Year End Accounts

Everyone needs year end accounts...

I can prepare your year end accounts, if you're a

•  sole trader (ie it's just you)
• unincorporated association (there are a few of you, but you're not registered as a company)
• Community Interest Company
• limited company (either limited by guarantee or limited by shares)

I can be very flexible and prepare year end accounts either from your own book-keeping records or from scratch if you haven't written up your books.

I can also issue an Independent Accountant's Report on the accounts of small and medium-sized registered charities

To be eligible for independent examination, a charity's gross income in the relevant financial year must not exceed £1 million; or where the charity's gross income exceeds £250,000, the aggregate value of its assets must not exceed £3.26m.

I'm very experienced at presenting accounts to Boards of Directors/Trustees and explaining the key information in a way that the non-financially literate can understand.

Management Accounts

Many clients need Management Accounts - either for their funders or to help them know how their organisation is performing against budget.

I can prepare management accounts to a tried-and-tested format, accepted by most funders, including Arts Council England

...but you can't do Management Accounts unless your book-keeping is up to date.

Book-Keeping

To be honest, it's not going to make sense for me to do your book-keeping on an ongoing basis - I'm much more expensive than a decent book-keeper would be and I haven't really got the time.

However, if you need a one-off blitz to catch up when you've left it for ages and realise you need to get it up to date, I could be a viable option as I'm quick and very proud of my ability to crack even the messiest bank reconciliation.

My weapon of choice is Xero in which I'm a bit of an expert user, but I'm also familiar with Sage, Quickbooks and Quickfile (though expect a bit of moaning from me if you're using these 3)

I'm also an Excel whizz and many smaller businesses find that a few decent spreadsheets provide all the book-keeping system they need.

Grant Claims/Reports

I worked for many years as Head of Finance for Northern Arts (now Arts Council England North East), whilst I've worked with a lot of funded organisations over the years, so I know the funding system - particularly that of the cultural sector - very well from both sides of the fence.

If you're applying for grants, I can help you to...

• Prepare funding applications
• Check figures within your own applications

If you're claiming grants, I can help you by...

• Checking figures within grant claims
• Providing any required external Accountant's Report on grant claims (for example, on any Arts Council England Grants for the Arts grants over £50,000)

If you're a funder, I can help you to...

• Assess budgets within Funding Applications
• Review/Assess client business plans
• Review/Assess client Management and/or Annual Accounts
• Carry out Statistical Analysis (Client Comparisons etc)

Payroll

I don't do payroll processing myself but I know someone reliable who does nothing else and can introduce you...

Audit

I don't do audit work - it's a hassle, it's very regulated (so lots of red tape) and it's boring - but you may not need an audit anyway.

Lots of people ask for 'audited accounts' when they really just mean 'annual accounts produced by an external accountant and therefore something we can rely on being accurate'.

For example, I know this is what Arts Council England mean (because I checked), so why pay more for an audit?

You probably don't need an audit if you have

• Turnover under £6.5 million
• Balance sheet total less than £3.26 million
• Fewer more than 50 employees