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Charity Treasurer Duties and Responsibilities: Free Job Description Template (2026)
July 7, 2026
⚡TL;DR — The Short Answer
Every UK charity needs a treasurer, but the workload depends on how many tools they have to reconcile, not just who you hire.
In the UK, the treasurer is a trustee with personal fiduciary duties under the Charities Act 2011 (or the equivalent Scottish and Northern Irish legislation).
The core responsibilities cover financial oversight, Gift Aid claims to HMRC, the annual return and Trustees' Annual Report (TAR), and compliance with the Fundraising Regulator's Code of Practice.
Most small-to-mid UK charities need a volunteer trustee treasurer, not a paid Finance Director.
Collapse your tool stack before you recruit: one platform for donations, ticketing, raffles, and memberships means one payout to reconcile, not five.
Every UK charity needs a treasurer. In the UK, the treasurer is a trustee, an office bearer on the charity's board with specific responsibility for financial oversight and personal fiduciary duty under the Charities Act 2011 (or the equivalent Scottish and Northern Irish legislation). Get the role right and you protect the charity's registration, Gift Aid status, and reputation with the Fundraising Regulator.
But before you copy a generic template off a job board and post it, there is one question your hiring committee actually needs to answer: how many hours per month is this role at your charity?
That number is not a function of the candidate. It is a function of your toolchain. A treasurer reconciling one fundraising platform into Xero every month is doing a manageable job. A treasurer juggling five payment streams, a payment processor account they cannot access, and four parallel spreadsheets is doing a significant monthly burden, and they will burn out by month four. Lead with the template below, then use the rest of the article to set realistic expectations.
Copy the block straight into your job board or board-recruitment email. Replace the bracketed fields with your specifics, then switch tabs for the volunteer vs. paid version.
Position Title
Board Treasurer (Volunteer)
Organisation Overview
[Organisation name] is a [registered charity / CIO] based in [city, county]. Our mission is to [one-sentence mission]. We serve [population / community] and operate on an annual budget of approximately [£ amount].
Role Summary
The Board Treasurer is an elected officer of the Board of Directors. The Treasurer provides high-level financial oversight, ensures the charity meets its fiduciary and reporting obligations, and serves as the board's primary point of contact on financial matters. This is a volunteer position with an expected commitment of roughly [X] hours per month plus monthly board meetings. Term length: [1 / 2 / 3] years, renewable.
Key Responsibilities
Chair the finance committee and present a monthly or quarterly financial summary to the board.
Review monthly bank reconciliations, payout reports, and the general ledger prepared by the bookkeeper or staff.
Co-develop the annual budget with the executive director and present it to the board for approval.
Oversee the annual audit or financial review and liaise with external auditors.
Ensure timely filing of the Charity Commission annual return and the Trustees' Annual Report.
Help set and uphold internal financial controls (dual signatures, spending limits, conflict-of-interest policy).
Sign or co-sign on the charity's bank accounts.
Qualifications
Comfort with charity accounts (statement of financial activities, balance sheet, cash flow).
Bookkeeping or accounting experience, or comfort reading reports out of QuickBooks or similar software. An ACA, ACCA, CIMA, or finance background is helpful but not required.
Genuine commitment to [organisation name]'s mission.
Willingness to attend [number] board meetings per year plus finance committee meetings.
Tools You Will Use
[List the actual tools, e.g., QuickBooks Online, Zeffy, the bank's online portal. Being honest here is the single best filter for fit.]
How to Apply
Send a short note about why you are interested and a resume or LinkedIn profile to [email]. We will follow up to schedule a conversation with the board chair and current treasurer.
Why Join Us
Direct impact on a mission you care about.
A working board with [number] active members.
Real exposure to charity governance.
Position Title
Treasurer / Director of Finance
Organisation Overview
[Organisation name] is a [registered charity] with an annual budget of [£ amount] and [number] staff. Our mission is to [one-sentence mission].
Position Type
[Full-time / part-time], reporting to the Executive Director with a dotted line to the Board Treasurer.
Role Summary
The Treasurer leads the charity's day-to-day financial operations: budgeting, cash management, financial reporting, compliance, and audit preparation. This role partners with programme leadership on financial planning and serves as staff liaison to the board's finance committee.
Key Responsibilities
Own the month-end close: bank reconciliations, payout reconciliations across fundraising platforms, journal entries, and a clean trial balance.
