Finding Answers to the Charity Commission Annual Return Submission Questions

Q1. The largest one-off amount paid by a single donor

This is the largest single donation (one-off), not the aggregate, and can be easily found.

Go to the Donations (by Amount) report
Select the date range
This report will automatically sort donations by largest first

Q2. The largest one-off amount paid by a single donor who is a related party (i.e. trustees and partners/dependents)

Create a donor tag called 'related parties' (find out how to create a donor tag)
Within Manage Donors -> Apply Donor Tags, apply this tag to all donors who are related parties
Go to the Donations (by Amount) report
Select the date range and apply the Donor Tag filter for your newly created tag
This report will automatically sort donations by largest first

Q3. Total donations from related parties (i.e. trustees and partners/dependents)

Use the Donations (by Date) - Individual Donors report
Set the date range as last financial year
Filter the report by your related parties donor tag
Read the total amount at the bottom of the report

TOP TIP: If your trustees change mid-way through your financial year, you can use two donor tags - one for each set of trustees (with those trustees continuing their term in both tags).

Q4. Total out-of-pocket expense reimbursements to related parties (i.e. trustees and partners/dependents)

The Search All Purchases screen enables you to set a date range and to search by payee. Using this screen, you can find the total of expenses paid to each of your related parties, which you can then add together to give an overall total.

Note: alternatively, you can use the transaction groups feature to create a transaction group called 'related parties', and apply this transaction group to all reimbursements to related parties. Then, simply download the All Transactions (by Match) report and filter by the transaction group.

Q5. Gifts to external charities

Typically, gifts to other charities are recorded to just one or two specific categories, so the easiest way to find the total of gifts given to external charities is using the Income & Expenditure Transactions (by Category) report.

Note: If you haven't recorded gifts to external charities to a specific category, but you know the names of the charities you have given gifts to, then you could alternatively use the search all purchases report (see the answer to Q4 above).

Note: alternatively, you can use the transaction groups feature to create a transaction group called 'gifts to external charities', and apply this transaction group to all gifts of money to other charities. Then, simply download the All Transactions (by Match) report and filter by the transaction group.

Using transaction descriptions

Another method of tagging a transaction that relates to any of the above groups is to append a code to the end of the transaction description (e.g. you might mark trustee donations with TD and trustee payments with TP). Then, in preparing your year-end accounts, you can search ExpensePlus for all transaction descriptions including this code (or export reports to CSV and use spreadsheet software to filter as needed).

For helpful information about how to answer the new questions the Charity Commission have added to the annual return submission, check out this blog article by Tim Wyatt, an independent examiner at Wyatt & Co Chartered Accountants.