a simple accounts spreadsheet for small charities ... accounts spreadsheet for small charities &...

A Simple Accounts Spreadsheet

for Small Charities

& Voluntary Organisations

Copyright © 2012-16 Small Charity SupportAll copyright and intellectual property rights reserved.

This spreadsheet is NOT in the public domain.

Supporting Small Charities and Voluntary OrganisationsRegistered Charitable Incorporated Organisation, No: 1161963

Instructions-SAfSC-V9b

Simple Accounts Spreadsheet for Small Charities & Voluntary Organisations

A Simple Accounts Spreadsheetfor Small Charities &

Voluntary Organisations

Contents

1.Developer’s Notes.........................................................................................3

2.Overview........................................................................................................5

3.Getting Started...............................................................................................7

4.Categories Worksheet...................................................................................8

5.Transactions Worksheets, Bank & Cash.....................................................10

6.Inserting, Amending, Cancelling & Sorting Transactions............................15

7.Filtering Transactions..................................................................................18

8.Recurring Transactions................................................................................21

9.Budget Report..............................................................................................23

10.Customising the Categories & Budget Report..........................................24

11.Assets WorkSheet.....................................................................................27

12.Annual Accounts........................................................................................27

13.Dealing with Transactions Across Different Financial Years.....................28

14.End-of-Year Operations.............................................................................32

15.Creating a New Set of Accounts................................................................36


1. Developer’s Notes

1.1. Background and Concepts

Inspired by the iconic book “Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered” (E.F.Schumacher), the Simple Accounts Spreadsheet was developed to meet the needs of small charities operating their accounts on a Receipts & Payments basis.

It is compatible with the Charity Commission's guidelines for Receipts & Payments accounts https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/receipts-and-payments-accounts-pack-cc16and targeted at those charities which feel that the functionality of “fully fledged” commercial software packages is inappropriately sophisticated (ie: more complex and, therefore, expensive) for their needs but do not have the time or expertise to develop their own in-house bookkeeping system.

The Simple Accounts Spreadsheet is NOT a panacea for all charitable organisations. Many charities will find it unsuitable and will require something more “substantial”. But charities which are currently managing with their own “in house” spreadsheets but are feeling the need for something just a bit more comprehensive might find some some usefulideas and solutions in the Simple Accounts Spreadsheet.

The Simple Accounts Spreadsheet is “open source” - ie: all the formulae used are visible and accessible to the user. Users can therefore validate for themselves the methodologiesused and, where they consider it appropriate, can modify the formulae to meet their own requirements.

The *.xls version of the current version of the Simple Accounts spreadsheet is compatible with Microsoft-Excel® from 2003 onwards. It can also be imported into OpenOfficeCalc®, part of the widely-used OpenOffice® suite of software downloadable free of charge from the internet (but an OpenOffice *.ods version is also available).

However, there are inevitably some minor differences in the ways that different versions of“compatible” software actually operate in practice. Where appropriate, such differences are illustrated in this guide. But it is not practicable to write separate guidance for each version of the available software.

1.2. Limitation of the Simple Accounts Spreadsheet

It is primarily for use by small organisations with simple book-keeping requirements and which manage their finances on a Receipts & Payments basis, though some very simple accruals accounting can be accommodated if necessary;

It has provision for only one bank and one cash account (initially restricted to 2000 & 1000 transactions respectively, but those limits can be extended if necessary);

Spreadsheets are not a relational database and so the Simple Accounts Spreadsheet is NOT a full “double-entry” bookkeeping system (although it does have many of the same characteristics).

In particular, it's ability to handle efficiently frequently changing designated and/or restricted funds is somewhat limited. However, the spreadsheet has been adapted by some charities to handle a wider variety of designated and/or restricted funds. But as therequirements of such funds are specific to the needs of each charity, that has to be done on an ad hoc basis by each charity.

1.3. Receipts & Payments vs Accruals Accounts

Under the Receipts & Payments (R&P) accounting procedures, amounts received and paid are recorded at the time that they were received/made regardless of the financial period to which they relate. But under Accruals Accounting (AA) procedures amounts received

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Is_Beautiful

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/receipts-and-payments-accounts-pack-cc16





and paid have to be recorded within the financial year to which they relate, even if that means breaking the amount into two (or more) parts.

Whilst using R&P accounting procedures makes bookkeeping somewhat simpler, it can also create distortions which make it more difficult for the Trustees to appreciate the true financial position of the charity and, therefore, to make the most appropriate financial decisions. For example: the bank account/statement might show a deceptively “healthy” balance if there are a number of substantial outstanding payments (Creditors) still to be made which have not yet been entered into the records. Conversely, the bank account/statement might show the charity's reserves as dangerously low because a significant deposit (eg: from a successful grant application) is still to be made.

For this reason, the Simple Accounts Spreadsheet has been designed to allow transactions to be recorded at the time of their origination (eg: when a payment cheque is written or an invoice for goods/services supplied by the charity is raised) but identified as “outstanding” until they appear in the bank statement and have been “ticked off” (ie: reconciled) as having actually been paid or received.

This enables the Simple Accounts System to provide “the best of both worlds”, - maintaining the simplicity of Receipts & Payments accounting whilst still able to provide financial reports to the Treasurer, Trustees and financial administrators which include someuseful information on cash-flow issues beyond basic “how much have we got in the bank” information. More detail is provided in section 13. Dealing with Transactions Across Different Financial Years.

But while the Simple Accounts System can handle some of the simpler elements of accrualsaccounting, it is NOT designed to be a fully comprehensive accruals accounting system and will not be suitable for organisations with more advanced accruals accounting requirements

1.4. The Legal Stuff

The spreadsheet is Copyright © 2012-15, Small Charity Support, All rights reserved.

The spreadsheet is made available "as is" with no warranties, express or implied about its completeness or accuracy or fitness-for-purpose. Anyone using the spreadsheet must take all appropriate steps to satisfy themselves that it will be suitable for their needs.

Small Charity Support claims, to the maximum extent allowed by law, its Copyright and Intellectual Property Rights in the Simple Accounts Spreadsheet. Small charities and voluntary community groups may use and develop the Simple Accounts Spreadsheet for thei r own internal bookkeeping free of charge and royalties provided that the Small Charity Support copyright notice is retained and clearly visible in ALL user-modified versions of the spreadsheet. But the Simple Accounts Spreadsheet may not be developed for, or distributed to, other organisations.It is requested that, as a courtesy, anyone intending to use the spreadsheet lets Small Charity Support know of that by e-mail to: [email protected]

1.5. End-User Support

Small Charity Support regrets that, due to resource limitations, it is unable to provide any end-user training or support in the use of this spreadsheet beyond the instructions here or in the spreadsheet itself. Therefore, any alterations to this spreadsheet to meet local requirements are made at the user's own risk should only be undertaken by persons with appropriate expertise in the use and manipulation of spreadsheet formulae.

However, we would be glad to hear of any suggestion you have or problems that you encounter whilst using the spreadsheet by e-mail to: [email protected] Whenever possible we will attempt to rectify such problems but there is no guarantee that we will do so promptly, or at all.


2. OverviewThe Simple Accounts Spreadsheet consists of 8 individual, but interlinked, worksheets - “Interlinked” because the data in one worksheet are either derived from the data in other worksheets or are used by other worksheets. In fact, some worksheets require virtually nodata input but are summaries, calculated and updated automatically, from the data in other worksheets.

2.1. Title Page

This worksheet contains basic information about the name of the organisation and its accounting period. It gets updated manually for each new accounting period and the information is used to put appropriate titles and headings on other worksheets.

2.2. Bank

This worksheet is used to record the transactions with the charity's bank account.

It (intentionally) has much in common with an ordinary bank statement, ie: columns for: the date of each transaction; a reference (eg: cheque no., deposit slip no., method of payment); who the transaction was from/to; the amount (though unlike most bank statements which show payments in and out in

separate columns, the spreadsheet has them all in a single column with payments out asminus numbers highlighted in red);

the running bank balance.

But it has some extra columns, too, ie: columns for: The category of each transaction, so that transactions for common purposes,

(eg: subscriptions or office consumables) can be grouped together; Comments, allowing more detail to be entered about the purpose of the transaction; A Reconciled (R'd) column to enable transactions to be “ticked off” as they appear in

the bank statement, allowing any overdue transactions to be identified and followed up (eg: where someone has forgotten to deposit their expenses cheque or a payment due has not been received).

2.3. Cash

This worksheet is just like the Bank worksheet and can be ignored, or used for a second bank account (eg: a deposit account), if a petty cash account is not required.

2.4. Budget Report

This worksheet pulls together all the transaction data and compares them with: (1) the equivalent data for the previous accounting year; and (b) the budget for the current accounting period (with calculation of the variances, too).

Once set up for the year, the only thing to be entered (by selection from a drop-down list of options) on this worksheet is the Budget Report Date – ie: the period for which the report is required.

This means that, provided that the Bank & Cash transaction worksheets are up-to-date, this worksheet provides, “at the click of a button”, an up-to-date financial status report for presentation to the Trustees, and whoever else needs it, pretty much “on demand”.And it does so in a format which is similar to that used for the Financial Statements in Annual Accounts. This enables Trustees to see how the final Annual Accounts are developing at regular intervals throughout the year.

