The deadline for group financial year end submissions is 31 January 2023. We have to meet this deadline, as we’re required to submit accurate financial accounts for audit. We could be fined if we fail to do so.
To do list…
Finance Volunteers:
Analyse all your group transactions up to 31 December 2022.
Transactions made between 24 and 31 December may not be visible on Branch Accounting Online until 5 January 2023. But please try to analyse any outstanding transactions as close to 5 January as possible.Once all transactions have been analysed, download a copy of the December Receipt and Payment Report from Branch Accounting Online and save it securely as a PDF file.
Complete the Financial Rules Checklist once you have downloaded your Receipts and Payment Report, using the online Year End Finance System. This should take about 45 minutes. You’ll receive an email on 16 December containing a link to the Year End Finance System.
Upload a copy of the group’s December 2022 Receipts and Payment report to the Year End Financial System.
Email the Finance Support Team ([email protected]) with details of any purchase or disposal of group fixed assets.
Group Coordinators (or other authorising Coordinating Team Volunteers):
Once your Finance Volunteer has completed the Financial Rules Checklist, you’ll need to authorise the answer given to each of the questions. The response to each question will be submitted to the Finance Team as you authorise it.
You’ll also need to check the December Receipts and Payments Report. This will be attached to the email you’ll receive informing you that the Finance Volunteer has completed the checklist and that you can authorise the responses.
A few groups have also been asked to submit an Agreed Upon Procedures Report, which needs to be completed by a qualified accountant. We’ve already let the groups selected this year know. So please tell us as soon as possible which accountant you’ll be using, if you haven’t already done so.
The Finance Team may also be selecting a small number of group transactions at random and asking those groups to provide backup material for that specific transaction. If your group is asked to provide backup material for a transaction, it would be very much appreciated if this could be provided quickly, to ensure that we can evidence to the auditors (as part of the year-end process) that processes are being followed appropriately.
Support
To help with the year-end process, we’ve been running Zoom support sessions for Coordinating Team members throughout December. And we’ll continue them into January. In these sessions we discuss the year-end process, show you how to access and use the online system, and answer any questions you may have. You can sign up to a session here.
Once you’ve booked on to a session, Eventbrite will send you a booking confirmation email that includes the link you need to click on to join the Zoom support session. Please save this first booking confirmation email, as the reminder email you’ll receive before the event doesn’t include the link.
If you need support with any of the above, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with the Finance Support Team.
Thanks, as always, for all your hard work managing your group’s finances and ensuring that people can access vital support and services locally.
