Resources & Guidance

Thank you to all Treasurers for the work you do to help your church! We value your help, and hope that we can support you in your work.  Please remember, if you need any help with parish finances, you can always contact the Diocesan Finance Team: call the Diocesan Office on 01904 699500 or email.

In this section we’ve set out some resources and guidance that we hope will help you in your role.

Resources for Treasurers

In this section we’ve tried to put together a list of resources to assist Treasurers old & new. We hope that it acts as one-stop point of reference to assist treasurers in their duties and help with handovers etc.

Cash Handling Guidelines

The cash handling guidelines set out recommended practices for recording and controlling financial transactions for parish treasurers and clergy. They include advice on handling and accounting for collections of loose cash and envelopes.

Actual instances of malpractice are very rare, but it is good to be able to show that our practices are of a standard appropriate to a public organisation.

There are a number of reasons for having sound financial procedures and controls, including;

• To protect the funds given to the church;
• To protect clergy, the Treasurer, Churchwardens etc from unfounded allegations of malpractice; and
• To provide simple and effective audit trails.

ACAT Membership

The Diocese of York has arranged for group membership of the Association of Church Accountants and Treasurers (ACAT) for all church Treasurers and Deanery Financial Advisers in the Diocese.

Your membership is paid annually by the Diocese meaning that you won’t have anything to pay individually.  ACAT is a national support charity that ‘provides support for Treasurers of Christian Churches… providing advice, training and information on accounting, financial, legal and other related issues’.

The membership includes full access to:

• ACAT website
• The ACAT Handbook
• An introductory guide for New Church Treasurers shared with kind permission by ACAT
• The Members’ advice line
• E-newsletters and member updates
• Training courses nationwide
• The Annual Conference
• Your ACAT login

If you are a Treasurer or DFA and and would like details of how to set up a login, please contact the Diocesan Finance Team. If you should experience any problems logging on, don’t hesitate to get in touch with ACAT on 01246 767787 or email membership@acat.uk.com.

Training

As well as the national training courses which are open to anyone to book onto (for a fee), as advertised on the ACAT website, ACAT also organises some training free of charge as part of the group membership. When we know about free training coming up that we think you might be interested in, we will publicise it on the website or via The Journal. You can join the waiting list for free places on ACAT’s “Being a Treasurer: The Basics” course by emailing the Diocesan Finance Team.

Banking for PCCs

Guidance from the Charity Commission on charity banking

You can access guidance on banking for charities on the Charity Commission website here.

Know Your Customer Checks

We are aware that some banks have changed their “Know Your Customer” checks and that this can be difficult for PCCs – especially those with annual income of under £100,000 which don’t need to register with the Charity Commission.  We have tried to put together some guidance for PCCs to help you respond to these questions.

If your PCC is asked to prove its charitable status it could provide the bank with the following:

1. A Church Near You, the Church of England’s national website and searchable directory of every church, enables creation of a certificate that confirms your PCC’s charitable status. This could be done by going to the PCC’s own page, then clicking on the ‘More Information’ tab on the left hand side. Scroll to the bottom of the page, where the option to ‘Download Certificate’ is offered, and click on that and then enter name and e-mail address, to enable the certificate confirming Exempted Charity status and the relevant measure, to be e-mailed to the given email address.
2. Gift Aid number – this is also a proof of charitable status which can be verified with HMRC.
3. Charity Commission registration number if your PCC’s annual income is over £100,000.
4. Further information can be found on Governing Documents of PCCs on the website Parish Resources.

Common questions you may be asked, and example answers:

Online Banking

There are a number of other pieces of information that can be provided to the bank to confirm your PCC’s charitable status as set out above.

Gift Aid

It’s important to check periodically that you’re operating the Gift Aid scheme in line with best practice.

Church of England parishes collectively receive nearly £90 million in Gift Aid tax rebates each year, around £40 million more than the amount collected in the year 2000, and sufficient to fund 1,600 stipendiary clergy.

This is a great tribute to the hard work of volunteers running Gift Aid programmes in parishes throughout the country, as well as a testimony to the value of the Gift Aid scheme.

It’s important to get it right, and you can find up-to-date information at Parish Resources – Gift Aid.

Parish Resources is a website provided by the Church of England’s National Stewardship & Resources team, and offers over 400 pages of resources (web pages and downloads) to support all aspects of stewardship, administration and management in the local church, as well as links to other sites and pages of interest.

Tax and Trading

Whilst many of the activities of Churches will be outside the scope of VAT or corporation tax, PCC’s should be mindful of the types of transactions that may be relevant and of the latest  exemption limits.

Further information can be found in the ACAT handbook and on the gov.uk website.

If a PCC thinks it may exceed the limits they should obtain appropriate professional advice.

Use the links below to find more detailed information on other sites: