Does anyone know who can supply software for producing Charity Accounts, particularly a charity Limited By Guarantee.
Duncan Strachan
Replies (9)
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Use Paula to produce charity accounts
I fully agree that any standard accounting suite ought to be able to cope with any charity accounts, provided that it gives total flexibility of content and layout.
The problem is that the only way of getting that sort of flexibility has been to use a spreadsheet, which gives you virtually no accounting support and can't give as good a presentation as a word processor.
I have produced a package called "Paula", which enables you to draft the accounts on "Word" but gives calculation facilities equivalent to a spreadsheet. It enables you to import balances from any ledger, make journal adjustments, interogate the accounting data and produce working papers to analyse any figures in the accounts (together with comparatives).
I have used Paula with great success on a number of charities, including one that required consolidation with a trading subsidiary. I have never found anything I can't get it to do, simply by thinking "How would I do it manually? - Lets do it that way.".
If you are interested, please e-mail me at [email protected]
Regards
Nigel Evelegh
Vertical software is not always needed !
Duncan,
Very interesting comments from Eric:
"I have prepared the accounts of a registered charity using non-specific charity accounting software".
- we have done the same. The key thing from our client was not the year end accounts, but the day to day reporting. Yes we created a SORP view.
"It is after all the management accounts which are the most important"
- The key (our excel links to packages we offer) meant the template was setup once and merely changing the period number changed the figures under review. Keeping a 16tab excel sheet developed over years, but adding one tab that linked, saved the clients main headache..'I'm not moving because my management accounts will need re-doing'. Thereafter, it was unlimited banks, cash accounts, auto journals, VAT and purchase control (all fairly standard accounting functions)
Kind Regards
Daniel Clark
Ryba Macaulay Ltd
[email protected]
Standard Packages could do the job
I have prepared the accounts of a registered charity (turnover £2m +)which is also a company limited by guarantee using non-specific charity accounting software.
Unless there is very good reason for it,a standard accounting suite is sufficient.
It is after all the management accounts which are the most important.
I have found it extremely easty to produce the SORP at the year end and so have our auditors.
Great Plains Dynamics and Visual Alms for larger charities
I work with two well known charities and both use Great Plains Dynamics. Like any package, if you get the chart of accounts right from the outset it will really work for you. It does not handle fundraising and marketing but both these organisations use Visual Alms from Westwood Forster. The combination works well together.
Good luck
Michael Eaton
Try AccountView
As a re-seller of AccountView Business Software, I suggest you take a look at http://www.rcl-systems.co.uk/
From the brief details you give, AccountView appears to be a suitable choice as users can format their own financial reports.
As for cost - you will see from the web site the starting costs of the software which is
priced on a per module basis.
Regards
Caseware does, although I have no experience of using it myself, but understand that it does take a fair amount of mapping - so it is very unlikely to save any time in the first year.
I know that Iris software doesn't provide charity templates.
When discussing the matter with other firms it seems that the majority use their own templates on Word and Excel.
The question has been raised a number of times over the past year on this site, and I don't recall anything else that looked any more hopeful!
David Evans