Treasurer

Treasurer
African Vision Malawi is looking for a new UK Treasurer and Trustee as our existing one steps down. This is a voluntary position as all of our UK staff and trustees are unpaid.

Ideally we would like an accountant
who would be interested in the work
of the charity and willing to go out
to Malawi every couple of years or so
to see the actual work as it
happens.
The UK activities of African Vision
Malawi are largely focused on fund-
raising. The Charity looks to raise
around £200k p.a., which is
forwarded to the Malawi on the
ground team on a monthly basis.
There are around 75 regular donors
paying amounts from £2 to £400 per
month by Standing Order. There are
a smaller number of donors of larger
amounts who pay irregularly but
whose support is vital to the work.
Around half of the donors have
signed Gift Aid declarations
enabling the Charity to reclaim
income tax on those donations.
The largest payment out each month
is the one mentioned above to
Malawi. This requires two account
signatories to visit Barclays in
Surbiton to instruct the payment.
Otherwise there are around 12 low
value sundry payments per month
for supplies and services in the UK.
The Charity Commission insists that
Charities use Fund Accounting to
ensure that donations given for
restricted purposes are applied
correctly. Therefore, every cash item
in, out or transferred between
accounts is allocated to a Fund
account in addition to its nominal
ledger account. African Vision
Malawi runs 7 accounts, which are
General (Unrestricted), Water &
Sanitation, Education, Health, Self
Sufficiency, Landirani Training
Village and Project4Africa.
Our part -time Finance Officer assists
with the bookkeeping and keeps our
accountancy software up-to-date. We
also have a volunteer cashier who
helps the Charity on a weekly basis
handling the banking for cash and
cheques received, and processes new
regular donor arrangements for
Standing Orders. The volunteer
sends a spreadsheet of all receipts
to the Finance Officer and Treasurer
on a weekly basis.
The Malawi team maintains their
own bank accounts with NBS Bank in
Lilongwe. For Charity Commission
and accounting purposes,
expenditure is incurred when funds
are remitted to Malawi. No formal
records are maintained in the UK for
the Malawi bank and financial
accounts, which are audited in
Malawi and reported to the Malawi
authority (CONGOMA) directly.
Under Commission rules smaller
charities with a turnover under
£250k are required to maintain their
accounts on a receipts and payments
basis. i.e. no accruals, prepayments
or assets on the balance sheet
except cash. Although simplistic, this
simplifies matters for the Treasurer
and Independent Examiner (Auditor).
Since the 2011/2012 financial year
the accounting records in the UK
have been managed using specialist
software purchased from Data
Developments. Their Finance
Coordinator package is used for the
financial record keeping and an
associated package called Donations
Coordinator is used to manage the
regular donations and all Gift Aid
claims. The Finance Coordinator
package recognizes and facilitates
the operation of Fund accounting
required by the Charities
Commission (see above).
All of the above takes up to 1 day a
week to complete at present.
If you are interested in this post
please send an email with your CV to
andy.walker@africanvision.org.uk