I have been asked by a church if I would be willing to prepare their accounts on a receipts and payments basis for a small church. Has anyone prepared church accounts on Solar and, if so, can they give me any advise on completing all the report documentation ?

Hi Neil,

I have been using Solar now for 4 years. I use it to do the accounts for two businesses , but I also use it for a Day Centre and just recently for a Village Hall. I find it very suitable for all these organisations. Of course you will be using Profit & Loss, not income & expenditure. The 2 main reports you will require are the Profit & Loss, and the Balance Sheet, which are very easy to produce. But there are many other reports it will produce, depends on what the Church requires.
Hope this helps,
Peter

Hi Neil, Being a church treasurer, I use Solar Accounts as the mainstay of control of the accounts, however there are other considerations if your church is a registered charity. In my case the Office of the Scottish Charities Register (OSCR) requires a defined format for reporting accounts and Solar does not provide for this. The raw information is available from Solar Accounts and this is transcribed into the template provided by OSCR for reporting. I would imagine that the Charities Commission for England has a similar arrangement.
Hope this helps
Stuart Foster

Hi Neil

solar is very good at what it does but if yo need a specific charity package then have a look at Financial Co-ordinator by Data Developments. I use solar for my own accounts but FC for the charities I look after. It has the benefit of being able to handle fund accounting out of the box and produces annual accounts int he format required by the Charity SORP.

Barry