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2.5. Categories

This worksheet is the “engine room” of the Simple Accounts Spreadsheet. It is here that the user of the spreadsheet sets up: The categories (“Nominal Accounts” in accountancy jargon) under which the charity

wants to identify its financial transactions for reporting purposes; The budget for the financial year.

The categories already set up in the Simple Accounts Spreadsheet are intended to reflect those illustrated in “Table 2: Example of activity based receipts & payments categories”, in the Charity Commission guidance publication “CC16b: Receipts and Payments Accounts: Introductory Notes”

Although as downloaded, all the monthly budget figures are set to be a uniformly-distributed 1/12th of the total budget for the year, it is very easy for the user to override those setting and create “flexed” budgets for any individual category so that the monthly figures vary from month-to-month.

Once set up, this worksheet automatically calculates: The aggregate of the transaction amounts for each category as entered into the Bank

and Cash worksheets; The cummulative budget-to-date for each category based on the Report Date set in the

BudgetReport worksheet (see section 2.4. above).

These figures are then picked up and put into the formatted Budget Report for presentation to the Trustees and others who might need them.

As the “engine room” of the spreadsheet, this worksheet is designed to be functional rather than “aesthetic”. So, once set up at the beginning of each financial year there is normally no need for users to access this worksheet other than if it is necessary to amend the budget figures.

2.6. Recurring

Where a charity has a significant number of transactions which recur in essentially the same format each month, these can be set up in this worksheet and then “cut and pasted” into the relevant transaction worksheet to reduce data entry time.

However, as some of the cells in the Recurring worksheet use formulae to speed up data entry, WHEN COPYING & PASTING TRANSACTIONS INTO ANOTHER WORKSHEET IT IS VITALTHAT“PASTE VALUES” IS USED RATHER THAN SIMPLE “PASTE” otherwise the formulae themselves will be copied&pasted and cause errors in the transactions worksheets.

Although not intended for charities which operate full accruals accounting, the Recurring worksheet contains an example of how it might be used by a charity which has a small number of simple accrual transactions (eg: the payment of a Trustee Indemnity Insurance premium the period of which covers two financial years).

No other worksheets refer to the Recurring worksheet so, if not needed, it can be ignored or deleted.

2.7. Assets & Annual Accounts

These two worksheets shows how the data collected can be aggregated and formatted intothe information typically required for the charity's Annual Accounts in the structure recommended by the Charity Commission.

They are primarily for information/illustration and will generally need to be tailored quite a bit to meet the specific requirements of individual charities.

No other worksheets refer to the Assets & Annual Accounts worksheets so, if not needed, they can be ignored or deleted.


3. Getting Started

3.1. The Title Page

On the Title Page worksheet:

a) Click on cell A6 to enter the nameof the charity.

b) Click on cell A11 to enter the end-date of the financial year to whichthe Simple Accounts Spreadsheetrelates.

The name of the charity and itsFinancial Year End date are thenreplicated throughout thespreadsheet where required.

Note that although a Financial Yeartypically ends on the last day of amonth, the year-end-date can be setto any date that the charity wishes –eg: 5 April 2012 if the charity wishesto coincide with the HMRC Tax Year.

However, the monthly BudgetReporting dates (see section 9.) arelinked to the date of the Financial Year End (FYE). So a charity which set its FYE to 5 Aprilwould have its monthly Budget Reports set to the 5th of each month.

3.2. Range Names

To simplify formulae and make them easierto understand and manipulate, range-nameshave been extensively used whereappropriate.

The range-names in current use can be seenby clicking on the drop-down arrow in thecell-identification box in the top left cornerof the spreadsheet.

Clicking on a range-name in the drop-downlist will take you immediately to that cell orrange of cells, even if it is in a differentworksheet to the one currently being used.

On this Title worksheet, cell A6 has beengiven the range-name “CharityName” andcell A11 the range-name “FYEDate” andthose range names are used in formulae toreplicate the name of the charity and theend-date of the charity’s financial year at various other places throughout the spreadsheet.

For further information on range-names, see the glossary at the end.

Note that the spreadsheet software automatically creates range-names for its own internal purposes (eg: therange of cells to be printed on a particular worksheet) and these, too, appear in the drop-down list.

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4. Categories WorksheetThe Categories worksheet is the “engine room” of the system. It is here that all the Categories are set up, receipts & payments data are accumulated and the budget set up and monitored.

4.1. Altering the Categories Worksheet

The categories in the initial version of the spreadsheet are set up to reflect the structure outlined in the Charity Commission on-line guidance for Receipts & Payments accounts https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/receipts-and-payments-accounts-pack-cc16

However, every charity will have its own particular requirements – some of the initial categories will not be required by all charities, and charities may wish to add additional categories to meet their particular needs.

As many of the cells in the Categories Worksheet are referred to from other worksheets or contain formulae which refer to cells in other worksheets, great care must be taken when changing Categories, inserting additional Categories or deleting unwanted Categories as this can cause the formulae to misalign and significantly disrupt the proper functioning of the worksheet.

Instructions on how to add/delete/modify rows in the Categories Worksheet are contained in Section 10. Customising the Categories & Budget Report..Please read those instructions before attempting to modify this worksheet.

4.2. Rows 1 & 2

The headings in these two rows are set by formulae using data set up elsewhere in the spreadsheet and should NOT be altered manually. For example: note the use of the range-name “CharityName” in the formula in cell A1 and the use of the range-name “FYEDate” in the formula in cells H-S1 to calculate and display the Budget Reports dates.

4.3. Column A:

This column contains the text describing the category;THERE MUST BE NO DUPLICATE CATEGORY NAMES;

It is recommended, but it is NOT a requirement, that each category name is prefixed by a simple code number to indicate where in the structure it occurs, as illustrated in the example. This also avoids duplication of names;

Instructions on how to add/delete/modify rows in the Categories Worksheet are contained in Section 10. Customising the Categories & Budget Report.;

The names are NOT automatically ordered alphabetically/numerically;

It is recommended (but it is not a requirement) that categories which are a subsidiary of a higher account are prefixed with one or more underscore (_) to indicate the sub-level.Note: a tilde (~) must not be used in Category names because it is used as a control character in some versions of MS-Excel and OpenOfficeCalc, causing the formulae not to function as intended.

4.4. Column B: {Actual to.....}

This column contains the sum of entries up to the Budget Report (see section 9.1. Budget Report Date) date against the corresponding category name in the Bank and Cash transactions worksheet.

It does that using the formula: =SUMIF(BankNA;A5;BankReportAmnt)+SUMIF(CashNA;A5;CashReportAmnt)

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/receipts-and-payments-accounts-pack-cc16


ie: it compares the entry in the named range BankNA (Column-C) of Bank transactions with the Category name in Column A and, if a match is found, the corresponding amounts in named ranges BankReportAmnt & CashReportAmnt (columns Y of the Bank & Cash transactions worksheets respectively) are aggregated.For more explanation of the use of these two named ranges see section 5.14. Columns X & Y (BankReportAmnt & CashReportAmount):

Note that the matching criteria in these formulae are exact and even the slightest discrepancy (eg: an additional/missing space or the use of uppercase instead of lowercase text) will result in the criteria not being met (ie: a match will not be found) and, consequently, the summation will not be accurate.

THE FORMULAE IN THIS COLUMN SHOULD NOT BE ALTERED !

4.5. Column D {Full Year Budget}

This column contains the total budget for the year for the Category.It is entered manually when setting up the worksheet for the year.

4.6. Column F {Budget to.....}

This column contains the cumulative budget to the date set by “ReportDate”It does that using the formula: =SUMIF(H$2:S$2,"<="&ReportDate,Categories!H8:S8) ie: it sums the monthly budget figure in columns H:S for each category code for those whole months which are up to and include the date set for the report in the named cell G1(ReportDate) in the BudgetReport worksheet.

THE FORMULAE IN THIS COLUMN SHOULD NOT BE ALTERED.

4.7. Columns H to S {Monthly Budgets}

These columns contain the monthly budget figures for each of the categories;

Most of the cells are pre-filled with a formula like: =$D62/12ie: the monthly budgets are pre-set to 1/12th of the annual budget, as set in column D;

However, if desired the monthly budgets can be “flexed” to represent cash-flows which arenot regular on a monthly basis. eg: receipts/payments which are made quarterly (such as utility bills); yearly (such as insurance payments) or just irregularly (such as gift aid reclaimed in, say, April and December).To achieve that the pre-set formulae are simply over-typed with the budgeted amount (including zero where appropriate) for that category and month.See the next section for examples.

