Welcome to the 2024 round-up as we look back at some of the highlights from the past 12 months.
At ExpensePlus, we are passionate about creating excellent finance software for churches and charities. Therefore, we add new features and enhancements that users suggest every month.
ExpensePlus is a brilliant, easy-to-use, cloud-based fund accounting package, used by hundreds of churches and charities across the UK.
Key ExpensePlus Enhancements
Automated Bank Feeds
This year ExpensePlus registered with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to act as an agent on behalf of GoCardless to provide automated bank feeds via open banking.
Automated bank feeds mean you don’t need to manually upload bank transactions. They also provide an easy way to view up-to-date bank balances. Find out more.
Year-End Accounts Templates
We’ve introduced new year-end accounts templates, which make creating charity accounts much quicker and easier.
We added this feature for churches and charities that create accounts on a receipts and payments basis (find out more) and for accruals-based accounts too (find out more).
Payroll Upload
The new payroll upload module in ExpensePlus provides a simple and easy way to import payroll data and create and process payroll payments.
You can split salary payments between funds and categories, and it removes the need to enter complicated payroll journal transactions. Find out more.
Payment Enhancements
We have made payment setup as easy as possible within ExpensePlus.
In addition to the brilliant one-click copy functionality for setting up payments, we’ve added: payment file downloads for banks that allow this; instant emails to payment authorisors once payments are set up; and bulk marking payments as authorised.
New Features
During 2024 hundreds of other new features have been added to ExpensePlus, including:
- Expenditure reports for audit trails – for approvals, payments and mileage
- Asset & Liability Statement for receipts and payments accounts – view the report here
- Receipts & Payments Report by fund type – view the report here
- Transactions (by Amount) – this report can help you find income transactions that need documentation
- Donor References – find out more here
- Tracking Donor Communication permissions – find out more here
- Donations (by Amount) – this report can help you find large donations when filing accounts with the Charity Commission
- Donation Refunds with automated handling of Gift Aid – find out more here
- GASDS – for Community Building Scheme and automated claim limits
- Gift Aid Submission for Elim churches – find out more here
Other Enhancements
We have also improved many existing features of ExpensePlus. Read more about these here:
- More reports made drillable – Trial Balance and Church of England Parish Return report
- Statement of Financial Activities – a more detailed report with customisable category types
- Hide Donor Names – you can now set this for each user
- Gift Aid Claim – the new claim reference helps you reconcile payments from HMRC
- LoveGiving – add text descriptions to LoveGiving pages and campaigns
- Category Settings – you can now bulk-set category approvers
- Budgeting – improved budget functionality where you can customise budget projections
- Fund Descriptions – add fund descriptions and view these within financial reports
More 2024 Highlights
- 99.99% System Uptime
- The launch of our new Lunch and Learn Training Series
- 18 new blog posts published on our Fund Accounting Blog
- Hundreds of articles added and updated within our Online Helpguide
- Subscription prices frozen for a further 2 years (until at least 2027!)
- Reached more than 800 amazing user reviews on Google (thank you!)
If you have any questions about any of the new features or any suggestions for things you would like to see added, please do get in touch at support@expenseplus.co.uk.