Prepare monthly financial statements for the executive director and quarterly statements for the board.
Lead the annual budgeting process and quarterly reforecasts.
Manage cash flow and short-term cash reserves.
Prepare for and manage the annual audit and the charity's annual return and accounts filing.
Maintain and enforce internal financial controls.
Supervise bookkeeping staff or contractors.
Qualifications
Degree in Accounting or Finance, or a related field. A chartered accountancy qualification (ACA, ACCA, CIMA) or MBA preferred.
5+ years of charity financial management experience.
Proficiency in QuickBooks or comparable accounting software.
Strong analytical and communication skills; ability to translate financials for non-finance stakeholders.
Compensation
[Salary range], plus [benefits].
How to Apply
[Application instructions.]
Fund your mission without losing a cut to fees. Zeffy is 100% free for charities.
Treat the template as a starting point, not a final spec. Four quick adjustments:
1.Match the role to your budget. If your charity is under £500k income, the trustee treasurer template is almost certainly the right one. Hiring a paid staff finance role at that size is rarely a good use of money. If you are over £1m and your bookkeeper is already overloaded, the staff template is the move.
2.Modify qualifications for volunteer vs paid roles. Volunteer trustee treasurers do not need an ACA, ACCA, or CIMA qualification. They need to be comfortable reading an income and expenditure account and willing to ask the bookkeeper questions. Soften credential requirements; emphasise mission fit.
3.Add mission-specific language. A community foundation needs a treasurer who understands grants and restricted funds. An amateur dramatics society needs one who understands ticketing revenue and Gift Aid on donated ticket portions. Say so in the role summary.
4.Be honest about the monthly time commitment. This is the part most templates skip. Realistic hours depend on how many payment platforms the treasurer has to reconcile. If you can consolidate donations, ticketing, raffles, memberships, and your online shop onto one platform with a clean accounting handoff, the role becomes a manageable evening commitment. Zeffy's free integration with Xero and QuickBooks auto-categorises payouts by campaign or fund, which is the kind of plumbing that saves your volunteer treasurer real time every month.
For a small charity: the template is the easy part. The honest hours-per-month estimate is the hard part, and it is what determines whether the person you recruit stays.
How many hours per month is this really? Auditing your toolchain before you hire
A trustee treasurer's monthly workload is mostly reconciliation. Reconciliation time scales with the number of revenue streams you ask them to touch. So the most useful thing you can do before posting the job description is count.
Step 1: Count your revenue tools
Write down every place donations or revenue land. A typical small UK charity's list:
Main donation platform (JustGiving, Enthuse, or similar)
Event ticketing (Ticket Tailor, TicketSource, or Eventbrite)
A crowdfunding campaign (Crowdfunder)
Direct Debits for regular giving (GoCardless)
A Christmas raffle or society lottery
An online shop
In-person tap-to-pay at fetes and door collections (SumUp or Zettle)
Cheques through the post
BACS deposits for grants
If that list has more than two entries, your treasurer is doing reconciliation on hard mode.
Step 2: Understand the reconciliation reality
Each tool produces its own payout. Each payout arrives net of processor fees. Each campaign needs to be split out for the general ledger. The treasurer ends up entering the same transaction into three or four places: the platform's report, the bank statement, Xero or QuickBooks, and the campaign tracker. That gap, between a payout that arrived and pounds correctly allocated in the books, is where treasurer time disappears. It is also where volunteer treasurers burn out.
Gift Aid adds a second reconciliation layer: matching declarations to donations, submitting claims via Charities Online, and posting the 25p-per-£1 top-up back to the correct fund (HMRC Gift Aid guidance).
Step 3: Collapse the toolchain before you onboard the treasurer
The lever that actually makes the role doable is fewer streams to reconcile. One fundraising platform that handles donations, tickets, raffles, memberships, and the online shop produces one payout. One payout reconciles to one bank deposit. One bank deposit maps cleanly to your Xero or QuickBooks chart of accounts. That is a manageable monthly commitment. Five disconnected tools is a significant monthly burden that nobody volunteers to keep doing.