4.8. Column T {Sum Check}

The cells in this column contain the formula, =IF(SUM(H4:S4)=D4,"OK",SUM(H4:S4))

The purpose of this column is to verify that the monthly budget amounts set in columns H-S actually add up to the annual amount set in column DThis is illustrated in rows 4, 5 & 6 of the worksheet;

In row 5 there is a “standard” monthly budget for Donations in which each month is set to 1/12th of the annual amount using the formula described in the second paragraph of

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section 4.7. above.The sum-check cell, T5 therefore displays “OK”;

In row 4 the income from Membership Subscriptions is expected to be £1,500 in January, £750 in June, £250 in November and nothing thereafter. The standard formulae in cells H4:S4 have been over-typed with the appropriate amounts, which add up to £2,500, the Full Year Budget as entered in cell D4.Hence the sum-check cell T4 also displays “OK”;

But in row 6, although the Full Year Budget for Gift Aid (cell D6) has been set to £800, the amounts entered for May and November, £600 and £300 respectively, total £900.This amount (rather than “OK”) is displayed in the sum-check cell, T6, to draw attention tothe discrepancy.

5. Transactions Worksheets, Bank & CashThere are two Transactions worksheets, Bank & Cash, for a bank current account and a petty cash account respectively.

They are the “workhorse” of the system. It is here that all transactions are entered.

They work identically – the following instructions apply to both.

The above illustration shows the three sections of the Bank worksheet (with the spreadsheet toolbars & status bars omitted).

1: The top section shows the menu bar, column headings and some of the early transactions in rows 4-19.

2: The middle section shows the latest transactions that have been entered up to row 147and the following blank rows where subsequent transactions will be entered.

3: The bottom section shows the lowest rows for data entry in the worksheet as initially configured for a maximum of 2000 transactions.


5.1. Important Note:

Because of the way that the formulae work in Column-H (Balance) and beyond, copyingor moving cells/rows (eg: using “cut & paste” or “click & drag”) and inserting and/or deleting rows results in misaligned cell references in the formulae and, therefore, incorrect results in the worksheet.

Such alterations should therefore NOT be used. For more detailed information on how to amend, cancel, sort or modify the order of transactions once they have been entered see Section 6. Inserting, Amending, Cancelling & Sorting Transactions.

5.2. Number of Transactions

In order to keep the size and speed of calculation of the spreadsheet to a minimum the number of Bank & Cash transactions the spreadsheet can handle is set to 2000 & 1000 respectively and should be more than enough for the size of organisation for which the spreadsheet is intended.

It is possible to extend the number of transaction rows beyond the 2000 set initially, but this should only be undertaken by those who are sufficiently familiar with spreadsheet formulae to be able to make and validate the corresponding changes to formulae and the range-names to which they refer.

5.3. Range Names for Bank & Cash Transactions

In the following instructions the Bank & Cash transactions worksheets operate identically. For convenience, in the examples of the formulae used, references to range-names are given only for those range names applying to the Bank worksheet (eg: BankTrans). For theequivalent range-name in the Cash worksheet simply substitute “Cash” for “Bank” – ie: therange-name BankTrans becomes CashTrans.

5.4. Column A (BankDate & CashDate):

Date: In this column enter the date of the transaction.Note: where the dates of the transactions are later than the Budget Report Date (see section 9.1. Budget Report Date) those dates are highlighted in orange to indicate that those transactions will NOT be included in the current Budget Report (this is described further in section 5.14. below).

The worksheet maintains in cell AA2 (BankLastDate) a note of the latest transaction date entered using the formula: =MAX(BankDate)The value in BankLastDate is used elsewhere in the spreadsheet to determine the date range to be used in certain calculations & analyses.

Although not a requirement, it is usually helpful to keep transactions in date order as far as is possible (but see note in Sections 5.1. & 6. Inserting, Amending, Cancelling & Sorting Transactions on sorting/moving data).

5.5. Column B (BankRef & CashRef):

Ref: In this column enter a reference number for the transaction - typically this will be a cheque or deposit-slip number.

For automated transactions (eg: BACS deposits or Direct Debit payments) the Ref might instead be a customer or invoice reference no.

However, there are no specific restrictions – users may enter whatever reference number or text is most relevant to them.

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5.6. Column C (BankNA & CashNA)

Category: In this column you MUST enter avalid category name.

When you click on a cell in this column, adrop-down tab will appear. Click on thetab and select the appropriate categoryname from the drop-down list.

If you try to enter something which is not inthe list you will get an error message andwill not be able to continue until either you type an appropriate entry or cancel;

It is vital that ONLY entries from the drop-down list are entered in the cells in this column.As noted in section 4.4. above, the aggregate sums for each category are accumulated by matching the entries in the cells in this column with the category name. Because of the way that the formulae work, even the slightest discrepancy – eg: an extra space or upper case letter in place of the equivalent lower case letter – will result in a match not being found. In that case the amount of the transaction will NOT be included in any of the summary aggregations.

5.7. Column D

Payee: In this column enter who the payment is to or from

Note: You will find subsequent analysis of the data MUCH easier if you are very consistentin the way that you enter payees (and other data, too);For example: if the first time you enter a payee you enter their full name, surname first (eg: SMITH, John) then always use exactly the same format each time for all names including the use of upper/lower case(ie: NOT: J.SMITH, SmithJ, or smith john).

5.8. Column E

Comment: In this column enter any further relevant information about the transaction.This is a free-text field (ie: there are no special constraints on what can be entered here) but, again, it is helpful to maintain consistency of style/format whenever possible.

5.9. Column F

Amount: Enter the amount of the transaction;Payments are entered as negative number (eg: -123.45) and will be displayed in red;It is not necessary/desirable to include a £ sign.

5.10. Column G (BankRd & CashRd):

R'd: Use this column to reconcile entries against your bank statement or cash slips.

Any character in this column indicates the transaction has been reconciled;However you will probably find it helpful to use a different character for each month's reconciliation (eg: 1 for Jan, 2 for Feb, etc.);

See also the note below on filtering to hide transactions that have already been reconciledto make it easier to see the outstanding transactions;

For items that don’t appear in the bank statement (eg: cancelled cheques) it might be useful to mark those as reconciled with a particular character (eg: “C”, as in the item in row 51 & 52 of the example worksheet);See also the notes in sections 6.3. Deleting an Existing Transaction & 6.4 Cancelling an Existing Transaction


5.11. Column H:

Transactions Balance: This column shows you a notional running bank balance as transactions are added to the spreadsheet. However, because the order in which transactions are added to the spreadsheet will generally differ from the order in which they are presented to the bank, the running transactions balance for a particular transaction in the spreadsheet will not always replicate the running balance in the bank statement for the same transaction.

For convenience, the transactions balance is also shown in cell J2 at the top of the worksheet using the formula: =SUM(BankTransAmnt)+H3;

The transactions running bank balance is calculated automatically using the formula: =IF(F6="";"";H5+F6)THE FORMULAE IN THIS COLUMN SHOULD NOT BE ALTERED.

Equally important, because the formula reference the cell in the previous row, if you try toinsert or delete rows that will throw the calculation out and result in inaccurate data;

The reconciled bank balance (as appears on the bank statement and therefore excludes payments or credits which have not yet been presented at the bank) is shown in cell K2 using the formula: =SUMIF(BankRd,">0",BankTransAmnt)+H3

5.12. Multi-Item Transactions:

Some transactions will be for multiple items which have to be assigned to different categories - eg: if you are paying a supplier with one cheque for several items or paying in receipts from several different sources.

Unfortunately, in this simple system it is not possible to group such multiple items togetherinto a single transaction. They each have to be entered separately.But it is OK – in fact, desirable - to use the same reference number for all the multi-items to identify them as a single transaction. Multi-item transaction having the same date and reference number will then be grouped together in the Bank or Cash transactions worksheets when the transactions are sorted by date and transaction reference number.

When it comes to reconciling multi-item transactions, particularly those related to bank transactions, only the total amount of the transaction (ie: not the individual items) will appear in the bank statement. However, it is easy to check the total amount against the multi-transactions entered into the worksheet, as follows:

In the example worksheet for Bank transactions, the transactions at rows 58-59 represent apayment of £96.40 by single cheque, no:100612 to G.Logman for 2 travel expenses of £90.80 and £5.60 attributed to different projects and, therefore, to different categories.

Highlighting the 2 individual amounts in column F shows the total amount of the cheque in the status bar (if you have it turned on to display) at the bottom of the screen.

5.13. Cash-Flow & AccrualsAs explained in section: 1.3. Receipts & Payments vs Accruals Accounts, the Simple Accounts Spreadsheet is NOT a full accruals accounting system. But it can show some of the more important characteristics of accruals accounting, namely:

How much does the charity have in the bank “right at this moment”?;

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How much would the charity have in the bank if all the bills (creditors and debtors) had been paid?.

At the top-right of the worksheet you can see:

In cell J2: the account balance with all transactionscompleted;

in cell K2: the reconciled balanceie: the balance that appears in the current bankstatement;

in cell L2: the net amount of unpresented/unreconciled (ie: outstanding) transactions; in cell L3: the total of outstanding (ie: still to appear in the bank statement) payments

still to be made to people/organisations to which the charity owes money (Creditors); in cell L4: the total of outstanding payments still to be received from

people/organisations which owe the charity money (Debtors).

To see who the individual creditors/debtors are, filter the unreconciled transactions, as described in section 7.5. Filtering Unreconciled Transactions.

