Finance and Audit Report 2022
2022 report
AGM 2022 REPORT
FINANCE REPORT
Review of the 2021/22 financial year ending 5th April 2022
Overall, Freegle's finances are in a reasonably healthy position. In a normal year, Freegle spends £29k more than it brings in, but over the past few years we have managed to make the most of some opportunities from PayPal, which have counteracted this. This continued this year, with Freegle receiving almost £30k from Paypal's Give at Checkout Scheme.
Over the past year we have worked to improve some of our financial controls and processes; defining a budget so that we can monitor our financial performance; defining our policy for contractor pay and moving closer to our aim of paying market rates; and finally, we are in the process of reviewing the role of the Finance SubCommittee and our processes to ensure they strike the right balance between efficiency and control.
Focusing on the figures, we had a total income of £103,772 (2021: £93,830). Donations were £62,505 (2021: £66,078) - which includes £6,000 from PayPal Giving Fund's Favourite Charity and an unexpected further £29,000 (2021: £18,000) in PayPal's Give at Checkout Scheme. We received £7,200 (2021: £7,200) from our very generous anonymous sponsor and Gift Aid reclaims amounted to £6,371 (2021 £8,116). Our income from advertising was £22,550 (2021: £3,101), and we received £3,437 (2021: £8,750) in grants from local Councils, plus a £400 grant for photographs for publicity material. The remaining income included £322 (2021: £505) from Give As You Live and £750 in a prize draw from The Arnold Clark Community Fund (2021: £0).
Our expenditure was £68,863 (2021: £66,819). IT costs were £39,080 (2021: £37,017). We spent £17,973 (2021: £19,038) on media and local events, £10,798 (2021: £9,251) on work with local councils to promote Freegle, £272 on volunteer support (2021: £60), £0 (2021: £0) on fundraising, and £740 (2021: £1,453) on administration.
The result for the year was a surplus for the year of £34,909 (2021: £20,447). This surplus was entirely due to the PayPal Giving Fund's small charities promotions, and we have decided to spend some of it on improving and developing our mobile app. We had a surplus brought forward from last year of £46,229 (2020: £25,782) so are left with reserves of £81,138 (2021: £46,229), of which £0 (2021: £0) is restricted for specific expenditure.
AUDIT
Request from the Board of Freegle:
The Board would like the AGM to approve the dis-application for a full audit for the Freegle Ltd accounts 2022/23. This would be in line with previous procedure and is due to the level of expense for an external auditor and time required from the volunteer Treasurer for a full audit.
Industrial and Provident Societies must have a full audit if they are a charitable IPS with a turnover of over £10,200,000 or assets in excess of £5,100,000.
As we don't get near to these figures the expense and time for a full audit seems unnecessary when our transparency is confirmed by a qualified accountant’s Independent Examination. More information can be found in the legal explanatory note here: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2014/14/section/84
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