Small charities – tackling financial governance challenges

Navigating financial challenges as a board
What is the role of the treasurer or ‘finance trustee’ in helping the board navigate financial difficulty? This session will help you assess your charity’s financial situation, spot warning signs early, adapt the board’s oversight in times of financial difficulty and get the whole board involved in financial conversations and decisions.

Judith Miller, Partner, Sayer Vincent 

Future-proofing your charity: adapting to changing governance needs
Small charities that are growing need to adapt their governance processes as teams expand and complexity increases. In this session, Nick Sladden will share practical tips on how to identify step changes and ensure that your charity’s financial governance evolves with the organisation.

Nick Sladden, Head of Charities, RSM 

Understanding your charity’s income streams
Refresh your knowledge of how income recognition, tax and VAT considerations differ between donations, performance-related grants and contractual income.

Jon Williamson, Tax Manager, Sayer Vincent 

Using a finance system to improve your charity’s financial governance
Many small charities rely on manual processes and spreadsheets to track their restricted funds and to produce reports for various stakeholders. In this session, you will learn how affordable finance systems can help drive improvements in your charity’s management of restricted funds and increase operational efficiency.

Heather Dunlop and Dr Marco Saragat, founders, Contando Ltd

The Independent Examiner is coming!
Gain practical tips on how to prepare for an independent examination and prevent common oversights. We will share what questions to expect from the examiner about your charity’s accounting records, board discussions, annual report, and your charity’s ability to meet future financial obligations.

Susan Robinson, ACIE member

Governance pitfalls - lessons from an Interim Manager
As an experienced legal adviser and interim manager for the Charity Commission, Edwina Turner knows where small charities can go wrong when it comes to governance. In this session, she will share common governance pitfalls and how to avoid them.

Edwina Turner, Legal Director, Anthony Collins

Nikki Loan, Partner – Audit & Accounts, PEM
With over 25 years’ experience in the charity and not for profit sector, Nikki has provided audit services and accounting support previously with PricewaterhouseCoopers and Deloitte, where alongside her audit portfolio she led the technical update and charity accreditation training for the national charities and not for profit group.
Nikki manages a mixed portfolio of charity and not for profit audited entities and continues to provide technical updates and training for her colleagues at PEM as well as supporting external events.
Nikki enjoys a challenge from a technical question on some accounting problem to understanding the dynamics of governance or the best way to assess risks.
In her free time, Nikki is a primary school governor at a local St Albans school and sits on the Finance and Audit Committees of the Abbey. She volunteers with the Abbey Children’s church and teaches Latin to 10-year-olds one lunchtime a week.

Judith Miller, Partner, Sayer Vincent
As a partner, Judith shares the responsibility for managing the firm and leads on People and Culture issues. Learning and development, both at SV and outside work, is a field she loves. Judith firmly believes that, with the right support and training, we can master many things we may be anxious about – numbers and finances are often such areas. Judith has had several trustee roles that have helped to bring different perspectives to her day job. She has sat on the board of a grant maker, chaired the finance committee of a learning disability charity and been trustee of an infrastructure body. She is also a member of the ICAEW Charity Committee.

Nick Sladden, Head of Charities, RSM
Nick heads the RSM charities team at RSM. He advises on audit, assurance and financial reporting and is an audit partner for a number of Top 250 charities. Using his 20 years’ experience in the sector, including working in Germany and Romania, Nick has developed RSM’s in-house guidance on Charities SORP FRS102 and undertaken research projects on the adoption of the Charity Governance Code. Nick holds the Diploma in Charity Accounting and has completed the Governing for Nonprofit Excellence Program at Harvard Business School and is a trustee of a national charity and a school governor. He is also Chair of Trustees at the RSM UK Foundation.

Jon Williamson, Tax Manager, Sayer Vincent
Jon is a UK Charted Accountant and Tax Manager at Sayer Vincent LLP, a firm of specialist auditors and advisors for charities and not-for-profit organisations. Jon works with a diverse portfolio of clients across the sector, providing help and support, corporation tax return submissions, VAT and other tax advice, and corresponding with HMRC on issues and queries. Jon has specific experience in the preparation of creative industry tax relief claims and works with a number of galleries and theatres on their submissions.

Heather Dunlop LLB FCA, Co-founder, Contando Ltd
Heather is a chartered accountant with almost 20 years of experience working in business, charities and the public sector. She has held senior finance positions managing sales and purchase ledger, financial accounting, payroll, process improvements, VAT and statutory accounts.

She focuses on supporting charities with managing their finances. Her favourite type of work is taking new clients from being messy through to being clean and tidy, with reliable data and useful reports that generate meaningful conversations to help run the organisation well.

Alongside day to day support to charities Heather also works on projects including chart of accounts and reporting reviews, policy documentation and financial health checks.

Heather previously worked for Prostate Cancer UK and presented at the Charity Finance Group Annual Conference in connection with a project she led while working there.

Dr Marco Saragat, Co-founder, Contando Ltd
With a degree in Economy and Business Management, Marco was running his own successful business for almost 15 years before co founding Contando.

In the last 5 years he has sharpened his skills in charity and not for profit accountancy and supports a variety of organisations with work varying from day to day bookkeeping and payroll to bespoke consultancy and liaison with auditors.

His focus is on management information and helping organisations to use quality reporting to analyse their performance and identify opportunities to improve and grow.

Marco is a keen advocate of using the right solution to solve each problem whilst not over complicating things and has supported clients with implementing bolt on apps to complement Xero.

Susan Robinson, Fellow of ACIE and ICAEW
Susan has worked in practice at Kreston Reeves heading their Charity and not-for-profit sector for many years. She has experience in auditing and independent examinations but has also provided advisory support to the sector. She is a trustee of Age UK Kent Rivers, Age Concern Gillingham and Chair of Abigail’s Footsteps which has recently been independently examined hence has experience from both sides. She was until recently a trustee of The Association of Charity Independent Examiners (ACIE).

Edwina Turner, Legal director, Anthony Collins
Edwina brings her extensive experience of working with national and international charities to her role as legal director in the charities governance team at Anthony Collins. She is regularly appointed as an interim manager by the Charity Commission in respect of charities that are subject to statutory inquiries. Edwina uses that same knowledge to advise charities to achieve the best governance possible and to also advise when they find themselves under the scrutiny of the Charity Commission or having to file a serious incident report. Edwina advises on restructures, mergers and internal governance. Often working alongside boards and chief executives, she advises and mentors them through difficult changes aiming to make them as simple and as positive as possible. She has extensive experience of advising and establishing all types of charities, including unincorporated, trusts, charitable companies limited by guarantee and charitable incorporated organisations.