Resource Management - addressing issues of delicacy: A charitiy accounting case study

How declining years and quality of work was seriously impeding a charity client. 

Alan Radford, Bird Luckin’s charity specialist, explains the difficulties faced when dealing with a charitable client with an income in excess of £200,000. 

Having acted for many years as an independent examiner on behalf of the firm, this role had become increasingly difficult as the charity’s accountant grew older and the quality of the records less reliable.

Difficulties that arose in respect of the annual examination, initiated discussion with the Chairman and Chief Operating officer of the charity.  This would require them to make changes within their finance function - to both assist internal monitoring and reporting, in addition to improvements to the annual accounts production process.

Alan’s proposals and recommendation were:

The charity accountant be gently persuaded to retire and a new bookkeeper appointed.

• The accounting system changed from an excel spreadsheet basis to Sage to improve financial control
• Quarterly accounts produced for Trustee meetings – where none had been produced before
• We would assist the charity with budgeting and grant applications
• We would work with the bookkeeper to assist them in developing a format suitable for production of management reporting to the Trustees

The happy conclusion, following these recommendations - twelve months on, they are receiving regular and accurate financial information from the newly implemented Sage system and quarterly accounts produced and reviewed at Trustee meetings, so aiding their decision-making.