The Charity Commission guidance includes specific regulations on filing your online annual return, report and accounts. Here's what you need to know and do to prepare and submit yours, with links to all the resources you'll need, including the Charity Commission login.
This simple, practical guide gives you everything you need to know and do to submit your online Charity Commission Annual Return and file your trustees' annual report and accounts, including a link to the Charity Commission login. There is a separate resource for charity audit and independent examination.
There can be a bit of confusion between Charity Commission annual returns and reports.
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What you need to do to prepare your Charity Commission annual return and accounts
Charity Commission annual returns for small non-company charities
If your income is under £500,000 (and it doesn’t have assets worth more than £3.26m), prepare a simple return including:
You can put more detail into your trustees’ annual report if you want to. You only have to send a copy to the Charity Commission with your annual return if your income is more than £25,000. The Commission provides report templates you can use.
Charity Commission annual returns for large or company charities
Prepare a full trustees’ annual return if either:
A full return needs to follow the guidelines set out by SORP.
Use this toolkit to identify what the Charity Commission needs you to do to prepare your annual accounts. You may also find Charity Commission CC16 (Receipts and payments accounts pack) and CC17 (Accruals accounts pack - SORP FRS 102) useful.
There is sometimes confusion between cash and accrual accounting - the difference is one of timing. If you record income or expenses when you pay or receive money, it’s cash based accounting. If you do it when you receive a bill or raise an invoice, it’s accruals based accounting. Often, small charities use cash based accounting and larger ones accruals.
The Charity Commission annual return requirements and what you need to include.
You must submit your annual return within 10 months of the end of your financial year.
Income under £10,000
You only need to report your income and spending.
Income between £10,000 and £25,000
You must answer questions about your charity in an annual return, but do not need to include any other documents.
Income over £25,000
You must answer questions about your charity in an annual return and also provide copies of your:
The questions you will be asked depend on your income, the type of charity and what the charity does.
You may be asked about:
You can download a copy of the questions here.
As a CIO or trust, you only submit your return and accounts to the Charity Commission. If you're a charitable company, there is additional filing and reporting.
When your charity was registered, you'll have been sent your login details. If you've lost these, go to the Charity Commission login page and click the 'Forgotten Your Password?' link. You'll need your registration number. A password link will be sent to the contact e mail you gave the Commission.
If you are a charitable company, you will also be registered with Companies House and will be required to file a Company Tax Return (CT600) for Corporation Tax with HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and your accounts with Companies House. You can do both here.
You can file your confirmation statement here. This is your confirmation that the information in your Companies House records is up to date.
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I have worked in the sector at senior level for many years and hold an ACCA postgraduate qualification, but am not an accountant and no advice can be applicable to all organisations, in all circumstances, so this resource does not constitute professional opinion. Essentially, I've summarised the wide ranging and detailed regulatory guidance and augmented this with my own experience and Internet research to create a layman's guide, with links to the source guidance. I hope you found it useful.