Accounting and returns

Setting out PCC annual report and accounts

Providing the gross income of your PCC is less than £250,000 you can choose a simpler form of accounting – the ‘Receipts and Payments’ basis. This focuses on the cash movements in and out of the PCC’s bank accounts during the financial year.

There is detailed guidance available from the National Church on producing Receipts and Payments Accounts (also Accrual Accounts). Their helpful R&P guide is reproduced below. This will help you produce three of the four reports within the PCC Annual Report and Accounts: Trustees’ Report, Receipts and Payments Account, Statement of Assets and Liabilities. An example PCC Annual Report and Accounts on the Receipts and Payments basis is also provided below.

The fourth report required is the Independent Examiner’s Report. An Independent Examiner’s Report is available below. Any PCC which is an excepted charity (annual income less than £250,000) rather than a registered charity should put the following text in the charity number box: SI 1996, No. 180.

A checklist to help you send your completed annual accounts and finance returns to the Diocesan Office may be downloaded from the bottom of this page.

More than one church in the parish?

We have discovered that a number of parishes with more than one church/chapel have not been correctly completing the PCC reporting requirements. A PCC is a legal entity and must prepare an Annual Report and Accounts.  In some cases, we are receiving separate sets of accounts from each church in the parish. Please check if this applies to you.

If you prepare Receipts and Payments accounts, you can include separate sheets with Receipts and Payments accounts for each account with a single Statement of Assets and the annual report should be a report of all activities of all churches.

If you prepare Accruals accounts, you should prepare a single SOFA and Balance Sheet which consolidates the transactions/funds of all churches. You should separately identify each church’s unrestricted and restricted funds in the notes to the accounts.

Who to contact

The Finance team

Downloads

Example PCC report and accounts

Example receipts and payments

Independent examiners certificate

Parish year end accounts & returns checklist

Powered by Church Edit