Charity accounting software
Accounts for a small charity, kept where the whole committee can read them
Record what you spent and what came in, under your own headings. Keep restricted money apart from the rest. Set a budget, and the cashflow and the management accounts for the next meeting follow from what you have already entered.
Free for 30 days, no card needed. Then £5 a month or £50 a year, everything included.
Why the accounts end up in a spreadsheet nobody else can open
Most small charities do not need an accounting package. They need the money recorded once, properly, somewhere other than one person's laptop.
- The books live on one laptop. The spreadsheet is on the treasurer's computer. Nobody else can open it, check it, or carry on with it if the treasurer is ill or stands down.
- Paid and owed are in the same column. A bill that has arrived and a bill that has been paid look the same in a spreadsheet, so the balance is right on the day it was typed and wrong a week later.
- Restricted money looks like spare money. A grant given for one purpose sits in the same bank balance as everything else, and a committee reading one total thinks it has more to spend than it has.
- The examiner wants the receipts. And the treasurer spends a weekend going through envelopes to find the twelve that are missing.
What it keeps, and what it gives back
Everything a volunteer treasurer is asked for, by the committee, the examiner or a funder, from figures typed in once.
Spending, under your own headings
Each payment out is a date, an amount and what it was for, marked paid or still to pay. You choose the headings it is added up under - eight or ten is plenty - and a heading you stop using is retired rather than deleted, so last year still reads correctly.
Receipts kept with the payment
Attach the invoice and the proof of payment to the payment itself, or tick that the paper copy is in the folder. A list of payments with no receipt against them is the list to work through before the independent examination.
Income dated by the bank
Grants, donations and legacies, subscriptions, fundraising, interest - dated by the day the money reached the bank, sorted the way the Charity Commission's annual return asks. Mark it restricted and name the fund the way the funder does.
A budget with a note on every line
Put in the figure for the whole year and tick the months it actually falls in. Write a line saying where the number came from, so next year's treasurer is not starting from nothing.
Management accounts for the meeting
Each month against its budget, with the year to date beside it. A short explanation against any line that came out differently, printed on the sheet the committee reads.
Reports for any period
What came in and what went out, by heading, between any two dates, with restricted money shown separately beside every total. A year-on-year page sets three or five years side by side and shows your charitable spending apart from your running costs.
Cash, savings and more than one account
A cash tin or a deposit account can be an account of its own. Paying the takings into the bank is a move between accounts, not new income, and each account has a statement with a running balance to check against the bank's.
What it costs
£5 a month, or £50 a year
One price with everything in it: the money, the forecast, the trustees, the meetings, the compliance records, the grants and the GDPR records. No charge per trustee, and the charity is billed rather than whoever signed up, so the subscription stays put when the committee changes.
Questions people ask
Is this a full bookkeeping package?
No, deliberately. There is no double entry, no chart of accounts to learn and no bank feed. It records what the charity spent and received, under headings you choose, and produces the budget, forecast and reports a small charity needs. If you already have an accountant running a full package, this is probably not for you.
Does it produce our annual accounts?
It gives you the figures they are made from: a summary of what came in and what went out over your financial year, by heading, with restricted and unrestricted money shown apart. That is the shape a receipts and payments account is built from. It does not file anything with the Charity Commission, Companies House or HMRC.
Can we bring in the spreadsheet we keep now?
Yes. Spending, income and your list of trustees can be imported. You match your column headings to ours on screen, good rows go in, and any odd ones are listed for you to check. Running the same file twice does not double the books.
Can every trustee see the accounts?
Yes, and none of them can change them unless you give them a role that allows it, usually treasurer. Trustees are answerable for the money, so they should be able to look. Every change records who made it and when.
We are registered for VAT. Does it cope?
Each payment in and out can carry its VAT, and the VAT page adds it up for you. Most small charities are not registered and can ignore the VAT boxes entirely.
Does it connect to our bank?
Not yet. Payments are typed in or brought in from a spreadsheet. For a charity with a few dozen payments a month that is a few minutes a week.
Put last year's spreadsheet in and see what it looks like
Start free, bring in your spending and income, and print the management accounts before you decide anything.