Charity Work.... advice

Miss_HJ

I am in contact with a charity regarding volunteering help with their accounts.

Does anyone have any help/advice on this?

I am hoping to qualify to MAAT in February and wonder how much I can do for the charity, I will be helping along side my current job as assistant management accountant. My dad has his own business and I have helped with this from the start so have some experience.

I am arranging to meet with the charity to discuss things further but want to do some reaserch/investigating prior to our meet.

Any information is appreciated.

Thanks

anniem

I would definately check to see if they are registered with the Charities Commission and, if they are, I would be inclined to make sure that you aren't going to be fully responsible for signing of their audited accounts for the Charities Commission!

There is also a fair bit of paperwork involved if they aren't registered but need to be; constitutions, trustees, application forms, etc. If they are already registered there is still some annual form filling regarding trustees.

Find out when their committee meetings are as you should be prepared to attend all of these to give treasury updates.

Look and see how many transactions there are each month/year to see of the commitment involved.

Check and see what the bank signatory instructions are, are they expecting you to be responsible for authorising the cheques and are secondary signatories readily available, or are you always going to be chasing after them for authorisation signatures?

Don't be inclined to 'bite off more than you can chew'!

Anna

mark057

I've performed a few charity roles and had good and bad experiences.

Firstly I think its important to establish your personal responsibility concerning any charity role. It is possible you will become personally responsible for a portion of the charities debts, should they become insolvent, if you hold a trustee/management role.

I would also have a very long chat about the hours of work required and your duties in order to make sure you feel comfortable and competent to perform the role.

Another good tip is to ask to see the accounts for the previous year. This will give you the opportunity to see how the accounts have been compiled in the past and to determine if they are on a sound financial footing.

Finally it is important to address the issue of out of pocket expenses before starting anything. Sometimes these expenses maybe inconsequential; however, other times they can be significant.

I'm currently working for a charity that does not pay me any expenses and at present it is costing me around £70.00 per month to fund my attendance.

Miss_HJ

anniem wrote: »

I would definately check to see if they are registered with the Charities Commission and, if they are, I would be inclined to make sure that you aren't going to be fully responsible for signing of their audited accounts for the Charities Commission!

There is also a fair bit of paperwork involved if they aren't registered but need to be; constitutions, trustees, application forms, etc. If they are already registered there is still some annual form filling regarding trustees.

Find out when their committee meetings are as you should be prepared to attend all of these to give treasury updates.

Look and see how many transactions there are each month/year to see of the commitment involved.

Check and see what the bank signatory instructions are, are they expecting you to be responsible for authorising the cheques and are secondary signatories readily available, or are you always going to be chasing after them for authorisation signatures?

Don't be inclined to 'bite off more than you can chew'!

Anna

Thanks for your response, at the moment i have only just spoken with them, we have not discussed full details but i am expecting to do some book keeping work to help them rather than to be a trustee or sign off accounts for them. I also would not be looking to do the banking as I will be remaining in my full time job and I also need to check the time commitment they are expecting from me etc, its very early days at the moment hence my lack of knowledge on how to handle it!
I appreciate ur advice on the charity being registered and will check this out further.
I have been realistic regarding how much time i can spare, but again i need to get this confirmed by them!
Thanks for your help

Miss_HJ

mark057 wrote: »

I've performed a few charity roles and had good and bad experiences.

Firstly I think its important to establish your personal responsibility concerning any charity role. It is possible you will become personally responsible for a portion of the charities debts, should they become insolvent, if you hold a trustee/management role.

I wasnt aware of this so thank you!! I will have to look into this! I wasnt planning on being a trustee at present but had considered for the future, however i will do this with caution now, thanks!

mark057 wrote: »

I would also have a very long chat about the hours of work required and your duties in order to make sure you feel comfortable and competent to perform the role.

Another good tip is to ask to see the accounts for the previous year. This will give you the opportunity to see how the accounts have been compiled in the past and to determine if they are on a sound financial footing.

I will consider this and looking at the accounts would be helpful to determin what they expect of me! and their financial position would be seen here so will also help! very helpful!

mark057 wrote: »

Finally it is important to address the issue of out of pocket expenses before starting anything. Sometimes these expenses maybe inconsequential; however, other times they can be significant.

I'm currently working for a charity that does not pay me any expenses and at present it is costing me around £70.00 per month to fund my attendance.

I had been aware some charities didnt fund expenses, so i will discuss this with them when we meet, can I ask what were your bad experiences?

anniem

Simply by being on the Committee of a charity can mean that you are a Trustee; they aren't always people who sit on clouds in big offices!!!!!

I have previously been involved in a playgroup setting and all the committee members were just the mums of the toddlers, but if you decided to be on the committee you were deemed to be a trustee. Same happened in a school where I was Treasurer on the PTA and because the application forms asks for details about the accounts you just draw the short straw.

Hopefully all this sort of thing will be dealt with by the Secretary anyway, but I have had to deal with it for two charity groups now. It's better that you know than go in blind.

What Mark said about out of pocket expenses is very valid too, it's surprising what you end up paying for.

Let us know how you get on.

Anna

mark057

I've had bad experiences with trying to get out of pocket expenses from some charities even though they could afford them.

I once worked for a small community group connected to a large national charity. Some members were pretty difficult to deal with and thought they could tell me how to do my job when they had no idea about accounts. An example included one time where the Chair person asked me to sign a number of blank cheques for his disposal.

Another problem can come from being taken for granted and your efforts not being appreciated fully.