5.14. Columns X & Y (BankReportAmnt & CashReportAmount):

Column X is used in both the Bank & Cash worksheets, but column Y is used only in the Bank worksheet. These columns are not normally visible (they only appear if you scroll the screen to the right).Note: In the illustration below, columns N-W have been hidden for convenience.

The formulae in these columns are to facilitate the internal working of the spreadsheet and you do not need to do anything with them (the only reason for mentioning them here is to explain what they are for should you stumble across them by accident).

The cells in column-X contain the formulae =IF($A4>ReportDate,0,$F4) and so replicate thosetransaction amounts where the dates of the transactions are less than or equal to the Budget Report date (see section ) and are therefore highlighted in orange.Where there is no transaction or the date of the transaction is after the Budget Report date the cells in column-X hold 0.00.

It is used solely for calculating aggregated expenditure for each Category as at the Budget Report date. You should not change this column and it can be ignored for all practical operational purposes.

The cells in column-Y contain the formulae =IF(ISBLANK(G4),IF(F4>0,"D","C"),"") are used to identify whether outstanding (ie: unreconciled) transactions are creditors (ie: payments still to be made) or debtors (ie: payments still to be received). From this, the total outstanding creditors and debtors at the date of the Budget Report can be displayed at cells K-L:3 and K-L:4 respectively.As with column-X, this column-Y should not be changed and can be ignored.


6. Inserting, Amending, Cancelling & Sorting Transactions

6.1. Inserting a New Transaction.

To insert a new transaction go to the first empty transaction row and enter the data there.

If the new transaction would be out of sequence with previously entered transaction (eg: ifthe date of the new transaction is earlier than the dates of transactions already entered, DO NOT ATTEMPT TO INSERT A NEW ROW at the relevant point in the worksheet as this will create misalignments in the formulae and consequent errors in the calculations.

Instead, enter the new transaction at the end of the existing transaction and then use “Sort” (see section 6.7. Sorting Transactions below) to re-locate it to the correct place.

6.2. Amending an Existing Transaction

If the data in an existing transaction are incorrect, simply over-type them with the correct values. Any consequent changes in the summary data (eg: in the Categories and Budget Report will be made immediately and automatically.

If the amendment is to the date of the transaction and it is desired to relocate the transaction to the correct date-order, use “Sort” (see section 6.7. Sorting Transactions below).

6.3. Deleting an Existing Transaction

If a previously entered transaction is found to be completely incorrect and no longer required DO NOT ATTEMPT TO REMOVE IT BY DELETING THE ENTIRE ROW as this will create misalignments in the formulae and consequent errors in the calculations.

Instead, highlight just the transaction data cells in columns A:G (BUT NOT THE RUNNING BANK BALANCE IN COLUMN-H) and delete their contents using the [Delete] key.

This will leave that row intact, but the cells empty. This may also cause the error #VALUE to appear in the subsequent running balance figure, Column-H. However, this error will be cleared when the data are re-sorted as described in the next paragraph.

The empty cells can then be relocated to the end of the transactions record by following the “Sort” procedure as described in section 6.7. below.

6.4. Cancelling an Existing Transaction

Where a cheque or invoice is written in error and cancelled without ever being issued, some book-keepers/treasurers/accountants/examiners like that to be entered into the transactions record for reference purposes and to show that the cheque/invoice is not missing or outstanding/unpresented/unpaid.

That can be done by creating a transaction with the cheque/invoice number as the reference number, the category as Uncategorised “__U-Other”, the Payee/Details as “Cancelled”, the amount as zero and Reconciled (“R'cd”) set to “C”.Such parameters will ensure that the cancelled cheque/invoice is “visible” in the transactions records but does not otherwise affect the accounts.

6.5. Abandoned Payments

It sometimes happens that a cheque to reimburse expenses is issued but the recipient decides to not cash it but instead to leave their reimbursed expenses as a donation. It is suggested that, rather than cancelling the transaction, a counter-balancing transaction for the same amount (with the same date & cheque number for linking purposes) is entered as

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a donation. This results in a net transaction amount of zero (ie: no change in the bank balance) and a record of both the expenditure and the donation.

Whilst this might, at first sight, seem a bit futile (as there is no net change in the bank balance) it actually has several key advantages:

It allows the charity to keep a record which demonstrates the true cost of running the charity rather than figures which are significant under-estimates because of legitimate expenses claims being waived;

It allows the charity to demonstrate in financial terms the generosity of its supporters;

Donations-in-kind (eg: legitimate, but unclaimed, travel expenses) are not eligible for Gift Aid (which only applies to monetary donations). But where the cost of the expenseis actually claimed and then the money given back as a donation, it IS now eligible for Gift Aid, increasing the value of the donation by 25% at no additional cost to the donor.NOTE: HMRC rules on donations-in-kind – eg: unclaimed expenses - are explicit and strictly enforced. They are NOT eligible for Gift Aid.If someone wishes to “waive” their expenses as a donation in order that the charity can claim Gift Aid on them, they MUST FIRST claim the expenses and THEN VOLUNTARILY return the reimbursement as a donation.It's not necessary for “real money to have changed hands” provided that the charity has a clear record of the expenses having been legitimately claimed, reimbursed and then given as a donationNote: The Small Charity Support website includes an example expenses claim form which allows someone to submit an expenses claim for refund and then simultaneously donate the refunded money back to the charity to allow Gift Aid to be recovered on it.

Note that because the cancelled expenses payment and corresponding donation never pass through the bank account – and, therefore, never appear in the bank statements – the transactions are marked as “C” in the R'd column-G so that they do not appear when filtering for outstanding/unreconciled transactions.

6.6. Moving Transactions

DO NOT attempt to change the order of transactions using “click & drag”. This creates mis-alignments in the formulae and consequent errors in the calculations.

Instead, use the “Sort” function, as described in the next section.

6.7. Sorting Transactions

Sorting transactions into, say, date order is relatively easy provided that you use the built-in Data/Sort function.

Although both MS-Excel and OpenOffice Calc perform Sorts in the same way, the appearance of the commands is somewhat different.

The most common sort will be to put transactions in descending date order (ie: earliest at the top, latest at the bottom) and it is usual to include the transaction reference number and transaction category in the sort, too, so that related transactions are ordered together.


a) In the top-left corner of the Bank (or Cash) transactions screen, click on the cell-identification box (immediately above column-A) and select “BankTrans” (or “CashTrans”) from the drop-down window.This will select the entire range of Bank transactions in columns A:G.

b) Click on Data/Sort in the main menu and then select the column(s) by which you want the transactions sorted, eg:to sort into date order select column-Ato include Ref No order add column-Bto include the category add column-C.

c) The order of columns selected does NOT have to be alphabetical – it is your required priority order for the sort.

If it is not required to sort on all three parameters the second and third specification can be Deleted (MS-Excel) or left as “ - undefined - “ (OpenOffice Calc).

Similarly, if it is desired to sort on more columns they can be added.

d) Click on [ OK ] to complete the sort.

e) It is possible to sort on any columns in any order of priority in this way.eg: it can be useful to sort on Column-C, Category, followed by Column-A, Date, to bringtogether all the transactions relating to the various categoriesOr to sort on Column-D, Payee, followed by Column-A, Date, to bring together all the transactions relating to individual payees.This can be particularly valuable for answering more detailed enquiries about income and expenditure than can be answered from the Budget Report, eg: enquiries about expenses reimbursements to individual trustees, or income/expenditure on service contracts with specific providers or commissioners.Once the detailed enquiry has been answered, the transactions can then be re-sorted back into the usual order in the usual way.

Technical Note: Unlike the “Cut & Paste” or “Click & Drag” procedures for moving cells, using thebuilt-in Data/Sort function does not alter the formulae in columns H & J and so using this method to sort the data does not result in formulae becoming mis-aligned.

It is also possible to use the same approach to sort just a specific range of rows.Rather than selecting BankTrans, just select all the cells in columns A:G in the specific rows that you want to be sorted and then proceed as in steps b & c above.However, it is strongly recommended that this approach be avoided and it is the entire transaction records which are sorted whenever possible.

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7. Filtering TransactionsThe Simple Accounts Spreadsheet has data filtering set-up to allow just selected transactions to be displayed. Although MS-Excel® and OpenOffice Calc® filter in similar ways the are some important differences in the way that the filtering is selected and controlled.

7.1. Filtering On A Single Criterion.

Next to each of the column headings (in row 2) is a drop-down button.

Click on one of the drop-down buttons (eg: Category) and a list of all the various types of entries in that column appears.

In MS-Excel, first uncheck the [Select All] box, then scroll down and click on the entry for which you wish to see just those transactions, and then click [ OK ].In OpenOffice-Calc just click on the required entry.In this example, all the transactions allocated to __P2-HM-Project Costs will be selected.

All other transactions are temporarily hidden.


7.2. Filtering On Multiple Criteria.There are significant differences between MS-Excel & OpenOffice-Calc for filtering on multiple criteria

a) MS-Excel

To filter on multiple criteria in the same column, simply checkall the required criteria in the drop-down list.Click on [ OK ] to complete the filter

To filter on multiple criteria in different columns, simplyrepeat the filtering process for all the required columns.

