I thought that it was time for another blog to cover some of the current ongoing issues that we, as charitable organisations need to keep up to date with to help you to ensure that you are running your organisations effectively.
Payroll
You should by now have processed your first month’s payroll for this tax year. In doing so, you will have needed to comply with HMRC’s new Real Time Information (RTI) system. As well as calculating the pay, tax and National Insurance for each of your employees, you needed to make your first submission of information to HMRC. How did it go? Did you have any problems. With one of the employees on our payroll being a Minister with pension contributions and manse allowance it was a little confusing, but worked things out in the end.
If you need any help with payroll or just want to make sure that you are doing things right, I’d be happy to chat it through with you.
Gift Aid
I’ve just submitted our Gift Aid claim for January – March this year. That means that the next one will be on the new Charities Online system with online submissions rather than paper ones. Our updated software is on order and will be here shortly. I’m looking forward to see what these changes are like.
We are also now in the era of the new Small Donations Scheme where Gift Aid can be claimed on small donations without Gift Aid Declarations being signed – up to a maximum £5k of donations per year.
How are your preparations for these changes progressing? Are you prepared to ensure that you can continue to maximise your income? If you need any help with these issues, please give me a call.
Trustee Training
I am planning to organise a training session for Trustees, outlining the duties and responsibilities that apply to Trustees later in the year. I hope to have the highly experienced Daryl Martin to join me in leading that training. If you would be interested in sending people along, please let me know – or if you would like me to come and provide some training for your Trustee team, I’d be pleased to hear from you.
Independent Examination & Charity Reporting
When is your financial year end? Do you realise that your Trustees Report and Annual Accounts need to be sent to the Charity Commission within 10 months of your year end? If you are looking for someone to undertake the independent examination of your accounts, this is a service I am able to provide at reasonable rates.
You also need to complete an Annual Return to the Charity Commission, and ensure that important information is kept up to date with the Commission e.g. change of Trustees. Again, I can help with this.
AFVS
The cutbacks currently being applied to the Charity Commission are changing the role that they fulfil. They are reducing their ability to answer general queries and are encouraging charities to join an umbrella body. If you would find this useful, I would point you toward the Alliance For the Voluntary Sector (AFVS), of which I am a local representative, and would recommend you consider becoming a member to access specialist advice. You can see what we offer at www.afvs.org.uk and please feel free to have a look around the site. If you wish to discuss membership of AFVS, please contact me to discuss this further.
For help in any of these issues, please contact me by phone on 029 21250580 or 07767 386040 or by email at paul@cmanagementservices.co.uk. I would be pleased to help you in any way I can. You can also follow me on Twitter (@paulyb65) and link with me on Facebook, Linkedin and Google+.