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Business Risk Services
Our Business Risk Services team deliver practical and pragmatic solutions that support clients in growing and protecting the inherent value of their businesses.
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Corporate Finance and Deal Advisory
We offer a dedicated team of experienced individuals with a focus on successfully executing transactions for corporates and financial institutions. We offer an integrated approach, with our corporate finance specialists working seamlessly with tax and other specialists to ensure that every angle is covered.
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Economic Advisory
Our all-island Economics Advisory team combines expertise in economics and business with a wealth of experience across the public and private sectors.
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Forensic Accounting
We have a different way of doing business by delivering real insight through a combination of technical rigour, commercial experience and intuitive judgment. We take pride in delivering responsive and tailored solutions to all our clients, capitalising on the wealth of experience housed within our Belfast and wider Forensics team
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People and Change Consulting
The Grant Thornton People & Change Consulting practice works with clients on these issues as well as on all aspects of how they attract, retain, engage develop, deploy and lead their people.
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Restructuring
We work with a wide variety of clients and stakeholders such as high street banks, private equity funds, directors, government agencies and creditors to implement solutions which provide the best possible outcomes.
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Technology Consulting
Motivating and assisting our clients to pursue, maintain and secure the benefits of digital solutions is at the core of our Digital Transformation teams' agenda and goals. We work with business leaders to deliver efficient digital strategies and operating models that provide new or enhanced capabilities.
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Corporate and International Tax
Northern Ireland businesses face further challenges as they operate in the only part of the UK that has a land border with a country offering a lower tax rate.
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Employer Solutions
Our team specialises in remuneration and incentive planning and works closely with employers, shareholders and employees to ensure that business strategies are aligned and goals achieved in the most tax efficient, cost-effective manner.
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Entrepreneur and Private Client Taxes
Our team of experienced advisors are on hand to guide you through any decision or transaction ranging from the establishment of new business ventures, to realising value on exit, to succession planning and providing for loved ones.
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Global Mobility Services
Grant Thornton Ireland offer a different approach to managing global mobility. We have brought together specialists from our tax, global payroll, people and change and financial accounting teams across Ireland and Northern Ireland, while drawing on the knowledge and insights of our global network of over 143 offices of mobility professionals to provide you with a holistic approach to managing global mobility.
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Outsourced Payroll
Our outsourced service provides valued service to over 150 separate PAYE schemes. These ranging from 1 to 1000 employees, working for micro, SME and global employers. The service is supported by the integrated network of tax and global mobility teams and the wider Grant Thornton network delivering a seamless service. Experienced staff deliver a personal service built around your business needs.
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Tax Disputes and Investigations
Our Tax Disputes and Investigation team is made up of tax experts and former HMRC investigators who have years of experience in dealing with a variety of tax investigations. Our expertise and insight can guide you through all interactions, keeping your cost at a minimum while allowing you to continue with the day to day running of your business.
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VAT and Indirect Taxes
At Grant Thornton (NI) LLP, our team helps Northern Ireland businesses manage their UK and global indirect tax risks which, as transactional taxes, can quickly become big liabilities.
Telling your story – Financial reporting by charities
24 Apr 2018Northern Ireland’s charity sector comprises almost 4,000 registered charities. All are unique in their own way, and many have to ‘up their competitive game’ in order to attract the attention of donors and grant awarding bodies. How a charity tells its own story can be extremely helpful in raising awareness, as well as funds, to support the charitable activities that it undertakes.
The charity’s Annual Report affords a great opportunity to do so.
The introduction of the Charities (Accounts and Reports) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2015 meant that those charities with income over £250,000 are now required to apply the Statement of Recommended Practice (or “SORP”) “Accounting and Reporting by Charities” as the basis for preparing their Annual Reports. Some who fall outside that threshold requirement may choose to voluntarily adopt the SORP.
The SORP has been designed to improve the quality of financial reporting by charities, as well as enhancing the transparency, understandability and quality of information presented in the charity’s financial statements. As a result, the SORP requires more comprehensive and detailed disclosures than the charity may have previously reported.
Financial statements produced under the SORP will contain a narrative report, referred to as the Trustees’ Annual Report. The primary purpose of this Report is to ensure that the charity is publicly accountable to its stakeholders for the stewardship and management of the funds it holds.
It can be easy for Trustees to dismiss the preparation of this report as a laborious exercise purely to meet the various legislative and financial reporting framework requirements, however, this was certainly not the intention of the SORP writers.
The Trustees’ Annual Report is a chance for the Trustees to “tell the story” of their charity – celebrating their achievements and demonstrating the difference that the charity is making among its beneficiaries. The Report is a perhaps unique opportunity to reach both the charity’s existing supporters and the wider general public, and provides a platform to highlight the good work that is being carried out.
A strong Report also ensures that the charity can demonstrate its governance arrangements and allow the organization to be publicly accountable to its stakeholders for the funds it receives, and the activities and expenditures it carries out. The full picture cannot always be easily obtained from the financial information, and so the Report is key in addressing the more qualitative, non-financial results of the charity – the impact it has made, the objectives it has for the future and its overall strategy and aims.
The Report does not need to be lengthy, nor does it have to be purely narrative. Photographs, quotations from service users and bold design can all be used to develop an attractive and informative document.
The responsibility for the Report ultimately lies with the charity’s Trustees. They have the opportunity to make the most of that unique platform to tell the charity’s story to the world.