FAQs

The Charity’s activities are the means of achieving its charitable objectives. They are defined in the Trustee’s statement. Unfortunately, although the initial definition is clear, the SORP then proceeds to use the term activity to also define the different classifications of [...]

There are essentially two classes of fund: Unrestricted and Restricted. Unrestricted funds can be applied for any of the charity’s activities. When they are set aside for a specific purpose, they are called Designated. The undesignated funds are called General. Restricted [...]

Charities are not businesses and therefore create surpluses or deficits in their income and expenditure.  These are accumulated year on year as fund, which are also described as reserves. Under the Charity SORP the surpluses and deficits are recorded against each [...]

The Statement of Financial Activities is the charitable equivalent of a Profit & Loss report for ordinary businesses, which is extended by including balance sheet information for the movement in the funds. It uses standard classifications of income and expense which [...]

Three-dimensional accounting simplifies the implementation of the Charity SORP. On every type of income (sales invoice) you record not only the classification of the income using the nominal or general ledger code for that income type, but also the fund that [...]

The SORP is extremely difficult to implement properly unless you have a multi-dimensional accounting system like Aedon.Accounting. Most charities use starter packages which have a business-oriented chart of accounts that might allow for different departments or cost centres, but certainly don’ [...]

The SORP is extremely difficult to implement properly unless you have a multi-dimensional accounting system like Aedon.Accounting. Most charities use starter packages which have a business-oriented chart of accounts that might allow for different departments or cost centres, but certainly don’ [...]

The SORP was created by some very clever and very experienced accountants, who were probably too clever and too experienced to recognise that what they had produced was far too complicated for charities many of whom rely on unqualified volunteers to [...]