Note: There is an Advanced filtering function in MS-Excel but itsuse is beyond the limitations of these instructions.

b) OpenOffice-Calc

In OpenOffice-Calc select the “Standard Filter” option in thedrop-down list and then complete the selection criteria in thepop-up window.

Note that in OpenOffice-Calc the “Standard Filter” optionallows you to select filter criteria for different items in boththe same column and different columns simultaneously. Italso provides both AND & OR options for linking multiplecriteria.

c) Both MS-Excel & OpenOffice-Calc

Clicking on [ OK ] displays just those transactions which match the filter criteria

All other transaction types are temporarily hidden.

7.3. Removing Filtering.

MS-Excel: OpenOffice Calc:Click on Data/Filter/Clear Click on Data/Filter/Remove Filter

and the full transaction listing is restored.

7.4. Running Balance (Column-H)

Note that the values in the running balance, column-H, remain the values that they have when all the transactions are displayed un-filtered.Column-H does NOT show the running balance just for the filtered entries.

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7.5. Filtering Unreconciled Transactions

It is frequently useful to be able to display just those transactions which have not yet appeared in the bank statement and are therefore outstanding. eg: cheques which have not yet been presented by the payee; invoices for goods/services which have not yet been paid.

MS-Excel:Click on the filter drop-down

button for the R'd Column-GUncheck the (Select All) boxThen scroll down if necessary

and check the (Blanks) boxClick [OK]

OpenOffice Calc:Click on the filter drop-down button for the R'd

Column-GClick on “Standard Filter”In the pop-up window ensure that the “Value” field is

set to “ - empty -” (scroll up if necessary);Click [OK]

Just the unreconciled transactions in rows: 61, 71, 85, 122, 139 & 145-7 are displayed.These can then be chased up as appropriate.

The sum of the transactions amounts are as shown in the Unreconciled Transactions cell L2 at the top of the spreadsheet.In this example there are no outstanding receipts (debtors) due, only outstanding payments (creditors).

7.6. Advanced Filtering

Both OpenOfficeCalc® and MS-Excel® provide Advanced Filtering functionality to allow more sophisticated filtering and analysis of data. However, such functionality is beyond the scope of these instructions and should only be undertaken by Users who have the requisite level of expertise in spreadsheet management.


8. Recurring TransactionsThis worksheet can be used to hold sets of regularly recurring transactions (eg: monthly utilities/services bills or subscription payments) to facilitate data entry by avoiding the necessity to re-create the transactions on each occasion. Instead, all that is required is toenter the transaction-specific data (eg: the date & reference number of the transactions and, in some cases, the amounts), the information which is the same each time (eg: the category, payee and description) being already in place.

This worksheet is not directly referenced by any other worksheet.The information in it is only ever transferred to other worksheets manually. If it is notrequired the entire worksheet can safely either be ignored or deleted entirely.

8.1. Regular Individual Transactions (Row 7)

This row illustrates how single recurring transactions – whether they recur regularly (eg: onthe same day for the same amount each month) or occasionally (on different dates and/or for different amounts) can be pre-set up in this “Recurring” worksheet and then simply copied/pasted as required into the relevant “Transaction” worksheet.

8.2. Regular Grouped Transactions (Rows 14-16)

These rows illustrate a group of regularly recurring transactions which all occur at (or about) the same time, in this example a salary payment which is spread over several different categories.

All the transactions in the group can be copied and transferred/pasted into the Transactionworksheet at the same time (ie: by highlighting all three rows for Copy&PasteSpecial). Note that, in this example, the formula =A14 is used in cells A15 & A16 (coloured pink) to copy the date entered for the first transaction in the group down into the other associated transaction occurring at the same time. When copying these cells to the Transactions worksheets, these formulae MUST be removed (by using “Copy & Paste-Special”, rather than simple “Copy & Paste”) otherwise problems will occur when trying to sort the Transactions data.

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8.3. Regular Grouped Transactions with Calculations (Rows 22-29)

These rows illustrate how users with more expertise in the use of formulae can use the Recurring worksheet to set up more sophisticated transactions for transfer to the ordinary Transactions worksheets.

The transactions illustrated here (rows 22-24) hold the GROSS salary payment to a memberof staff allocated across several different expenditure categories – general administrative cost, a restricted project fund, fundraising costs.

Rows 25 & 26 show the employee's PAYE & NI deductions from the gross salary transferred to a holding category (_U-HMRC PAYE&NIC) for subsequent payment to HMRC.

The sum of cells F22-25, £638.58, is therefore the NET salary paid to the employee on 15-Oct-15 by cheque 2356, the date and cheque number being replicated from row 22 into rows 23-25 by the use of the formulae =A$22 & =B$22 respectively.

Rows 26-29 show the subsequent payment to HMRC of the employee's PAYE & NIC (as deducted at row 25) plus the employer's NIC

The total employer's NI contribution associated with this salary payment is entered into cell I23 and gets allocated to each of the salary expenditure categories pro-rata to the gross salary allocated to each category by use of the formula =-$I$23/SUM($F$22:$F$24)*F22

Not all users of the Simple Accounts Spreadsheet will require this level of sophistication.This illustration is simply to give more experienced users some ideas of the ways that the Recurring worksheet can be used to avoid the necessity to re-enter “from scratch” regularly recurring transactions, particularly where those transactions involve the allocation of expenditure (or income) over multiple categories.

NOTE: Although it is OK to use more sophisticated formulae in the way illustrated (cells highlighted in pink) within the Recurring worksheet, such formulae MUST NEVER BE TRANSFERRED to the regular transactions worksheets.

The use of formulae in this way in the Transactions worksheets will cause no end of difficulties.

It is therefore ESSENTIAL that, when transferring recurring transactions to the relevant transactions worksheet, you NEVER use “ordinary” Paste, but always:

Paste-Special-Values in MS-Excel (a “screen-grab” illustration is not available);

orPaste-Special, Text+Number+Date&TimeONLY (never Formulae or Formats) inOpenOffice-Calc, as illustrated.


9. Budget ReportThe Budget Report worksheet summarises thecharity's financial activities in a format whichis suitable for presentation at meetings ofthe Finance Committee, Trustees or GeneralMembership of the Charity.

The Budget Report is designed to reflectthe layout of the Annual FinancialStatements and so enables Trustees andothers to monitor throughout the year howthe charity's financial reports are buildingup to what will ultimately appear in theAnnual Report & Financial Statements.

The Budget Report is updated automaticallyeach time a transaction is entered into theBank or Cash worksheets.

Therefore, provided that the transactionworksheets are up-to-date the only actionrequired to produce a Budget Report (eg: topresent to the Trustees, a donor, etc) is toset the appropriate Budget Report Date andthen print off the Report.

9.1. Budget Report Date

The only data entry necessaryon this worksheet is to selectthe required Report Date fromthe drop-down list at cell G1.

This date is also used elsewhere in thespreadsheet.

9.2. The Columns in the Budget ReportWorksheets

Column-A: are the categories as set up inthe Categories worksheet.

Column-B: are the “Prev Yr Out-turn” data which are entered manually when creating the new year spreadsheet, as described in Section 15.5. Enter the Budget Data.

Column-D: are the full year budgets for each category, taken from column-D of the Categories worksheet.

Column-E: are the budgets-to-date for each category and are calculated by aggregating the data set up in columns H-S of the Categories worksheet up to the date specified by the Report Date.

Column-G: are the aggregated receipts/payments for each category up to the date specified by the Report Date, as calculated in column-B of the Categories worksheet..

Column-I: are the difference between the budget-to-date (column-E) and the actual receipts/payments to date (column-G);Adverse variances (ie: actual income LESS than budgeted, or actual expenditure GREATER than budgeted) are shown in RED.

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10. Customising the Categories & Budget Report.

It is important to note that the Budget Report Worksheet is derived from the Categories worksheet. So changes in one require complementary changes to be made in the other.

If these are not made correctly – and in the right order – inconsistencies and errors will be created.It is therefore important that these instructions are followed accurately.

10.1. Changing Category Names

Where all that is required is a simple change to the text of the Category Name eg: it is desired that, at row 4, “_R1-Membership” should read “_R1-Annual Subs”all that is necessary is to overtype the existing text with the required text.

The name change will automatically be reflected in the Budget Report Worksheet and any drop-down list of category names for the subsequent entry of transaction data.

VERY IMPORTANT NOTE:As this simple spreadsheet is NOT a fully functional relational database, changes in Category Names are NOT automatically reflected in any data which had been entered into the Transactions worksheet previously referring to the old category name.Therefore, making the above change to the Categories Name does NOT alter the category name at rows 12,16,17,18,etc in the Bank transactions worksheet. Those (and all other transactions referring to the old category name) have to be changed manually otherwise those transactions WILL NOT be included in the aggregate for the new category name or in the budget report.

10.2. Deleting a Category Namea) go FIRST to the Budget Report worksheet;

b) highlight the entire row containing the category name to be deleted and delete the entire row using Edit/DeleteCells;

c) THEN go to the Categories worksheet;

d) again, highlight the corresponding entire row containing the category name to be deleted and delete the entire row using Edit/DeleteCells,

e) the deletion of that category is now completeBut note that if there were any transactions which were allocated to the category now deleted, the amounts of those transactions will not be included in any aggregation leading to errors in the summaries until those transactions are re-allocated to another functional category.

