Charity accounting made easier with accounting software

With a wealth of regulations and guidelines to comply with, as well as extensive reporting requirements, you need the best tools at your disposal: and that comes in the form of smart software.

Charity accounting software is designed to make charities and nonprofits' lives easier when it comes to handling the financial side of things - as well as equipping them with the insight they need to make decisions and keep working towards their mission. Here’s how.

Benefits of accounting software for charities

All your financial data in one place

By using specifically designed charity accounting software, you’ll have complete visibility of all your financial data without having to log in and out of different systems.

You’ll be able to create separate accounts for different funds, view all your bookkeeping data, and keep track of things like restricted donations, gift aid claims, and fund transfers. Some software also offers dashboards with handy features like cash coding.

And, while everything’s in one place, you’ll still be able to create separate documents such as a statement of financial activities, balance sheet, or notes to the accounts, with fund-wise segregation.

By centralising your data, you’ll have tighter control and visibility of funds and costs across multiple income types, projects and departments - as well as having made things easier for yourself in advance, by being more organised when reporting rolls around.

Automation for efficiency

It goes without saying that automation - when used effectively - can make things more efficient, and reducing manual processes by embracing software can be a real cost-saver for charities.

Finance teams can find themselves freed up to focus on more meaningful work, and, by reducing the amount of hours spent on previously time-consuming manual tasks, accountants should be able to offer a more budget-friendly option for charities keen to put pennies towards their cause.

Automating things like bank reconciliation, expense and purchase order workflows, and invoice approval could make your life much easier, so look out for those features when choosing your software.

Specialised reporting

Whether it’s submitting annual accounts, creating a donations report, or providing information to regulatory bodies or stakeholders, charity accounting software can provide ready-made templates to make this as easy as possible.

Our charity bookkeeping and accounts production module, for example, offers an FRS 102 SORP template that means you can generate accounts quickly, easily and compliantly. You can also import reports from trustees or independent examiners, and merge them with your annual accounts before downloading them in a PDF format, ready to submit directly to the Charity Commission.

Using software can also encourage self-serve reporting. User-friendly interfaces like graphic dashboards make it simple for management, trustees, or other stakeholders to view and interpret data themselves - saving you time on producing reports for internal use.

By using ready-made templates, you’ll find it much easier to report back to the people who need to know the ins and outs of your charity’s finances, and keep compliance as stress-free as possible.

Share & receive insight

These days, the best charity accounting software is cloud-based - which means you, your team, stakeholders, trustees, and volunteers can all access the system whenever they need to share or receive information to do with your charity finances.

Project managers, for example, will be able to input any relevant data they have, while pre-approved workflows and automated checks will make sure your financial control is never compromised.

By setting up designated authority levels and approval procedures, you’ll be able to safeguard proper use of funds - all while maintaining a watertight audit trail.

Productivity at your fingertips

Whether you’re an accountant or part of a charity or non-profit finance team, Capium would love to offer more information about how you can manage your charity accounts more easily. Get in touch with Capium today or call 020 3322 5578.

Satinder Lala is Head of Marketing at Capium.