Charities and Not for profit

Accounting and advisory services for charities and not for profits

Our dedicated Charity and Not For Profit team have in-depth expertise and experience and are renowned for their expertise in the sector.

The Charity and NFP sector is of key importance to our firm, and we currently provide compliance services to over 400 organisations in this sector. We offer you a balanced, knowledgeable and professional view to provide appropriate and effective advice.

Whatever your circumstances, we will support you in achieving your goals and help you overcome challenges – all whilst ensuring effective governance, minimising risk, and maintaining compliance.

Many members of our Charities and Not For Profit team are charity trustees themselves, enabling us to provide you with truly effective and relevant experience.

We can provide expert guidance covering areas such as:

• effective reporting on your statutory accounts
• strategy and reserves policies
• ESG and carbon reporting
• Charity Governance Code and EDI9
• structure reviews
• maximising tax reliefs and optimising your tax and VAT position
• mergers and collaborations, including due diligence
• identifying and monitoring key performance indicators
• compliance health checks on Gift Aid, VAT, and tax
• management process reviews and risk registers
• trading activities, use of subsidiaries, social enterprises and Community Interest Companies (CICs)
• controlling and improving fundraising activities, and diversifying income

Areas we commonly support with

Price Bailey pride ourselves on offering a truly bespoke service. We can outsource all or part of your finance function, including specific tasks, and can do this on a short- or long-term engagement i.e. maternity/ paternity cover or recruitment bridging.

Engagements commonly seen in the not for profit sector

• Fully outsourced provision – Price Bailey handles all financial roles and responsibilities;
• Bookkeeping/ data entry review – a quality control check at the month-end;
• Month-end closedown and reconciliations – making sure systems are up to date and accurate ready for reporting and outward payment runs;
• Management information and reporting – often complex and crucial to a charity, we can build reporting structures for you, or complete the work on a frequency to suit;
• Systems and processes – advising on accounting software and business systems that improve efficiencies and reduce risk;

As a client of Price Bailey in the not for profit sector you also benefit from:

• Regular content – technical updates for the sector delivered to your email inbox;
• Newsletters – a 6 monthly financial recap of the updates you need to be aware of;
• Seminars – free, half day in-person seminars every 6 months covering updates and learnings specifically for the sector;
• Training and development – we can provide training sessions on areas such as trustee roles and responsibilities, impact reporting, governance and risk management, and reserve policies.

Supporting you now and in the future

Over the past few years, the charity and not for profit sectors have battled strong economic headwinds. Covid 19 has impacted the charity sector immensely, from decreased fundraising income arising from cancelled events and activities, to rapid digital acceleration for events and charitable service delivery methods, shift in working patterns and hybrid working, to cybercrime attacks, and some closing their offices permanently.

The seismic shift to digital activity has caused increased cyber activity and increased inflation, social care levy and utility costs, all bringing new risks and challenges for the sector.

Resilience and sustainability have always been a key focus; and the current economic climate has increased demands on charity services whilst income generation and diversification remains a key risk on many charity risk registers.

Opportunities do present themselves with regard to technological changes, allowing charities and not for profits to adapt and become more resilient to challenges. It’s also important that organisations continue to embrace digital fundraising methods.

An award-winning service

At Price Bailey, we have supported charities and not for profits throughout their journeys – no matter the challenges and opportunities they are up against.

Our most recent award was to be recognised again in the Top 3 Charity Finance auditor survey November 2023 for both our Charity service and our Charity Expertise – and is a testament to how our clients feel about our audit service and advice.