Accounts information

This information was required in order to prepare the annual acocunts for the year ended 31 January 2010. It has been retained for historical purposes only and is not kept up to date

WIKI UK Limited
Information Required For Accounts
Period Ended 31 January 2010

The memorandum of association states under point 25 1 “The directors must prepare for each financial year accounts as required by the 2006 Act. The accounts must be prepared to show a true and fair view and follow accounting standards issued or adopted by the Accounting Standards Board or its successors and adhere to the recommendations of applicable Statements of Recommended Practice”

As the charity has gross income over £10k but less than £500k an independent examination is required.

As such the following questions need to be answered as fully as possible please with supporting information provided where requested / required:

Understanding The Charity

Structure and Organisation

• The structure and organisation of the charity – why not registered with Charities Commission yet

Wikimedia UK is a membership organising established as a company limited by guarantee. The constitution is comprised of the Memorandum and Articles of Association, Special Resolutions passed at General Meetings of Members and various Rules that have been adopted by the Board. Members are invited to an Annual General Meeting where they elect the Board of Directors who run the day to day tasks of the organisation.

An application has been made to the Charities Commission and negotiations are currently underway.

Wikimedia UK has been recognised by the Wikimedia Foundation, the US charity that operated the Wikipedia website and its sister projects, as the local Wikimedia "chapter" covering the UK. This recognition is under the terms of the "Chapter Agreement", under which the Foundation and Wikimedia UK agree to help each other obtain their mutual objectives. Nonetheless, Wikimedia UK remains legally and operationally an independent organision, in full control of its income and resources.

Achieving Objectives

• How the charity seeks to achieve its objectives – how funds are raised / forms of fund raising etc – how then the money is spent and on what to achieve the objectives

Funds are raised principally through the annual Wikimedia fundraiser, when an appeal for donations is advertised on the Wikipedia website and related sites. Wikimedia UK participates in this fundraiser under the terms of a Chapter Fundraising Agreement between Wikimedia UK and the Wikimedia Foundation. Other sources of income include membership fees and grants for individual projects.

A budget is drawn up before the start of the financial year, covering administrative costs and expenditure on specific projects. Money then is spent with the approval of the Board of Trustees, or delegated responsibility to a budget holder for a specific budget item.

Funds have been spent to foster collaborations between the Wikimedia movement and other organisations, such as Museums, Libraries, Universities and media companies; to address misconceptions about the Wikimedia projects in the media; running events that brings the Wikimedia community together in person so that they can collaborate to improve the Wikimedia projects; and on administrative costs such as legal and accounting fees. Money is typically spent on expenses for volunteers and organising events, such as travel, refreshments, telephone expense and room hire.

Developments

• Developments during the year

Key events in the year have included:

November 2008: Company incorporated; Applied to HMRC for recognition as a charity

January 2009: Recognised as a Wikimedia chapter

February 2009: Bank account opened; Participated in "Wikipedia Loves Art" global collaboration with museums

April 2009: Participated in the global Wikimedia chapters meeting in Berlin; first Annual General Meeting held

September 2009: Applied to the Charity Commission

December 2009: Participated in Wikimedia Annual Fundraiser

Events since the balance sheet date

A:

There have been no material events since the balance sheet date.

Any special circumstances and problems affecting the charity

A:

None

Risk

• Policies and procedures concerning risk

A: None.

• Any major risks the charity is facing

A: None.

Minutes from the trustees meetings for review

Please see http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetings

How the accounting systems work?

Income

• How is received, by who, how and when is it banked, who then enters the receipt into the account at which point etc.

A: Income is primarily received via Paypal, which deals with the processing of credit and debit card donations and sends receipts out to donors. This income is transferred into the bank account with the Co-Operative Bank regularly in batches. Acknowledgements from the Charity are sent out using our donation website, which uses CiviCRM and is the primary source of donations. The Treasurer records the donations in the accounts in batches (particularly during the annual fundraiser). Income is also received by cheques sent to the Treasurer (also, during this period, the Membership Secretary), which are banked semi-regularly in batches and recorded once it has been confirmed that the cheques have cleared.

Expenses

• who authorises orders, who authorises payment, limit on cheques, signatories, who enters the expense into the accounts and at what point etc

A: Expenses are repaid upon submission of an expense form to the Treasurer. The expense claims require the signatures of two Board members for amounts under £100, and three Board members for amounts over £100. Expenses are repaid via cheques which bear the signatures of two Board members that are also signatories to the bank account (i.e. the Chair, Treasurer or Secretary). The expenses are entered into the accounts by the Treasurer during the processing of the claim.

Accounts

• Who produces and updates the accounting information and records – what records are kept, how ordered etc.

A: The Treasurer maintains the accounting information and records. They are held in a combination of digital format (for the accounts) and paper format (for the expenses and receipts).

• How are accounting estimates such as prepayments, accruals, depreciation calculated and processed – by who.

A: During this accounting period, these estimates were not necessary.

Software

• Which software is used, is it supported and updated, off the shelf or modified

A: The GNUCash software package was used; this is open source software available from http://www.gnucash.org/ . It is actively maintained and updated by a volunteer community, but is not supported. The version used was off the shelf, and was not modified, except for the creation of a plugin to import data from the Paypal account.

Funds

• How incoming / outgoing funds are allocated as restricted funds or unrestricted funds'

We received two restricted fund donations in the year: firstly, our "kick start" grant was given to us for specified purposes. More details are given at http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Initiatives/Kick-start_grant/Report. Secondly, the terms under which we participated in the Wikimedia Annual Fundraiser included that 50% of the donations would be restricted to promoting the international work of the Wikimedia movement.

Analytical Review

Can you please provide any budgets or forecasts that were prepared for the period to 31 January 2010 and for the following period to 31 January 2011.

We didn't prepare a budget for 2008-10. The Budgets for 2010-11 and 2011-12 are at http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/2010_Budget and http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/2011_Budget.