Finances

Bank accounts

If your club charges fees to your members, then it must have a separate bank account to handle the money. YAC money should never be kept in personal accounts. In cases where clubs are run in conjunction with a local authority, museum or other body, the club should have a separate budget heading within the organisation’s overall accounts.

Speak to your local bank to find out what type of account is best. This will vary from bank to bank, but many have special types of account for community groups. We recommend that you have three signatories on the account, to make sure the club is able to access its money even if one volunteer moves on. If a signatory does move on, make sure you have the account details updated as soon as possible to still have three signatories. Your signatories should be your club volunteers, and staff at YAC HQ can become signatories if you would like. When you set up your account, and if any of the details change, please let YAC HQ have a copy of the account details including who the signatories are.

Financial records and reports

Keeping proper financial records is very important as YAC clubs are part of the Council for British Archaeology (CBA) and must meet statutory requirements of the CBA’s charitable status. It is up to you to decide how to keep these records. A proforma finance record is included in the Paperwork section of the website, but if you prefer to keep your own account book or spreadsheet that’s fine.

Every club is asked to send YAC HQ an annual financial report. This is a very simple record of the club’s incoming and outgoing money for the past year. YAC HQ sends out a form for this each March; you can either use the form or just send us a copy of your bank statements, account book, or spreadsheet depending on what you use.   

Local meeting and annual membership fees

YAC clubs are free to decide what rates they wish to charge their local members, but we ask you to keep in mind that cost can be a barrier to many children attending. You should only charge what you need to charge to keep the club going, and should not build up large reserves in the club account. Many clubs have an annual membership fee in the region of £5-£10 which they collect when membership forms are due for renewal, as well as charging a small per session fee of between £1-£5. Other clubs only charge when they need to: for example, sessions at their regular venue might be free but a charge would be made to cover the costs of a trip. YAC volunteers often become very skilled in getting freebies!