Prompt: explain the accounts to trustees

Every trustee shares legal responsibility for the charity’s money, whether or not they read a balance sheet easily. This prompt turns management accounts into a plain-English summary — income and spend, budget position, reserves and restricted funds — and surfaces what to ask. It changes no figure; you verify each one against the source.

What to paste in

Give the AI your income, expenditure, reserves, restricted and unrestricted split, and any budget variance, plus the period. It explains the position in plain terms and flags questions for the board.

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What to check afterwards

Check every number against your actual accounts and re-do any reserves-months division yourself — never trust AI with restating financial figures. Confirm the restricted-versus-unrestricted split is correct, and make sure plain English has not made anything misleading.

Restricted funds can only be spent on the purpose the donor specified, so headline reserves can overstate the money a charity is actually free to use — always separate the two.

Worked example

The illustrative example keeps every figure exact, shows the reserves calculation for the trustee to re-check, and separates restricted from free reserves.

CharityIQ can explain your accounts grounded in your actual bookkeeping data, keeping each figure traceable.