About us
Built because a trustee asked for it
We already make software for around thirty volunteer-run community organisations across the UK. A trustee who uses it asked us for two things, a few weeks apart. This is what came of them.
Where it came from
Two requests that turned out to be one
“Something like this, for a small charity”
A version of what she already had, stripped back for a charity with no building to look after.
“A cashflow I can keep up to date”
Rather than a spreadsheet she rebuilt from scratch every year, and trusted for about a fortnight afterwards.
They were the same request. A charity's back office is the money and the paperwork; the building was never the point. So we took the governance and money modules we had already built and tested with real committees, took out everything only a venue needs, and made the cashflow the front door.
What that means for the product
The boring parts already work. Terms of office, DBS expiry, action logs that carry forward, restricted funds, bills entered but not yet paid: none of that is a first draft. It has been in front of volunteer committees for a while, and the wording on the screens is the wording they settled on.
It also means we know who we are building for, in some detail. A volunteer treasurer in their sixties on a laptop, competent but not technical, who will abandon anything that asks them to learn a new vocabulary. If a page needs explaining, that is ours to fix.
How we are funded
By subscriptions from charities. Nobody else pays us, we do not sell or share charity data, and there are no adverts. That is the whole business model, and it is deliberately simple: if the product is not worth what a charity pays for it, we would rather find that out from a renewal than from an investor.
The edges
What we have deliberately left out
- Fundraising and donor databases. No donation pages, no supporter marketing. A crowded market and a different product.
- Statutory filing. We give a treasurer the figures. Filing to the Charity Commission or Companies House stays with the charity.
- Payroll. Most charities this size have no employees at all.
- Anything that needs a manual. If a committee cannot work a page out between them, the page is wrong.
Saying no to those four is what lets us do the rest properly.
Who we are
A small UK software business, run as a sole trader. You can write to us at hello@thecharityoffice.co.uk.
If you would rather talk to a person than read a website, write to us. We answer our own email.
See your own year, in full, in an afternoon
Start free, put in what is in the bank and this year's figures, and look at the forecast before you decide anything.