are straight forward transactions, so is fairly straight forward, obviously not having payroll helps make it easier. We don't sell much, mainly books and caravan bookings, so always get a VAT rebate circa £3k p.a. Common activities (off the top of my head):
Donations via just giving, virgin money, cheques, cash, Standing order, 100 club lottery PGL holidays we fund for kids Subsidised caravan holidays (we have two static caravans) Selling and distribution of books and leaflets Distribution of hospital packs Magazine creation and distribution general admin costs including hosting costs We do get restricted funds, but in this environment we have been asking for core funding, given our admin costs are now minimal without an office or staff...
Distance wise it could be done further away, could post paperwork across and email spreadsheets etc. but wouldn't want to be out of reach.
Due to our turnover we don't need a full audit, we have an independant inspection carried out by a firm of accountants, he then also prepares the accounts into the SORPs format for us.
Thanks Darren
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www.heartline.org.uk
Supporting families whatever the heart condition, wherever they live
