Management accounts for a trustee meeting
One month against its budget, with the year to date beside it, and somewhere to explain the differences.
In The Charity Office: Reports → Management accounts
It opens on last month
That is deliberate, and it is the month you want. A part-finished month is a part-month of real figures against a whole month of budget, so nearly every line reads under. The page warns you if you pick one.
Change the month at the top. You can only pick months inside the budget you are looking at.
Reading a variance
A variance is signed so that a positive number is always good news, whichever half of the accounts it is in - more money in than planned, or less spent than planned. You never have to work out which way round a column is.
The Year to date columns are what a board actually argues about. One bad month is weather; three months running is a trend.
Explain it before somebody asks
The last column is Why it was different, and each row has a small Explain link. Write one line - "Independent examination fee came in £400 over budget" - and it is on the sheet at the meeting.
Explanations are kept per line per month, and they travel into the CSV, so the minutes and the spreadsheet say the same thing.
Recorded, but not on this sheet
This panel appears when something you have entered is not in the figures, and it tells you exactly why: bills still to pay, entries dated after the month you are looking at, or entries outside this budget's year altogether.
It is the page answering "but I entered that" before you have to ask it.
Worth knowing. Only payments marked Paid count here. A bill you have had but not paid will be sitting in "Recorded, but not on this sheet" until you pay it.
More guides
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.