Charity Accounting Services

Charity accountants manage the finances and statutory reporting requirements of charities, community interest companies, and not-for-profit organisations. If this is you, we’d love to hear more from you.

File charity accounts

Black and White’s accountants prepare charity clients’ annual accordance in accordance with the Companies Act, the Charities Act, and the Charities Statement of Recommended Practice. We can also support you with the Annual Tax Returns and other annual filing requirements.

Charity accounting software

In addition to being Xero gold partners, we are certified partners of QuickBooks and Sage. We also work with clients using FreeAgent and Wave, to name but a few. We work exactly how you want to work, so whatever software solution you want, we can deliver.

We are able to advise charities on the selection of online accounting and bookkeeping software, implementation and introduction of this type of software into your organisation and training you and your staff on how to use it.

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Tools and resources

The key pros of being a Charity include:

• Generally, charities do not pay income/corporation tax, capital gains tax, or stamp duty, and gifts to charities are usually free of inheritance tax and gifts can be grossed up using Gift Aid. There are also special rules for VAT;
• They pay no more than 20% of normal business rates, which can be reduced to 0%; and
• Funds from the public, grant-making trusts and local government can often be achieved more easily for Charities than from non-charitable bodies.

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Tools and resources

The key cons of being a Charity include:

• To enjoy the benefits, a charity must have exclusively charitable purposes and there are strict rules which apply to trade by charities, with charities also restricted on political and campaigning activities;
• If the Charity was incorporated as a company limited guarantee, there are two Regulators to deal with: OSCR and Companies House; and
• Trustees need to avoid any situation where charitable and personal interests conflict. Financial benefits and remuneration are also very restricted.

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Tools and resources

We offer a range of specialist charity accounting services including:

• hiring a part-time charity financial accountant;
• charity management accountant;
• charity project accountant;
• small charity accounting;
• charity payroll outsourcing;
• services for non-profits below and above the charity audit threshold;
• charity finance management; and
• setting up charity bank accounts.

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Tools and resources

CICs are special limited companies either with a defined social purpose or set up to benefit a specific community. They are not profit-driven and they offer distinct advantages over other forms of socially-motivated legal organisational structures in providing limited liability to their owners and in the ability to access certain types of finance. There are however restrictions over the use of assets as a result.

We offer a full range of services to new and existing community interest companies including set up, remuneration, payroll, CIC34 form completion and submission, VAT, and much, much more besides. Please get in touch by filling out the form on the page if you would like to learn more about how we can help you.

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Tools and resources

The key pros of being a CIC include:

• Clear commitment to social goals prescribed in the Articles of Association and confirmed by an annual commitment;
• Access to certain forms of finance due to the protection they offer that funds will be used for the stated purpose;
• Limitation of liability and protection of personal assets, assuming Director duties are all fulfilled.
• The flexibility of company structure and continuity of purpose; and
• Quicker to set up, less governance and regulation, greater social aims and focus available and no need to choose between strategic control and being paid, unlike Charities.

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Tools and resources

The key cons of being a CIC include:

• They are more complicated to set up than other types of limited companies, with a form CIC36 also required to be submitted;
• The annual ongoing compliance obligations can seem too much for occasional or part-time basis individuals in their social cause;
• They do not have the tax breaks available to Charities. Not only that, some of the funding available is only available to Charities and not CICs and fewer people are aware of CICs;
• Compared with other limited companies, there are also more restrictions on dividends, and the use of company assets and it can be very complicated to convert to other structures; and
• They also have more governance requirements with annual reporting to the CIC regulator via the CIC34

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Tools and resources

Non-profit businesses are occasionally referred to as not-for-profit entities that are not registered with the Charity Commission and are often small clubs or sporting associations (unincorporated associations). They operate like regular businesses in that money comes in and goes out of their account but there is not a profit imperative among the members. Not-for-profit entities are often companies limited by guarantee.

We assist not-for-profit entities with a comprehensive range of services including fundraising planning, applications for tax exemptions, cash flow management, business plan creation, and the setting up of merchant accounts and direct debit facilities to easier collect member contributions.

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Tools and resources