Topics explored included making financial information understandable and accessible for all trustees, increase in HMRC mileage payment threshold, useful sources of financial information and charity bank challenges.

Resources shared after the session included:

• Community First Yorkshire Bitesize Trustee Training: Understanding Money is My Business , 3 May (will be repeated).
• Free training by Charity Digital: Charity finance series two: budgeting, futureproofing, and reporting. First session 11 May.
• Petition to increase mileage payments:  HMRC mileage rate for reimbursing the use of private cars for employees has been fixed at 45p per since 2011. Petition to increase it to 60p per mile is here.

Useful sources of financial information:

• Sign up to the Sayer Vincent newsletter here and Hays Macintyre newsletter here.
• Charity banking challenges: NCVO national survey on behalf of the Civil Society Group (of which ACRE is a member). Aim is to capture banking issues affecting the voluntary and community sector and inform discussions with the Charity Commission and UK Finance. Closing date: 6 May. Complete the survey here.

Topics explored included collecting gift aid, commission rates on cash less payment systems and generating reports, selling merchandise on line, systems for payments of volunteer expenses and use of finance platforms for investments

Resources shared after the session included:

• Volunteer management software list
• vHelp volunteer management software info sheet

Organisations who have useful websites, offer good training (sometimes free) or produce informative newsletters:

• Charity Digital
• Charity Excellence
• The FSI
• Sayer Vincent

Lots of interesting discussion on the topic of digital finance and particularly cyber security.  Post meeting resources included:

• Sayer Vincent are “an audit and advisory firm working exclusively with charities and social purpose organisations”. They have an excellent range of “Made Simple” guides and run many free training courses which are a good source of charity specific information. You may find it useful to sign up for their monthly newsletter.
• WYCAS (West Yorkshire Community Accounting Service) have lots of useful information and resources on their website.
• To check that your emails and passwords haven’t been used in a data breach enter them into this website: https://haveibeenpwned.com

Topics discussed at this meeting included financial qualifications and book keeping courses and the importance of budget and cash flow forecasting.

Resources shared after the meeting included:

• Open University free bookkeeping course
• West Yorkshire Community Accounting Service (WYCAS) Lots of free finance resources for small charities
• Futrli. Good for cash flow forecasting. £30 per month
• Post office change giving service