Charity bookkeeping and accounting
As a charity, your accounting needs are special. You don’t just need a competent bookkeeper and accountant. You need someone who understands the complexities of charities. This is where we come in. We are an experienced charity specialist team and work together with charities every day.
You need to comply with the SORP for the year end accounts, you need to manage restricted and unrestricted funding, you need to report back to your funders, you need to submit a return to the Charity Commission and possibly Companies House and OSCR too. These are added burdens compared to many businesses. Plus, you need to navigate the challenges of charity tax and understand when a fundraising event is exempt from VAT or when sales of goods are 20% VAT or zero rated or when other exemptions apply and of course what that means for irrecoverable VAT on your VAT return. You have a Board of trustees to report to. And if your income is over a certain level or your articles require it then you need to have an audit so you need to manage the relationship with the auditors.
And you are busy trying to run the charity and deliver your good work, so you don’t want to be, or have time to be, a financial expert.
The majority of our clients are charities and not for profit, we support them with bookkeeping, payroll, year end accounts, getting ready for the audit, Board reporting and more. We’re a trusted pair of hands. We understand the quirks of charities and enjoy working with them.
We’re happy to have discussions with your auditor about income recognition rules under the SORP and to set up your systems to work efficiently. We can help you to understand the numbers so that you and the Board can make good decisions. We can put the right structures in place so that you can track restricted funding.
Our experience spans work with large national charities (over £25m income) right the way down to small local charities with £25k of income, taking care of everything from the day to day bookkeeping through to strategic Board discussions.
Charity financial support
Contando have been a great support to us. We are a small organisation with complex funding streams and they have proven their ability to manage our accounts seamlessly.
CEO, BOST
A supportive and flexible service
We have worked with Contando since 2020. I have always appreciated their flexibility, adaptability to our needs, and understanding of the many competing pressures facing a small team. Getting them on board was a weight off my mind- I can’t recommend them enough!
Emily Wilson
Pricing
Everyone’s needs are unique so after we’ve had a chat and got to know you and your organisation we’ll send you a tailored proposal. We know that our clients are unique and their needs don’t always fit neatly into a box, that’s why we’ll tailor a package to exactly suit your needs.
Take a look at the sample packages on our pricing page and get in touch, let’s talk about what you need and how we can help and together we can craft something that is just right for you.
Contando have been outstanding
The service that Contando have provided for Redthread Youth has been outstanding.
They have been patient with some challenging logistics and also their interaction with the staff team involved and trustees has been open and honest but also framed sensitively and with acknowledgment of the realities that people are dealing with.
First class work and Heather and Marco have gone above and beyond to help us!
Simon Dowe
Absolutely fantastic
I can’t recommend Contando highly enough. Their attention to detail, accuracy and customer service are amazing. They are always happy to take the time to explain things to you and ensure you understand and are comfortable with their work and your accounts. No question is too much trouble to answer and emails are always responded to in a timely manner. They are also lovely people to work with and feel like part of the team rather than external providers
Samantha Walker
Get in touch
If like what you see and you want some help taking care of your charity’s finances then get in touch. Call, email or fill in the contact form below.
0330 1330 774
What else do we do?
Catch up bookkeeping
Don’t worry, we’re here to help with that too. We know that when you are running a charity it’s all too easy to get behind on the number crunching. We also know that without the number crunching being done well you won’t make the best decisions because you won’t have the right information.
Get in touch and we can talk through the problem with you. Once we understand the scale of the problem we can give you a customised quote to get you back on track. And of course if you need some help staying on track in future we can help with that too.
Xero set up and migration
We’ll help make running your charity’s finances easy by making sure your bookkeeping is set up properly from the beginning, allowing you to spend less time on bookkeeping and more time on running the charity.
We’re experts at Xero set up and Xero Migration (see the shiny Xero Migration badge!) so you are in safe hands. Xero migration means we can move your data over from another accounting package and Xero set up means we can set you up from scratch.
Get in touch and we can talk through what you need. We’ll give you a customised quote and some options so that you can get the level of service and set up that suits you. Whichever option you go for we aren’t expecting you to be bookkeeping or accounting experts, that’s our job!
After we’ve set you up on Xero you can either do your own bookkeeping or we can do it for you. Whichever is right for you we’ll give you the same quality service when setting up your Xero file.
If you’d like our help then take a look at our plans or get in touch to talk about which is right for you.
And its not just bookkeeping, take a look at what else we can do for you
Payroll
We like to keep our prices simple and clear, payroll is just £6 per employee per month with a minimum cost of £30 per month, it makes a great bolt on to one of our bookkeeping packages. If you are new to using Xero payroll then there will also be a set up charge in the first month.
If you need support with your pension obligations we can help you with that too.
Consultancy and business planning
Your charity and your needs are unique, help us to understand them so that we can find the best way to help you. Get in touch, let’s have a chat and get to know you and from there we can give you a bespoke quote.
It doesn’t matter if you just want to migrate to Xero, implement a new app integration or something else, we are Xero geeks and are here to help.
Year end accounts and corporation tax
We look after the year end for a number of our business and charity clients, preparing and submitting their year end accounts and corporation tax and liaising with their auditors. Our clients let us worry about the deadlines while they get on with running things.
We only offer this service to our bookkeeping clients. This allows us to offer you a better quality service than if we just deal with you once a year to prepare your accounts. We’ve followed your activities throughout the year, we know you, we know your problems and we understand your data. This is why we’re confident about offering you a smooth year end service.
And to keep things simple you can spread the costs and add the payment to your monthly support package.