The email arrives on a Tuesday afternoon. The examiner is polite and brief. Could you send 'the usual papers' before the end of the month? You have been treasurer of the Scout group for eleven months and you have never seen a pack assembled. You know there is a cash book somewhere. You are not sure which bank statements the examiner means, or whether the Gift Aid folder counts.
This piece is for the treasurer who is in that position now, or who expects to be next year. It sets out what goes in an examiner pack, what people forget, and how to assemble it over the few weeks before year-end rather than the night before the examiner rings.
What an examiner pack is
An examiner pack is a set of records the independent examiner can work from without ringing you every evening with a question. It is not a template to copy blindly. Your examiner may ask for slightly different things depending on your governing document, your income level and the type of examination you need. Treat the list below as a starting point and check it against what the examiner has asked for in writing.
The aim is simple. Every figure in your year-end report should be traceable to a bank line, a receipt, a declaration or a minute. If you can walk an examiner from the report back to the bank statement without guessing, the pack is doing its job.
The core contents
Most small organisations will need five things.
First, the year-end bank statements, together with your bank reconciliation for the year. The reconciliation shows that the cash book agrees with the bank at the start and end of the period, and explains any difference, such as cheques not yet cleared.
Second, the cash book for the full year. Check that every receipt and payment has a date, a description, an amount and a fund or category.
Third, the income and expenditure or receipts and payments figures, with the prior-year comparison. The examiner will want to see the same headings in both years. If you changed a heading, note why.
Fourth, a fund breakdown. This should list unrestricted funds and any restricted funds separately. A restricted fund is money given for a specific purpose, and the examiner will want to see that spending matches the purpose.
Fifth, supporting receipts or invoices for larger items. Pick a sensible threshold, such as anything over £250, and keep the paperwork for those in one labelled folder.
Records that often get forgotten
The core list is usually the easy part. The gaps tend to be in the following.
Gift Aid declarations and claim records. HMRC expects Gift Aid records to be kept for at least six years. That means the declarations themselves, the donation records they relate to, and a copy of each claim you have made. If your organisation claims through Vasker on the Plus plan, the request and response files should also be kept. This is general information, not tax advice. Check current HMRC guidance for your own situation.
Minutes approving grants or big spends. If the committee agreed to pay for a new minibus, a grant to a local group or a repair to the hall roof, the minute is the evidence that the spend was authorised. Find the minute, copy the relevant page and put it in the pack beside the invoice.
Notes on anything unusual. A refund after an event, a donation returned by the bank, a cash shortfall at the summer fair, a loan from a member. Write one short paragraph explaining what happened and what you did about it. Examiners rarely mind an unusual item. They mind an unexplained one.
Examples from different organisations
The same list looks different depending on how the money comes in.
A Scout group with a restricted camp fund should show that fund separately in the breakdown. Money raised for the camp, such as a sponsored walk or a grant from a local trust, goes into that fund and is only spent on camp costs. The pack should include the camp budget, the receipts for camp spending and the minute approving the transfer from unrestricted funds if one was needed.
A church with plate collections counted by two people should keep the count sheets, signed by both counters, with the bank paying-in slip for the same date. The examiner will look for that match. If one count sheet is missing, a short note saying so is better than a gap. Where gift aid is claimed on envelope donations, the envelope records should sit with the declarations.
A PTA with event cash and a float should record the float at the start of each event and the amount returned to the bank afterwards. The pack should show each event's cash takings, the bank deposit for them and the float reconciliation. A simple one-page summary per event works well, with the receipt book or ticket records attached.
A community amateur sports club, or CASC, will often have membership subscriptions alongside match or venue income. Keep the subscription list and the arrears summary with the cash book so the examiner can see how the figures were built.
Tick the bank against the cash book before year-end
The safest way to avoid a surprise is to reconcile the bank a few weeks before the year closes, not after. Pick the last statement you have and tick every line in the bank against the cash book. Anything unticked on either side is a question to answer now.
Common gaps include a standing order recorded twice, a cheque banked in the wrong month, a cash withdrawal for the petty cash float that never made it into the book, and a Gift Aid receipt that was entered as income but not as a claim. Each of these is quick to fix while you still have the paperwork in front of you. It is much harder in March when the examiner has asked why the reconciliation does not agree.
Where Vasker fits
Vasker is bookkeeping and Gift Aid software for unpaid treasurers of clubs, charities, PTAs, Scout groups and CASCs. For the examiner pack, two things matter.
The independent examiner ZIP collects the year-end documents into one download, so you do not have to hunt through folders. The year-end balance snapshot records the closing position without rewriting opening balances, which keeps the prior-year figures stable. Examiner access tooling sits on the Plus plan, which is £119 a year. Using it does not promise an examination with no findings. It makes the records easier to find and check.
If you are not yet keeping your cash book in one place, you can start with the free starter cash book, which covers one fund. Create your free account and enter the year's transactions as you go. That way the pack builds itself over the year rather than in one evening. Vasker needs a connection to run, so the cash book is not available offline.
For the examiner's own questions, our guide Charity independent examination: what the examiner will ask for covers what they are likely to check. This piece is about what you assemble and when.
Check the rules for your own organisation
This article is general information for UK volunteer treasurers. It is not legal, tax or accounting advice. Requirements depend on your organisation type and income. Check current guidance from the Charity Commission for England and Wales, OSCR in Scotland or CCNI in Northern Ireland, and the HMRC pages on Charities Online, Gift Aid declarations and records. Ask your examiner to confirm the list before you send anything.
Checklist for your handover notes
Copy this into the handover file so the next treasurer does not start from zero.
- [ ] Bank statements for the full year, with the year-end reconciliation signed and dated
- [ ] Cash book for the year, with every line dated and assigned to a fund or category
- [ ] Income and expenditure or receipts and payments, with prior-year comparison
- [ ] Fund breakdown, with restricted funds shown separately and their purpose noted
- [ ] Receipts or invoices for items above the agreed threshold
- [ ] Gift Aid declarations and claim records, kept for at least six years
- [ ] Minutes approving grants, large spends and any transfers between funds
- [ ] Short notes on unusual items, refunds, shortfalls and loans
- [ ] Count sheets and paying-in slips for collections or event cash, with floats reconciled
- [ ] Subscription list and arrears summary, if members pay fees
- [ ] Name and contact details of the independent examiner, and the date they need the pack
- [ ] Date of the last bank reconciliation before year-end, and any items still open