Managing Charity Finances

28 June 2021

Here our Finance Manager, Debbie, takes you through everything you need to know. This information is taken from the Charity Commission website.

As a Trustee you must take steps to make sure that your charity’s money is safe, properly used and accounted for. Every Trustee has to do this. Even if your charity has an expert to manage its finances, you are still responsible for overseeing your charity’s money.

Protect your charity’s money
Make sure that money is only spent on what is allowed by the charity’s governing document and policies. If it is not, you and the other Trustees need to put it right.

Use the Internal financial controls checklist to help you know you are doing this properly. This will help you make sure that money coming into the charity is:

• secure and recorded
• only spent on your charitable purposes
• at less risk of theft, fraud or cyber crime

Managing risks you have identified
If you use the checklist it will help you spot the main risks to your charity’s money and help you plan how to manage them effectively. Your charity should keep a list of the risks and how they are managed, reviewing it regularly to make sure it is up to date.

Make sure that your charity uses its annual report to say what it has done to prevent these financial and other risks. This helps to show your supporters and the Charity Commission what you are doing to protect your charity’s money.