A Practical Guide to Financial Management for Charities and Voluntary Organisationsby Kate Sayer DSC (in association with Sayer Vincent) 2002 ISBN 1 903991 29 3 £14.95 [£18.25 inc p&p]) Many arts organisations are charities so the advice in this definitive, practical guide applies to them. This is the second edition of Kate Sayer’s book, the first was in 1998, and it has been extensively updated to include the changes in charity law up to May 2002. It also has a completely new chapter on tax effective giving. It is clearly written and covers all the areas that the finance department of any organisation needs to think about but from a not for profit point of view and with the understanding that the people who find themselves in charge of the finance function are probably not experienced accountants and may have no experience of accounting at all. Kate Sayer recognises that the Charity Accounts format and some areas of Charity law can be less than intuitively clear. She explains quite complicated accounting in a very straightforward way without being at all patronising, giving many worked examples and summarising in bullet points and checklist questions to help apply the theory to the reader’s own situation. This makes the guide easy to use, even for the accounting novice. The book works through budgeting (including overhead allocation), costing, income and expenditure accounts, cashflow forecasting, internal financial controls, policies on risk management and reserves, dealing with volunteers, charities and trading, VAT and tax effective giving. Computerisation of accounts is dealt with a little sketchily and monitoring profit-making activities (such as running restaurants, selling theatre tickets or booking tours) is mentioned but not really covered. However, there is not much room for these topics in a book of this length and breadth. This is an essential on the finance department’s bookshelf – and is more likely to be found open on the finance manager’s desk.
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