Budgeting is a plan for saving and spending.
The purpose of budgeting is to provide a forecast of revenues and expenditure to construct a model of how an organisation might perform financially if certain strategies, events and plans are carried out.
Budget advice: plan ahead
It's already time to start preparing for next year's budget, advises Alistair Gibbons.
Changes to gift aid, inheritance tax and mileage rates have been welcomed by sector leaders after a Budget announcement hailed as the “best Budget for charities in years”.
Setting targets in a time of uncertainty
Chris Harris highlights the key risks facing sector organisations in the current public spending climate.
Building the budget
Alistair Gibbons, head of finance at Citizens Advice, explains that his budget is the bedrock for his year ahead.
With a raft of issues to keep on top of during the coalition's Big Society shake-up, David Davison warns not to overlook pensions in your budgets.
Budgeting in times of uncertainty
Tim Smith lists his top tips for devising budgets in an economic slump.
The Big Society “is a big con”, Unison’s General Secretary Dave Prentis, will warn at its conference A Future for Civil Society later today.
Small community groups had on average a 20 per cent drop in reserves last year, new research shows.
Ian Allsop provides an overview of the CFDG annual dinner and assesses that diners enjoy what's on their plates despite talk of lavish cuts.
The Charity Employees Benevolent Fund aims to have raised £400,000 by the end of next year and to have spent at least £250,000 helping over 500 families.
Nearly two-thirds of charity leaders expect their organisation’s financial situation to worsen over the next year, according to the latest Charity Forecast Survey from NCVO.
Prime Minister David Cameron told local authorities yesterday not to “do the easy thing” by cutting budgets for voluntary bodies in their communities.
Before the axe falls: preparing for grant cuts
With the cuts to grants and contracts looming, Selman Ansari outlines what rights charities have to contest cuts and how to prepare for the chop.
Andy Williamson explores why the forthcoming cuts should be welcomed by the sector.
The government has advised water companies to pass the cost of subsidising community groups’ water drainage charges on to all their other customers, including low-income households.
The rise in Capital Gains Tax announced in the emergency Budget could have a positive impact on philanthropy if wealthy individuals seek to avoid paying the higher rate by gifting more assets to charities.
The coalition government’s move to raise VAT to 20 per cent from 4 January next year will lost the charity sector in the region of £143m, Charity Tax Group has estimated.
Technical briefing: VAT cost-sharing exemption
HMRC recently announced in the Budget that it will work with the charity and not-for-profit sector to consider the implementation of a VAT cost-sharing exemption. Keith Lawson discusses the details.
Making it personal
Mark Horlock describes how personalised budgets are driving change in his finance department and across the organisation.
The government will commit no more than £75m from dormant bank accounts as initial capital for a Social Investment Wholesale Bank, it announced today in its Pre-Budget Report.
Adaptive planning
Financial budgets won’t necessarily deliver desired outcomes. Kate Sayer looks beyond the budget.
Budgeting for one
A radical change in social care funding designed to empower recipients will challenge charity accounting systems, say Mark Brend and Brendan Smith. From 2005 onwards a number of central government policy initiatives heralded the most radical reform of social care for half a century. Notably, in December 2007 Putting People First established the principle of personalisation of social care services, giving people more control over their own lives and services. These initiatives will have a profound impact on the charity sector, as much social care is provided by charities that get most of their income from public money, allocated via local authority contracts.
The collapse in the value of the pound on international money markets has cost Christian Aid around £15m, or 25 per cent of the value of its money, according to its director Daleep Mukarji.
With GDP plunging, Tim Brown finds comfort in equity yields. The race is on! Last autumn the IMF forecast that UK GDP would fall by 0.1 per cent in 2009; by the turn of the year independ-ent forecasters were suggesting a decline of around 2 per cent; in the Budget on 22 April the Treasury suggested a fall of 3.5 per cent and now the Bank of England has now sug-gested a fall of maybe 4.5 per cent.
Recession tonic
Mike Greensmith advocates getting a clear picture of the detail – and asking all the right questions – to steer you through a recession
The RSPCA is drawing up plans to reduce its expenditure by an aggregate of £54m over the next three years. RSPCA chief executive Mark Watts (pictured) told Charity News Alert that the shortfall was indicative of the problems charities face going into recession.
A Conservative government would enable charities to earn a surplus from public sector contracts just as private sector providers do, shadow charities minister Nick Hurd told an audience of charity chief executives last week.
Two of the UK's leading grantmakers have seen the values of their portfolios tumble as a result of recent turmoil in the stock market.
Voluntary organisations that are facing heightened demand for their services and yet suffering from cashflow shortfalls due to the recession will be able to apply to a new £20m grants fund announced by the government in today’s Budget.
Charity IT Survey 2009
In an increasingly online world, information technology has become a key driver of success for charities but also one in which charities struggle to keep up with developments. The Charity IT Survey 2009 allows charities of all shapes and sizes to benchmark themselves against their peers. Once again, the benefit of data integration across departments is highlighted, especially in the context of web based solutions. With increasing representation at board level, IT is just about holding its own in the contest for resources but charities are finding it difficult to really drive improvements with major investment or to adopt new technologies as they emerge.
