Restricted funds tracked from the day the money arrives, SORP-ready records, grant reporting that matches what the funder asked for, and VAT apportioned properly. Fixed fee from £195 + VAT a month.
Book a 30-minute initial review →Commercial bookkeeping asks one question of every transaction: what was it for? Charity bookkeeping asks two. What was it for, and whose money was it?
That second question is the whole difference, and it can't be answered retrospectively. If restriction isn't recorded when the money arrives, reconstructing it a year later is guesswork — and guesswork is exactly what an independent examiner is looking for.
A grant given for a specific project is restricted. It can only be spent on that project, and both the income and the spend need tracking against the fund. Treat it as general income and two things follow: the accounts misstate the position, and the trustees lose sight of what's actually available.
The consequence is one most trustees have seen. Healthy total reserves, and no money to pay the electricity bill — because almost all of it is restricted and nobody was tracking the split.
Charities typically mix non-business, exempt and taxable activities, so input VAT has to be apportioned rather than reclaimed in full. Reclaim too much and you create a liability with interest. Reclaim too little — the more common error — and you quietly lose money every quarter without ever seeing it. Some supplies to charities are also zero-rated or eligible for relief, which is regularly missed.
Funders ask for spend reported against the categories in the original application. If the bookkeeping doesn't mirror those categories, someone rebuilds the report by hand each time — usually the person with the least spare capacity, usually the week it's due.
Designated funds are unrestricted money the trustees have earmarked. They can be un-designated by the same trustees. Restricted funds cannot. Recording one as the other misrepresents how much flexibility the charity actually has.
Trustees carry legal responsibility for the charity's finances, and most are volunteers with day jobs. What they need is not a longer report — it's a short one they can act on: what came in, what went out, which funds it belongs to, and how much is genuinely free.
That's a management accounting problem rather than a compliance one, which is the part conventional charity accountancy tends to leave until the year end. See the management accounts service.
Bookkeeping is £195 + VAT a month, fixed. Management accounts and fuller finance support are quoted after a free initial review. See what UK bookkeeping typically costs, or work out what your current arrangement costs.
If the records are behind, catch-up and cleanup is priced separately — and it's worth doing before an examination rather than during one.
Work runs on your existing Xero or Sage, so we serve charities anywhere in the UK, with in-person meetings across Northamptonshire and the surrounding counties.
Seven questions you can answer from memory — no logins, no exports. An honest verdict on whether your figures can be relied on, before we ask you for anything.
Run the free Books Check → Or book a 30-minute initial review