The UK stack for a typical small charity, JustGiving for donations, Ticket Tailor for fete tickets, Crowdfunder for a project campaign, GoCardless for regular giving, plus cheques and grant BACS deposits, means five separate reports feeding into one ledger before Gift Aid claims to HMRC are even started. Zeffy is used by 100,000+ charities with over £2 billion raised on the platform. Zeffy's free integration with Xero and QuickBooks auto-categorises every payout by campaign or fund, so when your treasurer opens the accounts at month-end, the work is review, not data entry.
For a small charity: do this audit before you post the job description. The fastest way to lose a good volunteer treasurer is to hand them four logins, no access to a payment processor account, and a 'reconcile this' email on the first of every month.
Key charity treasurer responsibilities
Include these responsibilities in your job description. Keep each one tight.
1. Financial management
The treasurer oversees the charity's finances day to day or month to month. They review the charity's financial policies and internal controls and make sure those controls are actually followed.
2. Prepares financial reports
The treasurer prepares (or reviews and presents) financial statements at trustee meetings: the statement of financial activities (SoFA), balance sheet, and cash flow statement, in line with the Charities SORP (FRS 102). These reports give the trustees what they need to plan and allocate resources.
3. Ensures compliance and auditing
The treasurer leads the annual independent examination or statutory audit, and ensures the charity's annual return and Trustees' Annual Report and Accounts (TAR) are filed on time with the Charity Commission (or OSCR / CCNI), along with any required Companies House filings for charitable companies and CIOs. Larger charities with gross income above £1m, or above £250k with assets above £3.26m, require a statutory audit; below those thresholds, an independent examination may suffice. This protects the charity's registered status and builds credibility with donors and regulators.
4. Manages Gift Aid
Oversee Gift Aid claims to HMRC. This includes ensuring donors' Gift Aid declarations are captured and stored for six years, submitting claims via Charities Online within the four-year claim window, and reconciling the 25p-per-£1 top-up when it lands. Where the charity uses the Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme (GASDS), track the £8,000 annual cap on eligible small cash and contactless donations.
5. Serves as financial liaison
The treasurer translates the numbers for the rest of the board of trustees and for staff. Most trustees are not finance professionals. The treasurer's job is to make the financials understandable so the whole board can make informed decisions.
6. Picks financial software
The treasurer often weighs in on what accounting and fundraising tools the charity uses. The best advice here is to keep the stack small. Xero and QuickBooks Online are the two dominant UK small-charity accounting tools; specialist options include Liberty Accounts for charity-specific SORP reporting. On the fundraising side, consolidate into one platform that handles all your income streams. Fewer revenue tools means a more doable treasurer role.
7. Ensures fundraising compliance
Ensure fundraising activity complies with the Code of Fundraising Practice (Fundraising Regulator, in force 1 November 2025), including the new Section 9 rules on online platforms. Where the charity runs raffles or prize draws, register any small society lottery with the local licensing authority (£40 initial registration, £20 annual renewal; £20,000 single-draw cap, £250,000 annual aggregate) per Gambling Commission guidance.
8. Facilitates proper budgeting
The treasurer leads or co-leads the annual budgeting process with the chief executive and the finance committee. They also track actuals against budget through the year and flag variances early.
9. Identifies and manages risks
The treasurer watches for financial risks, cash shortfalls, over-reliance on one funder, a major grant ending, and works with the board to plan around them. This can extend to insurance coverage and basic financial safety policies.
For a small charity: all nine matter, but the realistic monthly time goes mostly into reporting, reconciliation, Gift Aid, and compliance. Budgeting and risk are quarterly. Plan accordingly.
Qualifications to look for in a charity treasurer
Five qualities to screen for. Note: requirements should be lighter for volunteer trustee treasurers than for paid staff roles.
1. Financial expertise
A background in finance, accounting, or auditing helps. For paid staff finance roles, an ACA (ICAEW), ACCA, or CIMA qualification (or an MBA with charity-finance experience) plus five or more years in a charity or not-for-profit finance role is reasonable. For volunteer trustee treasurers, formal credentials are nice-to-have, not must-have. What you really need is someone comfortable reading a statement of financial activities (SoFA), asking the bookkeeper smart questions, and spotting when a number looks off. The Charity Commission explicitly notes that trustees do not need formal qualifications, just the competence and integrity to fulfil their duties.
2. Leadership
The treasurer leads financial discussions in the boardroom and works with other officers, the chief executive, and programme leaders. Quiet leadership counts; this is not a role that requires charisma.
