Treasurer needs help!

Treasurer needs help!

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I have agreed to take on the Treasurer's role for a very small local charity with one paid employee. We will effectively be starting from scratch accountswise and am wondering what package/system to use. I am intending to maintain the books and prepare the final accounts ready for the examiner. Whilst I would perhaps prefer desk based, rather than cloud, but am happy to consider either and cos it is a charity, cost should be minimal  - any recommendations/comments please?

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By DMGbus
19th Aug 2013 08:19

Nil cost payroll software

With only one paid employee there are several nil cost software products available, see:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/softwaredevelopers/paye/rti-software-forms.htm

 

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By occca
19th Aug 2013 09:10

VT Transaction

For bookkeeping

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John Toon
By John Toon
19th Aug 2013 10:22

Why not a good old spreadsheet if the charity's requirements are fairly simple?

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Replying to MF18:
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By Ray Goldring
24th Aug 2013 09:45

  I agree with this comment.

  I agree with this comment.

 

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By Moonbeam
19th Aug 2013 11:03

What about 12pay for payroll and VT for bookkeeping

The advantage with 12pay, apart from it being free in this situation, is that Tom McClelland, their head man, is frequently on Aweb to give advice. His software appears to be much more flexible than that of some of his competitors. 

VT cashbook is free to use, and easy to transfer to spreadsheets and back again if you want.

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By Chris Smail
19th Aug 2013 13:48

Quick Books?

If you need fund analysis then for an organisation of this size nothing beats QB. However you will have to either subscribe to their payroll or use one of the online payroll packages, some of which are free at this level.

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By pawncob
19th Aug 2013 14:54

VT Plus

Or even VT CashBook, which is FREE.

 

 

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By paulfieldcrest
23rd Aug 2013 17:13

QuickBooks for me!

I use QuickBooks for two charities where I keep the books (and have set it up in several more where they keep the books themselves).  The main charity I work with has a turnover of half a million via a dozen different funders, plus a Social Enterprise, and QuickBooks has been a major factor in winning funding and helping the Managers to keep spending on track.

Advantages - easy to use, very configurable, transaction rather than spreadsheet based, reliable and hard to muck up.  The No 1 advantage for charities however is the classification system which allows multiple funders to be tracked via reserves, income and expenditure and also allows P&L by Funding/Expenditure stream to be drawn down with one click.

Disadvantage - cost only, especially if you decide to run payroll RTI through the system (which needs current version purchase or monthly subscription).  However if you can use alternative payroll software and post in the resulting transactions, then a single licence outright purchase (typically £150) can happily work for many years.

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By Hudges
23rd Aug 2013 17:18

12 Pay is excellent

I've used 12 Pay and recommend it.  It's probably worth paying the £60 per year to get the proper version.

I wouldn't recommend QuickBooks.  I've have had poor results with it.

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By chrisowen
24th Aug 2013 17:49

excel or open office

I have a similar small charity client with 2 employees. I find that the free open office (from Oracle) is more than suficient for basic entry through to  accounts production, but you do need to have medium level spreadsheet skills.  I also use the free HMRC RTI software.

12 Pay looks very good, but won't produce accounts.

 

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