Charity Finance Virtual Conference 2026

Overview:

TBC

Charities SORP 2026 Update

Overview:

In this session Nigel will briefly recap on the main changes from the 2019 SORP including the three tiers and key changes to accounting policies before covering three themes:

·       Using the SORP's requirements to tell your charity's (charity client's) story well in three aspects: 1st explaining the charity's operational model*, 2nd demonstrating resilience including risk, reserves and going concern*, and 3rd showing the difference made in impact

·       Telling the wider story of Environmental Social Governance Reporting* (mandatory for tier 3 and optional for tiers 1 and 2)

·       Making the transition to the new SORP with learning from those charities that have already reported under the 2026 SORP

Nigel will also recap on the receipts and payments option (not available to charitable companies) and the implications of switching to receipts and payments accounts.

Charity law update

Overview:

TBC 

UK Charity regulation update

Overview:

TBC

Auditing update for charities

Overview:

TBC

How charity finance teams can use AI today

Overview:

 AI is already reshaping transactional finance. But most charity finance teams haven't had the time to stop, experiment, and see what's genuinely possible with the tools that exist today — free or low-cost, no new ERP required.

This practical one-hour session cuts through the hype. Alan de Sousa Caires FCCA — a 30-year charity Finance Director — walks through a working charity's month-end close and shows how AI can be applied to the processes that consume the most time: bank reconciliation, payroll journals, prepayments and accruals, fixed assets, management accounts, board packs, and fund reporting.

Expect a live demonstration using anonymised charity data, a realistic view of where AI helps and where it still needs human judgement, a practical starting point you can take back to your team next week, and a frank view of the governance questions trustees will ask. Designed for finance directors, heads of finance, financial controllers, management accountants, and advisers working with charity clients.

You'll leave with:

(1) a clear view of which month-end tasks are worth automating first

(2) a simple governance checklist for deploying AI responsibly in a charity finance function

(3) a shortlist of free tools you can try this week.

Gwen Ryder

AIIT, CTA, VAT and Customs Consultant

Gwen has been a VAT and customs duty specialist and lecturer for her entire career. She worked in HM Customs (now HM Revenue and Customs) for 9 years before joining the VAT and Customsteam at Ernst & Young for over 6 years. She subsequently became the VAT and CustomsPartner in a top 20 firm, and then formed her own consultancy practice. From 2006to 2019, much of Gwen’s time was taken up as acting head of VAT, and then head of VATcompliance in a top 10 firm of accountants. Gwen is an Associate of, and former examiner for,the Institute of Indirect Tax, and is a member of the VAT Practitioners Group.

Gwen presents a wide range of courses on most matters of VAT and customs duty as it applies in the UK and internationally.

A Freeman of the City of London, and a Liveryman of The Worshipful Company Of Tax Advisers.

Nigel Davies

Nigel is a Chartered Certified Accountant with over twenty years’ experience in the charity sector. He is a member of the IFR4NPO Practitioner Advisory Group, Healthcare Financial Management Association’s NHS Charity Finance Group, and a trustee of the Association of Church Accountants and Treasurers (ACAT). He has is a member of ACCA’s Charity Trustees Panel and a regular speaker on charity financial reporting issues. He has also written a number of articles on topical accountancy issues including the ACCA Factsheet: ESG reporting for smaller charities (October 2022).

Prior to taking up part-time consultancy in March 2022, Nigel was Assistant Director, Accountancy Services, at the Charity Commission for England and Wales and Joint Chair of the UK-Ireland Charities SORP Committee (2014-2022) and co-author of the Charities Statement of Recommended Practice (FRS 102). He was the principal author of the 2015 ACCA Companion Guide for Not-for-profits to the International Financial Reporting Standard for Small and Medium-sized Entities (IFRS for SMEs) which was the first global reporting initiative for non-profit organisations.

Louise Dunford

Louise has been continuously involved in training and consultancy since 1987 and am a qualified barrister. Louise provides advice and assistance to employers through a consultancy company, CompleteHR Ltd, and have also engaged in CPD training for most of the national accountancy training bodies and district societies in the UK for many years. Louise is involved in management training, particularly in employment and HR, for many large multinational and national commercial companies. Louise has also worked as an occasional associate senior lecturer at the University of Portsmouth, mainly on the MBA, MA Personnel Management and MA Business Law. Louise has published academic papers in refereed journals, chiefly on employment status and corporate manslaughter.

Darren Leiser

Darren Leiser is a Freelance Lecturer and Consultant specialising in Financing, Budgeting and Management seminars, which includes Financial Reporting (under UK GAAP and IFRS), Pension Schemes. Charities, Corporate Finance, Budgeting, Auditing, Finance for Non-Finance Managers, Quantitative Methods, Corporate Governance, Costing and Effective Management Processes.

Darren holds a BSc (Hons) degree in Mathematics and a MSc in Finance. He is a Fellow of The Chartered Association of Certified Accountants (FCCA) and obtained the Auditing Practicing Certificate. He is also a member of the Pensions Research Accountants Group.

Darren has over twenty years of experience in the profession, having worked for several of the largest accountancy practices in the UK along with several smaller ones too.

As an auditor with a top five UK firm Darren was involved with auditing some of the largest pension schemes in the UK that are linked to many national and international companies.

He has taught both throughout the UK and internationally presenting courses in many countries including UAE, Oman, Switzerland, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Greece, and Georgia to name a few. He has taught on the CPD circuit for the major accountancy Institutes including the ICAEW, ACCA and ICAS. He has also presented various in-house courses for organisations such the National Audit Office and European Space Agency.

Alan De Sousa

Alan de Sousa Caires FCCA is a chartered certified accountant and Finance Director with over 30 years' experience across commercial and charity finance. He qualified with ACCA in 1995, is a Six Sigma Black Belt, and has held director-level finance roles at BBC Media Action (a £40m international INGO operating in 25 countries) and The Film and Television Charity, where he spent six years as Director of Finance & Operations. Earlier in his career he spent 14 years with GE across the UK, Italy and Turkey, leading finance and process-improvement programmes that delivered over $4m in savings. He was part of the team that won Charity Times' Best Use of Technology in 2020. He now focuses on helping charity finance teams adopt AI responsibly and practically — as a practitioner, not a theorist.

The webinar handout material will be available on the webinar platform when you log in to view, 15 minutes before the live webinar start.

If you wish to view or download handout materials, before the day of the webinar, they will also be available through your document library on https://events.accaglobal.com.