3. Analytical and problem-solving skills
The treasurer needs to spot trends in the numbers, a softening donor base, a campaign that is underperforming, and propose responses. Pattern recognition matters more than mathematical brilliance.
4. Commitment to the mission
This is the differentiator for volunteer trustee roles. A treasurer who cares about the mission stays through the third year, when the work is mostly maintenance. A treasurer who joined for the CV line will not.
5. Integrity
The treasurer is a signatory on the bank account, sees every transaction, and is accountable to HMRC and the Charity Commission. The Charity Commission requires trustees to be at least 18 (16 for CIOs and charitable companies), not disqualified under the Charities Act 2011, and able to act in the charity's best interests. Integrity is not optional. Look for references who can speak to the candidate's handling of money or sensitive information.
One more honest note on volunteer trustee treasurers and tooling: do not stack expectations. A trustee treasurer is not also your CRM administrator. If you are under around 500 supporters, Zeffy's built-in supporter management covers what most small charities need without forcing a volunteer to learn a separate paid tool. Match the qualifications to the actual job, not to a wish list.
For a small charity: mission fit and integrity beat credentials. A passionate volunteer with bookkeeping experience outperforms a credentialled candidate who shows up to four meetings and disappears.
Charity treasurer pay: what to expect in 2026
Compensation depends almost entirely on which version of the role you are hiring.
Trustee treasurers on UK charity boards are unpaid by default. This is by far the most common form of the role at small and mid-sized charities. The Charity Commission expects trustees to serve voluntarily, with the charity reimbursing reasonable out-of-pocket expenses (travel, phone, materials). Paid trustees are permitted only in narrow circumstances, usually where the governing document explicitly authorises it or the Commission has granted approval, and even then only for services beyond ordinary trustee duties. Payment for trustee duties themselves requires explicit authorisation in the governing document or a Commission order. Payment for services beyond trustee duties (for example, a trustee who is also a professional bookkeeper doing paid bookkeeping work for the charity) can be permitted under section 185 of the Charities Act 2011, but the arrangement must be documented and the trustee must not vote on their own payment.
Paid staff finance roles (Finance Manager, Head of Finance, Finance Director) vary widely by charity size, London versus regions, and whether the role is full-time, part-time, or fractional. A small charity may share a part-time finance professional across a few organisations. A larger charity with a budget above £5m often runs a full-time Finance Director at a competitive market rate. UK charity salary benchmarks are published by the Chartered Institute of Fundraising (CIoF) annual salary survey and the NCVO UK Civil Society Almanac; we recommend pulling a current report against your specific income band and region before posting a figure.
For a small charity: a paid finance staff hire is rarely the right move under about £1m income. Recruit a volunteer trustee treasurer, pair them with a part-time bookkeeper if you need transaction-level help, and invest the saved salary in programme work or a dedicated fundraiser.
Treasurer vs finance director vs bookkeeper: the differences
These three roles get confused constantly. Here is the clean version.
Role
Primary focus
Reports to
Typical compensation
Board Treasurer
High-level financial oversight as a member of the board of directors. Governance and fiduciary responsibility.
The board of directors (and ultimately the members or stakeholders).
Usually unpaid (volunteer board officer).
Chief Financial Officer (CFO)
Operational and strategic financial leadership. Cash flow forecasting, financial planning, advisory to the ED and staff.
Executive Director / CEO, with a dotted line to the board treasurer.
Paid staff role; common at larger nonprofits.
Bookkeeper
Day-to-day recording of transactions: data entry, reconciliations, accounts payable and receivable, processing payments.
The Treasurer, CFO, or Executive Director, depending on org size.
Paid (staff, contractor, or fractional).
Trustee treasurers provide high-level financial oversight as members of the board of trustees. Finance Directors run the finance function operationally as paid staff. Bookkeepers do the daily ledger work. Most small charities have a trustee treasurer and a part-time bookkeeper, and that is enough. A Finance Director usually arrives when the budget crosses several million pounds.
The Charities Act 2011 (E&W) requires charities to have at least three unrelated trustees; the treasurer is one of them and holds specific responsibility for financial oversight, though ultimate fiduciary responsibility rests with the whole trustee board.
For a small charity: if you are wondering whether you need a Finance Director, you probably do not. You need a good trustee treasurer and a reliable bookkeeper.
