Charity and third-sector accounting

Accountants for charities and social enterprises in Edinburgh.

Specialist charity accounting for Edinburgh — ACCA-regulated, fixed-fee, with a named accountant on direct contact.

£0

First consult

20+

Years combined

ACCA

Regulated

Countify for Edinburgh charitys

Local context
that actually matters.

Edinburgh's charity sector skews towards national bodies, grant-making trusts and heritage or festival organisations, which changes the accounting emphasis. Endowed and grant-making charities need investment income, total return accounting and reserves policies handled to SORP standard, and OSCR pays particular attention to reserves justification in trustees' annual reports for well-capitalised bodies. Festival and venue-based charities in Edinburgh carry a pronounced income seasonality that makes cash-flow forecasting and deferred income recognition the key year-end judgements — ticket income received in spring for an August event is not August income. For Edinburgh charities with national reach, cross-border registration with the Charity Commission alongside OSCR is common, and the two regimes' accounts requirements have to be satisfied in a single set of accounts.

Sector context

What charity accounting actually involves.

Scottish charity accounting runs on a different rulebook to the rest of the UK. Charities registered in Scotland answer to OSCR under the Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 2006, which set their own thresholds for receipts-and-payments versus fully accrued accounts, and their own independent examination and audit trigger points — none of which match the Companies Act thresholds a general-practice accountant reaches for first. Add SORP-compliant fund accounting, restricted versus unrestricted income, grant recognition timing, Gift Aid claims and partial-exemption VAT on mixed trading, and the compliance load is heavier than the turnover suggests. Countify prepares OSCR-ready accounts and trustees' annual reports, handles the SCIO and charitable-company filing split, and keeps restricted fund tracking clean throughout the year rather than reconstructing it at year end.

How we help Edinburgh charitys

Charities and social enterprise-specific scope, fixed fees.

OSCR annual return and SORP accounts

Receipts-and-payments or fully accrued accounts prepared to the Scottish regulations, with a trustees' annual report that meets OSCR's content requirements.

Restricted and unrestricted fund accounting

Fund-level tracking maintained through the year so grant conditions can be evidenced on demand, not rebuilt from bank statements in month twelve.

Independent examination or audit routing

We confirm which threshold you actually fall under and arrange independent examination, rather than defaulting to a costlier audit you may not need.

Gift Aid, VAT and trading subsidiaries

Gift Aid claims and declarations, partial-exemption VAT where charitable and trading activity mix, and profit-shedding from a trading subsidiary to the parent charity.

Run the numbers

Calculators built for charitys.

Corporation Tax Estimator

Estimate CT600 with marginal relief between £50k and £250k profit.

Employer PAYE Calculator

True cost of employment: employer NI at 15%, auto-enrolment pension, monthly breakdown.

Questions we hear weekly

Charities and social enterprises FAQs.

Do Scottish charities follow the same accounting rules as English ones?

No. Charities registered in Scotland report to OSCR under the Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 2006, which set different thresholds for receipts-and-payments accounts, independent examination and audit than the Charity Commission regime in England and Wales. A cross-border charity may have to satisfy both.

Does my charity need an audit or an independent examination?

It depends on gross income and assets, and on whether your constitution or a funder imposes a stricter requirement than the regulations do. Many Scottish charities are pushed into a full audit unnecessarily — we check the actual threshold before recommending either route.

What is the difference between a SCIO and a charitable company?

A SCIO is registered only with OSCR, so there is one regulator and one set of accounts. A charitable company limited by guarantee is registered with both OSCR and Companies House and must satisfy company law as well as charity law, meaning two filings and two deadlines.

Can a charity reclaim VAT?

Partly. Charities are not exempt from VAT, but certain supplies are zero-rated or reduced-rated and some income is outside the scope. Where you have both charitable and trading activity, a partial-exemption calculation determines how much input VAT is recoverable.

How is grant income recognised?

Under the charities SORP, grant income is generally recognised when entitlement, probability of receipt and reliable measurement are all met — which is often not the date the money arrives. Getting this wrong moves income between years and can distort your reserves position.

Countify supports Edinburgh charitys from 5 St. Vincent Place, Glasgow.

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