Thank you

Firstly a big “thank you” for taking on the role of treasurer, it is vital both to ensuring that your Group/District functions and secondly to ensuring that the Woodcraft Folk nationally complies with Charity Commission requirements for our charitable status.   Your work is greatly appreciated and we are here to help you with your role.

Who is this for and how much time should it take

This guidance is our suggestion for keeping your financial records. It covers the basics to give you information about the financial position of your Group/District. Our suggested approach shouldn’t take too much time and will make it easier to produce your District’s Year-end Financial Return.  

This version of the guidance includes cash, which adds an extra degree of complexity and time in keeping your financial records but suits some Groups/Districts. Apart from cash handling, we are assuming simplicity: one set of financial records and one bank account.    

For a Group of about 25 children we estimate you’ll need to spend about an hour a week on your financial records, plus a further hour and a trip to the bank each month.  

The vital thing is to do things regularly and not to leave everything to do at the end of the year.

When to start

Your financial records should start at 1st Jan.  It’s really hard to follow on mid year so if it’s a few months into the year, you should go back and start from 1st Jan so that you can follow on from your financial records for the previous year.  

We are happy to help any treasurer to ensure that their financial records follow on from the previous year.

Using this guidance

We suggest that you work through the documents numbered 1 to 5:

1. Introduction (this document)
2. Setting up - you need four things
3. Income & Expenditure Sheet (you can view a blank version of the Sheet here)
4. Running your financial records
5. Handling cash

You can look at the other annexed documents as and when you need to:

• Annex: key issues in financial record keeping
• Annex: your financial records folder
• Annex: using the Income & Expenditure Sheet
• Annex: what goes where on the Income & Expenditure Sheet
• Annex: bank reconciliation guidance

The only other thing that you need is the Treasurers Handbook which is important as following the Handbook helps ensure that we’re compliant with rules associated with our charitable status. A number of key points from the Handbook are covered by this guidance.

Help

You can contact Folk Office on 020 7703 4173 or email Ros, the Finance Volunteer, at ros.epson@woodcraft.org.uk.  

If you use the ‘Google Sheets’ Income & Expenditure Sheet suggested in this guidance, we’ll be able to access your Income & Expenditure sheet which can help with working through any problems that you may have.