Hire the role, fix the toolchain
A great treasurer makes a real difference to a charity's financial health. But the best job description in the world will not save a role where the underlying operations are broken.
Before you post, count your payment streams. Consolidate where you can. Be honest in the job description about which tools the treasurer will actually touch and how many hours per month that adds up to. That single act of honesty is the best recruiting tool you have, and it is the difference between a long-term volunteer trustee and a six-month flameout.
The charities that make their treasurer's job easiest tend to share one trait: they run all their fundraising through a single platform that hands off cleanly to whatever accounting tool the treasurer already uses. The UK stack, JustGiving, Ticket Tailor, Crowdfunder, Beacon or Donorfy, costs a small charity real money in subscriptions and real time in monthly reconciliation. Zeffy consolidates donations, ticketing, memberships, raffles, and auctions on one free platform with proper Gift Aid handling. One payout, one report, one clean line in the ledger, instead of a stack of logins and a reconciliation puzzle at every month-end. No platform fee, no transaction fee, no credit card fee. Ever.
For most small-to-mid UK charities, the treasurer's work is not daily, it is monthly and quarterly. Month to month, the treasurer reconciles income from all the charity's fundraising platforms and bank accounts, processes Gift Aid declarations and submits claims to HMRC via Charities Online, reviews the management accounts, and answers any finance queries from the chief executive or programme staff. Quarterly, they present financial statements at trustee meetings and track actuals against budget. Annually, they lead the independent examination or statutory audit, file the annual return and Trustees' Annual Report (TAR) with the Charity Commission (or OSCR / CCNI), and lead the budgeting process for the year ahead. Zeffy's free fundraising platform consolidates income streams so the monthly reconciliation step shrinks significantly.
It varies, but a rough guide for a volunteer trustee treasurer at a small UK charity (under £500k income) running a lean toolchain is four to eight hours per month, rising to two or three additional hours in months when the annual return, audit preparation, or Gift Aid claim batches are due. That estimate assumes one or two fundraising platforms, a clean Xero or QuickBooks integration, and a part-time bookkeeper handling transaction entry. Add a third or fourth disconnected tool and the monthly hours can double. The single biggest lever is how many revenue streams the treasurer has to reconcile; collapse the toolchain first and the hours become sustainable.
The treasurer is a trustee, a volunteer member of the board of trustees with a fiduciary duty to the charity. Their role is strategic financial oversight: reviewing management accounts, presenting financials to the board, overseeing Gift Aid and compliance, and safeguarding the charity's financial health. A bookkeeper is usually a paid staff member or contractor who does the operational ledger work: recording transactions, reconciling bank statements, processing supplier invoices, and preparing draft management accounts for the treasurer to review. Most small charities need both. The treasurer and bookkeeper work closely together, but the roles should not be combined in one person.
In principle, one person can hold two officer roles on a small board, but it is poor governance practice and most UK guidance advises against it. The Charity Governance Code recommends separating the oversight and financial oversight roles to strengthen internal controls and reduce conflicts of interest. On a very small board of three trustees, combining the Chair and Treasurer roles concentrates too much authority in one person and weakens signatory controls on the bank account. If your governing document specifies distinct roles, check it before appointing anyone to both positions.
No. For a volunteer trustee treasurer role, a formal accounting qualification, ACA, ACCA, or CIMA, is helpful but not required. The Charity Commission expects trustees to have the competence to fulfil their duties, not necessarily a formal credential. What matters is comfort reading a statement of financial activities (SoFA), willingness to ask the bookkeeper and auditor the right questions, and sound judgement about financial risk. For paid staff finance roles at larger charities (typically above £2m income or with complex restricted-fund and grant portfolios), an ACA, ACCA, or CIMA qualification plus sector experience is a reasonable requirement.
The trustee treasurer is a volunteer member of the board of trustees. They provide strategic financial oversight, reviewing accounts, leading compliance, overseeing Gift Aid, as part of their governance role. A Finance Director is a paid staff member who runs the finance function day to day: managing the finance team, producing management accounts, overseeing payroll, cash flow, and audit preparation. Most small and mid-sized UK charities have a trustee treasurer but no Finance Director; the Finance Director role typically arrives at around £2m to £5m income and above, when the volume and complexity of financial operations justifies a full-time or senior part-time finance professional.
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