Finance

Accessing Funds

You can access your funds in two ways:

1. Fill out a Purchase Order form and we will buy what you need using your society’s funds. Please use this form for any expensive purchases, and please give us at least two weeks notice.
2. Purchase what you need yourself and submit your receipts on our Student Groups Finance system. To do so, head to your society page and go down to 'Finance Requests'. You can then submit your documents by clicking on 'new money request. (see Student Groups Finances section below for instructions)

Purchase Order Form

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Expenses

How does the Student Groups Finances (SGF) system work?

To get your reimbursement this way, you will need to follow the steps above and create a new money request. Once completed, it will go to your Finance Officer or President for approval.

Next, it will come to the SU, where we will check your receipts and approve the claim for payment. You will then receive the money within a week or so!

For your receipts to be accepted, they must:

1. Be itemised
2. Have the date visible
3. Have the total money spent visible 

We cannot accept credit card receipts, or receipts without a date. 

For purchases through platforms like Dominos and Amazon, we can accept a virtual receipt, or a confirmation email, as long as it contains the items, date, total funds spent and your name.

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Useful resources

• Submitting an expense claim request instructions
• Approving expense claims for your committee 
• Supporting documents - examples and criteria 

NB: Purchasing promotional materials; The Union will not reimburse or purchase any publicity materials where the designs do not adhere to requirements. Please submit your publicity designs when submitting claims forms and/or purchase order forms for any promotional material.

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Student Groups Development Fund

The Development Fund is a pot of money that Student Groups can apply for to help with specific events, products or other things that will benefit their members. It’s basically free money, so it’s worth applying for!

This year, we will have £10,000 to grant in term 1 and £5,000 for term 2. Whatever is left will be available in term 3. Each Student Group can apply for a maximum of £500 per year. This does not have to be applied for in one chunk. If we receive more applications than we have funding available, a member of the Communities Team and one of your Deputy SU Presidents will decide how to proceed based on a number of criteria.

The key here is that you must apply for something specific. You can’t use the fund for general balance top-ups, it has to be for something specific. 

Finally, We cannot allocate grant funding for things that have already happened – you can’t use the fund to reimburse yourself for expenses.

The full funding criteria can be found in the Student Groups Handbook.

Development Fund Application Form

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Charity and Fundraising

Here you can find the Students’ Union Charity Fundraising Form. You need to fill this out and send it to us when planning any fundraising activities.

You must complete this form to begin fundraising, and you must get permission from the chosen charity to raise money for them. To get this permission, you should contact the charity and ask for:

• Charity name
• Charity number
• Charity address (if possible)
• An email stating that they give your Student Group permission to raise funds for their charity 

Any charity you wish to raise money for MUST be based and registered in the UK.

Charity Fundraising Form

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Sponsorship

Organisations may wish to sponsor your society. You must not sign any contracts under any circumstances. Please send any sponsorship contracts to SUCommunities@city.ac.uk and we will ensure it gets sorted for you and the money enters your Student Group budget line. Sponsorships are subject to 20% VAT.

Sponsorship Guide

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Donations

Donations are when nothing is received in return for the money donated. This includes from Schools within the University. If anything is received in return for a donation, it will be considered a sponsorship and will be eligible for VAT. 

You are required to provide a letter from the donor stating clearly that the money is a donation. If no such letter is provided, the income cannot be treated as a donation and will be liable for VAT (standard rated @ 20%).

The letter should include:

• Donor's name
• Donor's address
• The following text: "We are pleased to donate the sum of £X to X Society, City, University of London Students' Union, this is purely a donation and we do not expect anything in return."

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Budgeting

As a student group you are responsible for keeping track of your student group funds and budgeting your events well so you do not become overdrawn. Any debt occured must be paid by the end of the academic year. We advise you leave some money in your budget line for the next incoming committee. 

It may be helpful for the Finance Officer to use a budgeting template to keep track of all income and expenses throughout the year. It is also helpful when planning an event to use a simple budget plan to ensure you stay on track in terms of spending.

Both can be found below.

Budget Line Finances Template

Simple Budget Plan

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Understanding VAT

Get to know what income you pay VAT on and what you don't in the table below:

Income	How Does it Enter Your Budget Line?	VAT?
Memberships	Paid directly into budget line from purchase	Yes 20%
Ticket Sales	Paid directly into budget line from purchase	Yes 20%
Sponsorship	Submitted through a request on SGF	Yes 20%
Donations	Submitted through a request on SGF	No