Non-profit and charity accountants.

Non-profit and charity accountants track income by restriction rather than only by type, because a restricted grant is a promise to spend money on one purpose and must be reported separately until it is. The accounts then follow the Charities SORP in the UK, or the Form 990 series in the United States.

Non-profit and charity accounting follows different conventions from for-profit work. Restricted vs unrestricted funds must be tracked separately. Grant income recognition depends on conditions and performance obligations. Reporting follows SORP (Statement of Recommended Practice) in the UK or the equivalent regimes in other jurisdictions. Boards and trustees expect particular formats. And public-benefit reporting is a real obligation, not a marketing exercise.

We work with UK charities (registered with the Charity Commission for England & Wales or OSCR for Scotland), US 501(c)(3) organisations, UAE non-profit foundations and Canadian and Australian charitable entities. The mechanics differ but the discipline is the same: clean fund accounting, grant-specific tracking, defensible public-benefit narrative and audit-ready records. The daily posting behind that runs through our cloud bookkeeping service, and the reporting trustees see each month through our monthly management accounts service.

For UK charities with income above £25,000, an annual return is required to the Charity Commission. Above £250,000, full statutory accounts under SORP are required. Above £1m, audit becomes mandatory. We prepare for each level and coordinate with charity-specialist auditors when audit is required.

In a commercial ledger, income is income. In a charity ledger, every pound carries a condition. Unrestricted funds can be spent on any charitable purpose. Restricted funds can only be spent on the purpose the donor specified, and unspent balances carry forward as a visible obligation. Endowment funds cannot be spent at all, or only their income can. Designated funds are unrestricted money the trustees have earmarked, which looks like a restriction but is not one and can be undesignated by the same trustees who created it.

That structure has to exist in the bookkeeping from day one, not be reconstructed at the year end. Each fund needs its own income, its own direct costs, and a defensible basis for the share of support costs allocated to it. Get the allocation wrong and a grant appears overspent, which triggers a clawback conversation with the funder, or appears underspent, which weakens the next application. We set the fund structure and the allocation basis up front, agree it with the trustees in writing, and hold it steady across years so comparatives mean something.

The reporting obligations then stack by size. In England and Wales the Charity Commission requires registration once income passes 5,000 pounds, an annual return and accounts within 10 months of the year end, independent examination once income passes 25,000 pounds, and a full audit at the statutory thresholds above that. Scottish charities report to OSCR under its own rules. The Commission's summary guidance is published as Charity reporting and accounting: the essentials.

Two other items are worth naming. Gift Aid adds 25 pence for every eligible pound donated, and the reason claims fail is almost always declaration record-keeping rather than eligibility. And for organisations with a US arm, the IRS charities and non-profits regime runs on the Form 990 series, due on the fifteenth day of the fifth month after the year end, with the return itself a public document that funders read. Where a statutory audit is required we work alongside the auditor, as set out on our audit and assurance page. Charity payroll, including pension auto-enrolment for employed staff, runs through our payroll service. The rest of what a charity finance function needs sits in our list of accounting services we run.