10.3. Adding a New Category Name

There are some minor differences between the procedure for inserting new rows in MS-Excel® and OpenOffice-Calc®.

This example illustrates how an additional category, for recording the contributions from Supporters, can be inserted between the existing categories of _R1-Members and _R1-Donations at rows 4 & 5 respectively.

a) FIRST go to the Categories worksheet and highlight the entire row at which you wish to insert the new Category row.In the illustration this is at row 6 – ie: the new Category is to be inserted between the current Categories “_R1M-Subscriptions” and “_R1M-Friends”;

b) Copy the entire row using Ctrl+C or Edit/Copy;


c) In MS-Excel: - Insert a new row at this point using Insert/RowsThis will create a new row containing the cells copied in the previous step;

In OpenOffice Calc: Insert a new row at this point using Insert/RowsThis will create a new blank row at the required point.To insert the cells copied in the previous step use Ctrl-V

d) Type the new Category Name & Full Year Budget into the cells in columns A & D respectively of the new row, over-typing the values copied there when inserting the newrow.

e) You will also need to enter the appropriate data into columns H:S if you require a flexedbudget for this category (for more details see Section 4.7.).However, if the cells H:S copied from the previous row had previously been modified to create a flexed budget and you require a simple uniform budget you will need to restorethe formulae in those cells (circled in light blue).The required formula for each of the cells is: =$Dnn/12where “nn” is the row number (in this example =$D5/12)

f) DO NOT ALTER THE FORMULAE IN COLUMNS B, F & T

g) Next, go to the BudgetReport worksheet and there repeat steps a-c above.

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Note that in the BudgetReport worksheet, once the formulae have been copied into the new row the new category name, budget figures, Actual to Date and Variance are all displayed correctly. ONLY the Previous year out-turn in column-B needs to be over-typed with the correct value.ALL THE OTHER COLUMNS IN THE BUDGET REPORT CONTAIN FORMULAE AND SHOULD NOT BE ALTERED.


11. Assets WorkSheetThe Cash Assets Worksheet is included just to illustrate how the “open source” nature of the Simple Accounts Spreadsheet can be exploited to aggregate & present the organisation's financial transactions in a variety of ways to suit the needs of the Trustees.

For example: as well as formatting the organisation's assets in a form which can be “cut & pasted” directly into the organisation's Annual Financial Statements, a print-out of the Assets Worksheet can also be included along with the Treasurer's regular reports to the Trustees.

The Cash Assets WorkSheet will need to be tailored to the individual needs of each user-organisation.

The Cash Assets Sheet is updated automatically each time you enter a transaction and so itis always immediately available.

Other than the individual starting "B/Fwd" values from the previous year, which are entered manually (as described in Section 14.9. Update the Cash Assets WorkSheet.), you do not need to alter any of the entries on this worksheet.The summations are calculated by formulae.

Note that in this simple illustration there is no separate validation of the allocation of funds. The amount shown for the General Fund is simply the total amount less that identified as being allocated to designated or restricted funds.

12. Annual AccountsLike the Assets Worksheet, the Annual Accounts worksheet illustrates how the Simple Accounts Spreadsheet can be configured to produce financial reports in a variety of formats.

In this case, the Worksheet aggregates the organisation's financial transactions into a form which can, effectively, just be copied & pasted into the organisation's Annual Report and Financial Statements.

Note: Both the Assets and Annual Accounts worksheet are NOT referred to from anywhere else in the spreadsheet.

If they are not felt to be appropriate/useful they can safely be ignored, used forother purposes, or simply deleted.

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13. Dealing with Transactions Across Different Financial Years.As indicated in section 1.3. Receipts & Payments vs Accruals Accounts, a common problem when using simple Receipts & Payments accounts is how to deal with transactions which occur in one year but actually relate to an activity which occurs in a different year (usuallythe preceding or subsequent year).

This is a long-standing issue. Some sections argue that such problems render Receipts-and-Payments accounts inadequate and that ALL accounts, regardless of the size of the charity, should be managed on the accruals bases. Other sections argue that accruals accounts are unnecessarily complex for the non-professional Trustees of small charities to understand properly, thereby undermining their legal responsibility for the prudent management of their charity.

This issue was reviewed back in 2008 by the Charity Finance Group:http://cfg.org.uk/~/media/Document%20library/01%20Accounting/01%20Charity%20Accounts-%20Financial%20Statements%20and%20Annual%20Returns/The_Use_of_Receipts_and_Payments_Accounts_for_Financial_Reporting_by_Smaller_Charities_0908GMIS0001.ashx

Although there have been some slight improvements since then, the issues (and problems) essentially remain the same.The problems can arise in a variety of ways, and with different impacts.

The Charity Commission guidance on Receipts & Payments accountsPublication CC16b Receipts and Payments Accounts: Introductory Notes https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/352874/cc16btext.pdfrecognises this problem and the distortions that it can create if a large payment is made inone year but relates to another, resulting in an unusually large deficit in the year in which the payment occurs and a correspondingly usually large surplus in the year to which the payment actually relates (and vice versa where a large payment is received “out-of-year”).

For that reason, the guidance notes CC16b say that statement of assets and liabilities to accompany the Receipts & Payments accounts of a charity....:

....should include a summary of the assets and liabilities held by the charity.....Other monetary assets may include: • tax reclaim(s) due; • recoverable grants and charitable loans due to the charity; and • other debts (recoverable amounts) due to the charity.Liabilities may include: • taxes due +but not yet paid; • amounts due to staff for wages, salaries, etc; and • suppliers’ accounts not yet paid.

Although not suitable for formal accruals accounting, (eg: for charitable companies and other charities where their constitution requires that their accounts be on an accruals basis) the Simple Accounts Spreadsheet for Small Charities can accommodate, on a Receipts-and-Payments basis, most of the situations where transactions spill over from one financial year to the next.

In the following examples the financial year of the charity is 01-Jan to 31-Dec

13.1. Example 1: Delay in presenting a cheque

You write a cheque to pay someone for goods/services/expenses early in December, but the recipient does not pay it into their own account until the following January (or later). The payment relates to the previous year but does not appear in the bank statement (and, therefore, in the amount of cash in the bank at the end of the financial year) until the following year.

In cases like this the payment is regarded as having been made on the day that the cheque was dated and signed for the purpose of entering the transaction into the spreadsheet. So

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/352874/cc16btext.pdf

http://cfg.org.uk/~/media/Document%20library/01%20Accounting/01%20Charity%20Accounts-%20Financial%20Statements%20and%20Annual%20Returns/The_Use_of_Receipts_and_Payments_Accounts_for_Financial_Reporting_by_Smaller_Charities_0908GMIS0001.ashx

http://cfg.org.uk/~/media/Document%20library/01%20Accounting/01%20Charity%20Accounts-%20Financial%20Statements%20and%20Annual%20Returns/The_Use_of_Receipts_and_Payments_Accounts_for_Financial_Reporting_by_Smaller_Charities_0908GMIS0001.ashx


cheques which are un-presented at the the end of the year like this still get accounted for in the current year's annual accounts.

However, because such un-presented cheques (and similar transactions) are unreconciled at the end of the financial year they create a discrepancy between what the accounts show as being in the bank account and what the bank statement shows as being in the account.

As described in section 7.5. Filtering Unreconciled Transactions, the Simple Accounts Spreadsheet can produce a report of the unreconciled transactions at any point. This is particularly useful at the end of the financial year, so that the Independent Examiner of the accounts can easily validate any end-of-year discrepancy between the accounts and the bank statement.

In addition, the Simple Accounts Spreadsheet includes facilities to allow such unreconciled transactions to be carried forward to the next financial year to allow them to be properly reconciled with subsequent bank statements. The process includes re-categorising the transactions as U-PFY Unreconciled (PriorFinancialYearUnreconciled, as described in a latersection 14.2. Delete Reconciled Transactions) to ensure that they do not get “double-counted” or distort the following year's accounts when they do eventually appear in the bank statement.

13.2. Example 2: Delay in depositing payments

This can occur when payments to the charity are received by the charity too late to be banked before the end of the financial year.

They can be treated in the same way as cheques which are delayed in presentation (as above), ie: entered as transactions into the spreadsheet as having been received on the day that the payment arrived. They will similarly be unreconciled against the end-of-yearbank statement and included in the unreconciled transaction report for validation by the Independent Examiner. They will also be carried forward into the following year's accounts re-categorised as unreconciled transactions (U-PFY Unreconciled ) for checking off against subsequent bank statements.

13.3. Example 3: Late arriving receipts and claims for payments

In a perfect world everyone will get in their claims for payments, or pay their bills, before the end of the financial year to which they relate.

But in the real world this doesn't always happen !!In such cases a pragmatic solution may be needed.

If the late arrival of a bill or payment is not too long after the end of the financial year it might be possible to enter it retrospectively (ie: date the transaction as of 31 December) and then treat it as an unreconciled (delayed presentation) cheque or deposited receipt as in sections 13.1. & 13.2. above. However, it would be wise first to check with your Independent Examiner that he/she would be willing to accept that.

