Every charity, even if it is not required to register with the Charity Commission, must keep accounting records.
Accounting records include cash books, receipts, records of grants, and they must be retained for six years.
Every charity must prepare annual accounts and make them available on request.
Apart from a few exceptions, every charity with an annual income above £5,000 is required by law to register with the Charity Commission and to produce a trustees’ annual report.
Every registered charity with annual income or expenditure above £10,000 must submit a trustees’ annual report, set of accounts, and an annual return to the Charity Commission each year. These must be sent or filed online within ten months of the end of the financial year. If you are a charitable company you must file your accounts at Companies House within nine months.
Your constitution or other governing document will usually require you to send the annual accounts and annual report to members and approve them at an annual general meeting (AGM). It is certainly good practice to do so even if you are not required to.
The type of accounts and report which your charity has to prepare depends on your legal structure, your income and the value of your assets. These are outlined, along with requirements for audits and annual reports in the full version of this section of the Financial Management toolkit.
This page is a summary of information contained in the full online toolkit.
