Thanks to Gill Lake, County Treasurer, for answering a few common accounting queries:
-You do not have to register your unit as a charity unless the unit has an 'interest' in land or buildings or a permanent endowment. Even if your unit is not registered the Charity Commissioners may require sight of your unit's accounts. Don't forget that you can now claim Gift Aid on subscriptions.

- Accounts must be drawn up annually - some Districts/Divisions have agreed to have the same year end. If your treasurer leaves, they should prepare, & have examined, accounts to the date of transfer. Accounts must be kept for at least six years.

- Your Commissioner should get a copy of your units accounts, independently examined. Your examiner does not need to be qualified but they must be competent in financial matters and not related to any of the unit Guiders.

- Blank Bedfordshire accounts forms have been distributed as a helpful guideline; A copy can be downloaded here.

- Separate accounts should be prepared for each of your unit's financial activities. All of these should be added (consolidated) together to come up with a combined set of accounts showing the total income, total expenditure & total assets for the unit. You cannot just show camp surplus/deficit as one line on the annual accounts. All camp income must be shown as income & all camp expenditure as expenditure. This can be one line with a copy of the camp accounts attached to the annual accounts.

- You don't have to keep a separate bank account for my camp/pack holiday money although you do have to keep proper records of the event. If you have a joint holiday account with another unit, the first-named unit must consolidate it with their unit's annual accounts and the other units should attach a copy of the holiday accounts to their units' annual accounts.

- Major items of equipment should be individually stated and valued as assets. 'Disposable' items with a cost less than £100 individually need not be included but a flag or Toadstool should probably be included. The recording of the asset is more important than spending a lot of time trying to value it.