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Lisa Chambers
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Advice needed: setting up accounting dimensions for SoFA, income tracking & forecasting
Finance
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Lasha Phutkaradze Senior FP&A Analyst at N/A Posted 11 hours ago
Hi all,
I’m a Finance Manager at a UK charity and relatively new to charity accounting / SORP. We’re currently reviewing how we structure our accounting dimensions (using QuickBooks Online, but advice from other systems very welcome).
I’m trying to design a setup that works well for:
- SoFA reporting (restricted / unrestricted, income & expenditure by activity)
- Income & grant tracking (multiple funders, multi‑year grants)
- Management reporting & forecasting
- Being audit‑friendly without becoming over‑complicated to run day to day
Some specific questions I’d love views on:
- What dimensions do you find genuinely useful in practice (e.g. Fund, Programme, Department, Grant)?
- Do you treat Funds as the primary driver, or rely more on projects/classes beneath that?
- How do you avoid duplication or reconciliation pain between restricted funds and programme reporting?
- Any pitfalls you wish you’d avoided when first setting this up?
We’re keen to keep the system robust but simple enough for non‑finance staff to code correctly.
Any practical experiences or tips would be much appreciated — thank you!
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