If not then there is little alternative but to include such late arrivals as transactions in the following year's accounts. If they are “immaterial” - ie: are for small amounts that would not distort the overall accounts for the current year then they are just entered as a normalin-year transaction. But if they are large enough to be “material” you might want to add one or two additional categories to record transactions left over from a previous year to avoid distorting the budgets for the current year. And you may also need to include an appropriate explanatory note to the accounts, both the previous year's accounts (if it is nottoo late) as well as the current year's accounts.

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Note that payments of any nature to Trustees must always be treated as “material” irrespective of the amount. So it is important that all Trustees understand that they must set a good example and always make sure that their expenses claims are made in good time before the end of the financial year to which they relate.

13.4. Example 4: Regular Payments in Advance

This situation typically arises where, for example, your charity rents premises on a quarterly basis – an office, or an activity hall – and is required to pay each quarter's rent in advance – eg:-the rent for the quarter, Jan-Mar, is due on or before 31 Dec end of financial year date. To avoid holiday period delays, you pay the next quarter's rent on 15 Dec. So you have made a payment in this financial year for an expense which relates to the nextfinancial year.

The Receipts & Payments method of accounting makes dealing with this very easy.This kind of payment recurs each year with no more than minor increments to the amount due to inflation. The payment in advance in the previous year will have caused an apparent under-spend in the current year which gets cancelled out by the corresponding payment in advance at the end of the current year. Any minor differences due to inflationwill not distort either this year's or next year's accounts to the point of making them unrepresentative or misleading (ie: they are “immaterial”, in accountancy jargon) and can therefore be ignored.

So the rent is just entered into the spreadsheet on the day that it is paid and accounted for in that year, the counter-balancing transaction in the previous year having been entered similarly. The same will be repeated in subsequent years. Where, occasionally, there is a significant changes in the rent (eg: your charity takes on additional accommodation) which is not immaterial, this will generally have been known well in advance and can be dealt with in a note to the accounts.

The same considerations apply to regular payments which apply to periods which cover more than one financial year.

For example: Your Trustees' Indemnity Policy premium gets paid in October and runs for 12months. So ¼ of the premium covers the period Oct-Dec in the current year and the remaining ¾ is an advance payment for the period Jan-Sep in the following year. As the premium is essentially consistent from year to year so that the payment in advance in one year is offset by payments in advance in the previous and following year, any increase in the premium due to inflation can be ignored as immaterial.

13.5. Example 5: Ad Hoc Receipts in Advance

A common problem with membership charities occurs when members' annual subscriptions are due at the beginning of the financial year and some members pay their subscriptions inadvance (ie: towards the end of the previous financial year). If the same members alwayspay their subscriptions in advance so that the total amounts do not vary much from year toyear then the impact on the charity's accounts is self-compensating from year to year and can be disregarded. But by far the simplest way to deal with this (and similar) situations is to move the due date for membership subscriptions back from the beginning of the financial year (eg: to the beginning of the second month) and to “vigorously encourage” members NOT to pay their subscriptions earlier than that.

But such an approach is not always possible, eg: where the charity wants to sell tickets in the current financial year for a one-off (ie: not expected to occur annually) event which will not happen until the following financial year.


The first step is to consult with your Independent Examiner for his/her views on how this should be dealt with. At the end of the day the IE has to sign off that he/she is satisfied that whatever has been done is consistent with the relevant regulations and guidance.

One possible solution that works easily within the Simple Accounts Spreadsheet format is tocreate a category U-AdvanceReceipts and initially allocate the advance ticket sales receipts to that. That avoids having to record the advance payments along with the receipts for other in-year activities thereby distorting the cash-flow pattern and making it more difficult to identify the total receipts for ticket sales for the event when it actually occurs in the following year. Setting up a category to keep the advance receipts separately identified enables them to be carried forward to the following year and to be reported in the notes to the Annual Accounts as “Liabilities – Receipts in Advance” (they are a “liability” because until the event has actually occurred the money, technically, still belongs to the payer and so would have to be refunded if the event were cancelled).

Then, in the following year's accounts an internal transaction is made from the brought forward U-AdvanceReceipts category to the appropriate activity income category so that the payments in advance can then be picked up, analysed and managed in the usual way. Note that, because this is a self-compensating internal transaction it has no net effect on the amount of money in the bank account.

13.6. Example 6: Ad hoc Payments in Advance

You charity wants to run a big charity activity at the end of January and has hired a venue for it. The venue requires a 25% deposit in advance – so that has to be paid in the current financial year though the event will be held in the following year. As the venue hire - and therefore the deposit - is a significant amount of money, you really want the deposit to be included in next year's accounts alongside the balance of the venue hire so that the true (ie: full) cost of the activity can be accounted for in the financial year that the event occurred.

This situation is similar to the previous example and you should consult your Independent Examiner on how it should be treated.

One possibility is to allocate the 25% deposit payment to category U-AdvancePayments in the current year and report it in the notes to the accounts as “Other monetary assets – payments made in advance”. The funds in U-Prepayments then get carried forward into the following year when a self-compensating (ie: no change to the amount in the bank account) internal transfer is made between the U-AdvancePayments and relevant “CharitableActivties” categories – effectively the cost of the deposit on the venue is then charged to the CharitableActivities category and paid for from the notional monetary assetheld in U-PrePayments brought forward from the previous year.

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14. End-of-Year Operations

14.1. Create New Spreadsheet for New Financial Yeara) Open the End-of-Year Spreadsheet for the financial year just completed;

b) Make at least one, and preferably two (or more) backup copies;

c) Save a copy of the Spreadsheet for the coming financial year with a new name.

d)

e) The remaining instructions in this section apply to the new spreadsheet for the coming financial year leaving the spreadsheet(s) for the previous financial year unaltered.

f) The instructions are different for OpenOfficeCalc and MS-Excel 2007/2010.

14.2. Delete Reconciled Transactionsa) Move to the Bank transactions worksheet and make a note of the end-of-year

Transaction Balance, Reconciled Balance and Unreconciled Transaction in cells J2, K2 & L2 respectively;

b) Delete all of Last Year's Reconciled Transactions:

MS-Excel:Click on the filter drop-down button for

the R'd Column-GScroll down and uncheck the (Blanks) boxClick [OK]

OpenOffice Calc:Click on the filter drop-down button

for the R'd Column-GClick on “Standard Filter”In the pop-up window ensure that the

“Value” field is set to “ - not empty -”;Click [OK]

This selects just the transactions which have been reconciled with the bank statement;


c) Click on the range-name box at the top-left corner of the menu bars, scroll down the drop-down list and click on “BankTrans” to select all the Bank transactions data cells (Bank!A4:G2000);

You'll see that the unreconciled transactions at rows 61, 71, 85, 122, 139 & 145-7 are hidden (see also section 7.5. Filtering Unreconciled Transactions).

d) Press the keyboard [Delete] key to delete all these reconciled transactions.DON’T WORRY ! – only the filtered transactions will be deleted. When you remove the filter all the hidden unreconciled transactions will be found to have been retained intact.

e) Clear the filter as described in section 7.3. Removing Filtering.;This will display all the rows in the worksheet, most of which will now be empty, leavingjust the unreconciled transactions.The #VALUE which appears in Column-H (only in MS-Excel, NOT in OpenOffice Calc) is a consequence of earlier cells being blank and will disappear when the transactions are re-sorted as follows;

f) Sort the remaining unreconciled transactions into date-order as described in section6.7. Sorting Transactions. This will sort all the remaining unreconciled transactions to the top of the worksheet in date order.

14.3. Re-set the End of the Financial Yeara) On the Introduction worksheet, update cell A11 (FYEDate) to the new financial year end

(as at Section 3.1.b)) and re-save the spreadsheet

14.4. Update Unreconciled Transactions to New Financial Yeara) As the unreconciled transactions have been accounted for in the previous year their

Category must be changed to avoid them being counted again in the current year;For the first unreconciled transaction, click on the drop-down button of the Category cell (column-C), scroll to the bottom of the list and click on “O-PFY Unreconciled” to update the Category.

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b) Repeat the operation for all the other unreconciled transactions.Alternatively you can use “Click & Drag” to copy to Category from the first transaction into all the others. But Note: This is one of the rare occasions when it is practical, and permissible, to use “Click & Drag” within the transactions worksheets.

14.5. Update Balancesa) Enter into the new year's Brought Forward Transactions Balance, cell H3, the

RECONCILED Balance from cell K2 of the previous year (as noted in step 14.2.a) above) – ie: the reconciled balance as in the end-of-year bank statement.Note: NOT the transactions balance from cell J2

b) The opening Transactions Balance (cell J2);Reconciled Balance (cell K2) and UnreconciledTransactions (cell L2) update automatically to bethe figures bought forward from the previous year.

14.6. Bring Forward Any Payments/Receipts inAdvance

If you entered any Payments or Receipts in Advance in the previous year (see sections13.5. Example 5: Ad Hoc Receipts in Advance & 13.6. Example 6: Ad hoc Payments in Advance) they can be brought forward and entered here.

