SORP accounts#

How are accounts structured?#

The documents:#

Charities registered in England and Wales are required to submit accounts to the Charity Commission on an annual basis, along with a report from the trustees on the performance of the charity over the previous year.

The accounts are in PDF format and are available on the Charity Commission website.

The data:#

The majority of accounts comply with a set structure (know as the Statement of Recommended Practice or SORP) and use a mixture of standard and non-standard headings, although the layout varies from account to account.

The structure of a typical set of annual accounts is as follows:

  1. Administrative details, including the address of the charity and their bank and auditor, and the period covered by the report.
  2. Trustee's report: a narrative section outlining the objectives, performance and goals of the charity.
  3. Independent auditors report setting out their assessment of the account's accuracy.
  4. Financial statements, consisting of:
    1. Either Statement of financial activities (SOFA), with standardised sections.
    2. or Receipts and payments account listing income and expenditure (for charities with an income under £250,000)
    3. and Balance sheet with assets, liabilities and funds.
  5. Items are normally shown with both the current and previous year's values, and for large amounts are shown in multiples of 1,000 or 1,000,000.
  6. Notes to the accounts, including:
    1. Accounting policies
    2. Breakdown of larger items in the financial statements
    3. Other information such as number of staff, figures for pensions and investment details.

The majority of the required data is contained in the financial statements and the notes to the accounts. Usually the statement of financial activities does not provide the required detail so it is necessary to look for further detail in the notes to the accounts. Items in the financial statements indicate which note provides further detail.

How to capture data#

  1. Load the data entry form, with the Charity's registration number entered

  2. Use the "Standard Template" link for the account which is being entered (generally this is the most recent account. This may take a little while to load.

  3. If the account being entered has a link to "Load CC data" then this should be clicked, after clicking the "Standard template" link for the same account.

  4. Enter data into the "Account Details" section. The Start, End and Period fields should be automatically generated. "Currency" should be set to the currency of the account - for most charities this will be GBP (£ sterling) - if it isn't this will be stated in the administrative details or financial statements. The "Multiple" indicates how the financial numbers have been presented - for larger charities they are usually presented as multiples of £1,000. This can be found at the top of each column of figures in the financial statements.

  5. Enter items from the following sections, in order. The hierarchy of items needs to be kept from the accounts - so headings for groups of items need to be included in a parent-child structure.

    1. Income - initially capture totals from SOFA, then capture all income items from the notes to the accounts.
    2. Expenditure - capture all items from the SOFA. Movements in funds and net incoming/outgoing resources do not need to be captured.
    3. Assets - capture all items up to "Net Assets" on the balance sheet. The "Net Assets" figure should equal "Total Funds".
    4. Funds - these are usually underneath assets on the balance sheet.
    5. Other financial items - these are usually in the notes to the accounts. The following items need to be captured (if present):
      1. Staff costs (including salaries)
      2. Depreciation
      3. Auditors fees/accounting fees
      4. Interest payments
    6. Non-Financial items - these are also in the notes to the accounts. The following items need to be captured (if present):
      1. Number of staff/employees

  6. Each item has two dropdown menus for classification. The left hand menu selects the type of item from the list above, wth just the first letter filled in (I, E, A, F, O, N), while the right hand menu provides a deeper level of classification. At this stage, only the first box needs to be filled in.

  7. Once the account has been entered, click the "Save data" link in the header bar to save the data. Any possible errors or inconsistencies in the account will be highlighted in two ways:

    1. If parent items do not add to the sum of their children they will be highlighted in red.
    2. An error message will pop up with any other inconsistencies that may need to be looked at.

  8. After fixing any errors, or making a note of any comments on the quality of the account, press save again to save a copy of the account.