For some years Vantis has acted for a charity that aims to improve the lives of disadvantaged people in its local area; a charity that has grown significantly in recent years. The charity has a number of different projects ongoing to meet their aims; with funding coming from a variety of sources.
In common with many local charities, the trustees are volunteers from different walks of life. They contribute much to the running of the charity and to the various projects, but sometimes require financial and technical advice to ensure compliance with all of the laws and regulations.
The new charity SORP had a significant impact on the charity.
Controls and bookkeeping procedures were basic but adequate in the early years of the charity's existence. However, the increasingly complicated nature of the charity’s finances, due to an increasing number of projects, new sources of income and some overlap between resources used to service each project, together with the new SORP meant that the old bookkeeping systems were immediately obsolete.
Vantis' Charity & Not for Profit Group stepped in to help in the following ways:
- Working closely with the charity’s new finance manager to review the system that she was proposing to put in place;
- Offering a number of detailed recommendations to ensure that the records were suitable to enable us to produce SORP-compliant accounts;
- The new systems were adopted part way through the year, which meant significant Vantis involvement in helping the organisation produce the year end accounts;
- The systems we helped them put in place are now up-and-running and will help to contribute to a significant reduction in compliance costs and more reliable financial information for the trustees on a regular basis.
If you have a similiar issue facing your charity or would like general advice on the latest SORP regulations please submit your enquiry using our contact form.