Note that the value of the transaction is first reversed – eg: the £500 advance payment to Friends House on 19-Nov-15 is entered as if it was a receipt (at row 12) – effectively paying


the money back into the account It is then re-entered as a payment on 01-Jan-16 (at row 14), this time allocating the payment amount to the appropriate expenditure category, P2-Networking. Similarly the £360 of registrations in advance for the Feb. Conference are first entered as a payment on 20-Dec-15 and then re-entered as a receipt on 01-Jan-16.

This replicates, albeit in a somewhat clumsy manner, “double-entry” book-keeping in which every transaction to one category is counter-balanced by an “opposite” transaction to another. The effect in this case is to transfer the money from the “payment/receipt in advance” categories to the appropriate activity category. There is, of course, no net change in the bank balance itself.

And because these transactions never appear in the bank statement they are “reconciled” by entering an “A” in the R'd column-G to ensure that they do not subsequently appear as unreconciled transactions.

14.7. Update the Categories Worksheeta) The column headings for the Monthly Budget (cells H2:S2) will have been updated

automatically when the Financial Year End was updated at step14.1.d);.

However, note that, initially, cells B2 & F2 will continue to display the date of the last Budget Report of the previous financial year.This will be corrected as soon as a date for a Budget Report for the current year is selected in the Budget Report Worksheet.No attempt should be made to alter either of those values/formulae directly.

b) Update the Budget figures, columns D & H:S, for the new financial year, as described in Sections 4.5. Column D {Full Year Budget} & 4.7. Columns H to S {Monthly Budgets}

14.8. Update the Budget Reporta) Move to the Budget Report Worksheet;

b) Manually update the data in column B, the out-turn figures for each category for the previous financial year, to the values from the previous year’s financial report.Note: that only the out-turn figures for the individual categories need to be entered, the aggregates for groups of categories are calculated by formulae (ie: if the cell contains a formula, rather than a number, don’t change it);

c) The data in all other cells, columns D:I, in the worksheet are picked up from the Budgetfigures in the Categories worksheet and should not be altered.

14.9. Update the Cash Assets WorkSheet.Move to the Cash Assets WorkSheet and manually update the B/Fwd data, as in section15.6. Enter the Cash Assets WorkSheet Data

14.10. End of Update to New Financial YearThis completes the end-of-year update of the spreadsheet for the new financial year whichshould be saved for future use, as normal.

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15. Creating a New Set of AccountsCreating a new set of accounts is very similar to going through the End of Year process.

15.1. First of All – EXPERIMENT !!Save at least one – preferably several – copies of the supplied demonstration Spreadsheet before doing anything else.Remember “Murphy’s Law” “If all seems to be going well, you’ve obviously overlooked something”All charities are different.There is no “one size fits all” when it comes to bookkeeping your accounts.You will undoubtedly need to try a variety of different ways of doing things before you settle on the one that suits your charity best.There are lots of interactions between the different parts of the system.Do small tests in different sections rather than trying to set whole sections up one-by-one.On the Transactions Worksheet.

a) Start by making small changes – the date, reference, amount, category – to the existing demonstration transactions;

b) Then try adding some transactions of your own.Don’t worry at this stage if the demonstration categories don’t fit your requirements, just choose one that is reasonably close;

c) Then try filtering and sorting transactions;

On the Categories Worksheet.

d) Next do the same thing with the categories- start by making small changes to the text of the existing accounts to see the effect on the Budget Worksheet (the changes should reflect there automatically) and on the Transactions Worksheet (the changes are NOT reflected there automatically – where transactions are associated with a category whichhas been changed, all affected transactions have to have their categories updated individually by hand.);

e) Next try changing the monthly and annual budget figures – particularly noting the difference between those where the monthly amounts are just 1/12th of the annual amount and those where the monthly amounts are flexed/irregular;

f) Finally try first deleting unwanted categories and then adding new categories. This is the area where mistakes and errors are most likely to occur, so be very careful to read and follow the instructions in Section 10.;

On the Remaining Worksheets.

g) The remaining worksheets (Budget Report, Balance Sheet, Recurring Transactions) are either fed from other worksheets and require little alteration or are essentially replicas of other sections and therefore require less individual attention.

15.2. Set the Charity Name and Financial YearFollow the instructions in Section 3. Getting Started

15.3. Clear All the Demonstration TransactionsOn the Bank & Cash Transactions worksheet:

a) Click on the range-name box at the top-left corner of the menu bars, scroll to the bottom of the drop-down list and click on “BankTrans” or “CashTrans” to select all the transaction data cells;


b) Press the [Delete] key to remove all the demonstration transactions;

c) Enter the End-of-Year closing balance from the bank statement into cell H3Note that atthis point cellJ3 may showan “unusual”date (eg: 30-Dec-99) for thecurrentbalance. Thisis normal and will reset to the correct date as soon as some transactions have been entered;

15.4. Set up the Required Categories Structurea) Unless your charity already has a well-established categories structure which you intent

to retain, this is undoubtedly the most challenging part of setting up the Simple Accounts System.It is therefore particularly critical that you have given some careful thought to what categories structure you want as it can be a major undertaking to make anything other than minor alterations to the structure once it has been set up.

b) The demonstration structure attempts to follow the Charity Commission guidelines for small charities (whether incorporated as charitable companies or unincorporated organisations) so, hopefully is a good starting point for most needs.

c) REMEMBER – particularly at the initial setting up stage, it is much easier and safer to rename or delete existing categories than to add new ones. A crude “slash and burn” approach will undoubtedly create more problems than it avoids.

d) In the initial stages of setting up a new structure, unless they are positively getting in the way and making life difficult, it is better to leave in “unwanted” categories than to be too quick to delete them.It may be that, later, it is more convenient to simply re-name them to something that has been found to be needed that wasn’t recognised initially rather than having to create an entirely new category. And if they really are found to be unwanted they are easy enough to delete if no transactions have been recorded against them.

15.5. Enter the Budget Dataa) If you already have your budget for the new financial year it will probably be convenient

to enter it at this point.

b) If you don’t already have a budget for your new financial year that, in any case, is a priority for the Trustees to address.

c) But it is easy to update the budget data at any stage of the year, so it does not create an operational problem for the Simple Accounts System if entering budget data is postponed, except of course that it will significantly limit the value of the Budget Report.

15.6. Enter the Cash Assets WorkSheet Data

The Cash Assets worksheet show how much money the organisation has, where it is held, and the categories of activity to which the money is allocated.

As such, it has an important role to play in keeping the Trustees (and administrative staff) properly informed about the financial situation of the organisation and whether (or not) it is financially sound and able to meet all its obligations for the foreseeable future.

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Because each organisation's needs and financial procedures are unique, there is not enoughflexibility in spreadsheet technology to be able to configure an accounting system which meets the diversity of small charities “out of the box”. And many commercial software packages can also be quite complex to configure initially

This worksheet is simply show the sort of techniques which can be used to set up a Cash Assets worksheet based on the transactions data held elsewhere.

However, once set up and configured to the organisation's specific financial context, the only data which need to be entered manually in this worksheet are the starting balances carried forward from the previous financial year. These are taken from your bank statement or, for a newly starting charity, will be zero and are entered into the relevant cells in column-B

15.7. Enter Any Unreconciled Transactions from the Previous Year

Strictly speaking, charities using Receipts & Payments accounting procedures will not have any unreconciled transactions carried forward from a previous year as ALL transactions are accounted for on the date on which they occur – ie: appear in the bank statement.

However, for a variety of reasons, this is not always practical.

a) Newly starting charities will not have any unreconciled transactions.

b) Unreconciled transactions from a previous year are transactions which have already been accounted for in the previous year’s accounts but have not yet passed through the bank account and, therefore, do not appear on the bank statement at the end of the previous year.This is generally caused by cheques being issued late in the financial year and the recipient having not yet got around to presenting them to their own bank. Deposits canalso be delayed, eg: where a payment cheque has been received by the organisation but it is not practical to get to the bank to deposit it immediately, or for organisations which use postal banking;

c) These transactions should be re-entered into the new accounts in order that, when theydo eventually appear in the bank statement they can be “ticked off” as having been processed. And, even more importantly, if they do not appear in the bank statement after a reasonable period of time they can be followed up (eg: where a recipient has forgotten/lost a cheque or just decided not to cash it but leave it as a “donation” to thecharity) so that the accounts can be adjusted accordingly;

d) However, in order to avoid unreconciled transactions being accounted for twice (once when the cheque/deposit was issued in the previous year, second when analysed in the current year’s accounts) they should ALWAYS be entered with the category set to _U-PFY-Unreconciled, regardless of what the transaction was originally for.

15.8. Enter Transactions for the Current YearCommence entering financial data on a regular basis.

15.9. Prepare Budget Report for Trustees/Management Committeea) Complete any outstanding budget entries or adjustments;

b) Produce and “print” a budget report on receipts & payments to date against budget for review by the Treasurer and, when appropriate, the Trustees;

c) Repeat at regular intervals to ensure prudent financial management and governance of the charity;

d) Review category structure and budget settings from time to time to ensure that they are consistent with the charitable objectives and operational management procedures of the charity.

a simple accounts spreadsheet for small charities ... accounts spreadsheet for small charities &...

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