Charity Accounts and Charity Registration
Actions speak louder than words! Register your charity today.
To see how we have helped our charity clients, click on the video to the right and meet a charity trustee Heather who’s been working on an exciting community project, Zecobricks, in Zanzibar that is employing local people while fighting the plastic pollution problem that has been consuming the island for years. At Meer & Co we are supporting her growing success having successfully registered her charity as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO). A great big thank you to the Charity Commission for their support and the journey has certainly been worthwhile.
If your charity is already operating, you may want to take a look at our Governance page which has lots of useful information on how to stay compliant and do your reporting.
Hear a charity trustee talk about their journey of registering a charity.
Read the Q&As below and discover how you can go about registering your charity by learning from individuals who are now proud charity trustees. If you still have further questions about charity accounts or charity registration at the end of this, then please reach out to us for a confidential consultation and no-obligation quote either by emailing or pressing the call-back button.
1: Before you started your charity registration journey, what were your expectations of the process?
We thought that the whole process would be time consuming and that there would be a lot of paperwork involved. In actual fact, the hard work was done by Meer & Co.
The guys at Meer & Co came down to meet us and gave us a free consultation during which they explained the various different types of charity structure. This consequently allowed us to choose the best structure for us. Once the registration process had started, we were assigned a designated member of the Meer & Co team who deals with charities. We were able to contact him at any time during any day, we found this particularly helpful as it allowed us to get answers to any questions we might have had regarding the process.
The questions put forward by the Charity Commission were extensive, however our designated team member from Meer & Co broke down these questions into smaller questions which were easier to answer for us.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
We hope that the FAQs below will be helpful for all those of you who are aspiring charity trustees grappling with charity accounts.
Meer & Co’s fees for registering a charity start from £750 + VAT. Our services include the preparation and submission with Charity Commission of various documents including the application form, the charity’s governing document, the trustee declaration form and all/any other relevant documents required for the purpose of the formation of charity at all stages up to the registration of the charity.
You must register as a charity if your income exceeds £5000 or if you plan to register a CIO.
There are four main types of charity structure; charitable incorporated organisation (CIO), charitable company, unincorporated association and a trust. You can find out more about this by contacting us.
You will need to know who the trustees will be, where you wish to operate and the work that the charity plans to do.
It will take no longer than 5 working days to complete the application, the Charity Commission may take up to 2 months to review and make a decision on the application.
There is no upper limit on the number of trustees you can have, but a minimum of three is recommended.
You must be at least 16 years old to be a trustee of a charitable company or a CIO, or at least 18 years old to be a trustee of any other charity.
Immediately after we receive the confirmation email from the Charity Commission, we will forward this to you along with your registered charity number.