Charity expense definitions

puljesh

I have just started helping a charity with their funding applications. For 'expenses' I seem to be finding conflicting information as to what constitutes 'core activity expenses' and what is included under 'administration expenses' . At the moment the charity manager costs (salary, office costs etc, ) are under 'administration', not distributed across the various core activities, whereas the individual core activity staff costs are under each activity and therefore come under core activiy costs. Should we be trying to reallocate all our charity manager costs against activities.......might be tricky as it's not a simple allocation of time spent. Otherwise can anyone point me in the direction of publications that define what should be included in 'core activity' and 'administration' for charities. Any help appreciated. Thanks

kate_spade

When I worked for a local branch of national charity, all management costs (manager's wages, office expenses etc) were divided across the core activities. It was easy to apportion though, as it was just split by how many staff were assigned to each core activity. (This was written in to our SLA contracts with the local authority/NHS, as it helped them save costs at national level)
I'm sorry I don't have any offical guidance/notes to point you to. It was just a case of this is how it's always been done at that particular charity

Hope someone with better info comes along soon