New tools help charities report expenses

Finance | Tania Mason | 2 Dec 2009

Two sector suppliers are already offering software tools to help charities record and report their senior managers and trustees’ expense claims, in anticipation of guidance from the independent expert group on charity expenses.

GuideStar UK and CharityBusiness have both developed tools, but each work quite differently.

GuideStar has added free functionality to its Update My Charity tool on its website, allowing charities to make a disclosure about their expenses and links to the limited Charity Commission advice that already exists.

The space allows narrative as well as figures and GuideStar envisages that charities will complete the section on an annual basis as they update their annual accounts, as part of their statutory reporting requirements.

The function will also allow visitors to the GuideStar website to search for charities that have disclosed their expenses, just as they can currently search for charities registered with the Fundraising Standards Board. GuideStar UK director Les Hems said: “If this is as serious an issue as some people think, we want to promote self-reporting and self-regulation and the free disclosure of that information before the Charity Commission or anybody else tells you that you must do this or that. We want to help charities demonstrate transparency.”

CharityBusiness’ offering is a software solution called CharityExpense that costs £3.75 per person per month. The customisable tool provides a means of assembling all the charity’s expense claims in one place online on a monthly basis as part of its monthly accounts.

Directory: Charity Business
Who's Who: Les Hems

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