CommUNITY Barnet's Financial Services

At CommUNITY Barnet, we can provide a financial service that offers professional and affordable services to help community and voluntary organisations meet their statutory obligations and manage themselves well.

Their team is suitably qualified and experienced and can deal with all technical accounting issues or just be a friendly voice on the phone when you need some advice.

Our financial services offers a variety of services: Independent Examination: An Independent Examination is a legal requirement and involves a comprehensive review of the charity’s accounting records and compares the annual accounts with those records. It can help to highlight any additional advice and support that could improve a charity’s financial management.

The procedures are defined by law and by the Directions of the Charity Commission. The independent examiner will gain an understanding of the charity, look at the accounts and supporting documents and write an independent report to accompany the accounts and Trustees’ report.

When choosing an independent examiner, you should make sure that they are fully independent of your charity, and suitably qualified to be able to carry out a proper charity independent examination.

As part of the service, the financial services can:

• Prepare your year-end accounts in the right format

• Provide a signed independent examiner’s report where required

• Help you to submit your charity annual return

• Provide advice and guidance to effectively manage your finances

The financial services can independently exam all accounts with an income up to £250,000.

Bookkeeping and financial systems: Keeping a ‘proper’ record of your finances plays a vital part in running any organisation.

The Accounting Advisers of CommUNITY Barnet’s financial services provide information, guidance and templates on a range of subjects including:

• Setting up a book-keeping systems for your new group

• Improving existing financial systems

• Internal Financial Controls

• Operating a petty cash system

• What documents you need to keep to back up your financial transactions

• How to reconcile your bank account when the statement arrives

• Choosing a bank account

• Accounting for both restricted and unrestricted funds

The Accounting Advisors also have a good working knowledge of XERO, SAGE and QuickBooks Accounting Software, and can also advise members with accounting queries who operate these accounting systems.

Financial Planning and Budgeting: Good financial planning plays a key part in the overall management and future sustainability of any organisation.

It helps inform the decisions of the management committee and can also highlight financial problems early on.

The Accounting Advisers provide support to groups in a variety of ways including:

• Guidance for preparing basic budgets and cash-flow forecasts

• What costs to consider when budgeting for a new project or grant application

• Allocating overheads and using full cost recovery principles

• What to think about when producing financial reports for the committee

• Understanding your year-end accounts figures

• What to consider when setting a target figure for reserves

If you have any questions regarding CommUNITY Barnet’s financial services, you can contact them on:

Telephone: 020 8364 8400

Email: finance@communitybarnet.org.uk / finance.admin@communitybarnet.org.uk

In addition, you can have a look at their website.

Please find below CommUNITY Barnet's Financial Services leaflet:

They look forward to hearing from you and assisting with your queries.