Governance and finance

This resource is part of our OTR Part 3 guidance: Keeping records, producing accounts and making a claim. It looks at how to keep accrual accounts for your concert production company for the purposes of claiming OTR. 

Organisations claiming Orchestra Tax Relief (OTR) (i.e. the concert production companies) have to prepare their financial statements under the Accruals Basis of accounting which requires that income and expense must be recognized in the accounting periods to which they relate rather than on a cash basis.

This resource is part of our OTR Part 3 guidance: Keeping records, producing accounts and making a claim.

It includes two downloadable documents:

• OTR 3.2 Template: Accrual accounts (Excel spreadsheet)
• OTR 3.2(a) Guidance: Notes on using the accrual accounts template (PDF)

Please note:

The majority of our member groups are run by a committee - a group of enthusiastic people who care about their group and are willing to take responsibility for running it. Even if you don’t have something formally called ‘a committee’ it is likely that you have a group of people who work together to run your group and so the overarching themes in this resource will still be relevant. 

Similarly whilst the resource refers to constitutions and charities, if your group is not a charity or does not have a constitution the main themes are still applicable.

The majority of our member groups are run by a committee - a group of enthusiastic people who care about their group and are willing to take responsibility for running it. Even if you don’t have something formally called ‘a committee’ it is likely that you have a group of people who work together to run your group and so the overarching themes in this resource will still be relevant.  Similarly whilst the resource refers to constitutions and charities, if your group is not a charity or does not have a constitution the main themes are still applicable.

Committee or management teams tend to work best with clear and defined roles. The simplest way to do this is to have a role description for each position on the committee or management team. It means whoever is in the role understands what their job is and what they are responsible for, helps all members to understand what everyone does and can be invaluable if an occasional territorial disputes crops up.

The SCIO is a legal structure for registered charities in Scotland. It provides limited liability and separate legal identity to organisations which do not wish to incorporate fully. This guidance outlines the benefits and obligations of becoming or converting to an SCIO

We can help advise music groups on establishing charitable status. There are advantages to gaining charitable status and also some consequences to be aware of that are covered in this guidance.

Charities simply need to make a 'declaration' of who the donor is, how much they are giving you, and that they want tax to be reclaimed. Declarations can be in writing, or given verbally or electronically, and charities may devise their own forms.

The Charity Commission now requires its registered charities to describe how they provide a public benefit through their activities, and include this description in their annual return to the Charity Commission.