My Charity Commission Account

The new digital ‘front door’ to the Charity Commission went live on 31 July 2023. This is the new way for any trustee or professional advisor to access the Charity Commission’s online services.

With the new system going live the old system was immediately turned off. So, any Annual Returns, detail changes or accounts filing from 31 July 2023 onwards will need to be completed on the new system. This includes any filings which were started on the old system but not completed.

The named contact of each charity should have received details from the Charities Commission regarding this change and been invited to sign up for a My Charity Commission Account, with access to the services set to be extended to all trustees in the months to come.

One key aspect of the new system is that the accounts are for the individual and based on your email address, so if you are a trustee or advisor for multiple charities, you can log into your My Charity Commission Account and will be able to see all the charities you are connected to.

There are three types of accounts:
i) Charity contact / primary administrator – this is the account for the primary contact for the Charity Commission, usually a Trustee and will have full access to the services and be able to invite others to access the service.
ii) Trustee account – this is the account for a trustee allowing access to the online services for your charity. There are limited rights to this account which means you would not be able to amend the details of other trustees or third parties with this access.
iii) Third-party account – this is the account for a professional advisor, such as accountant or lawyer and will have limited access to relevant sections only.

Once the main charity contact / primary administrator account is set up they can invite other trustees and professional advisors to allow them to set up their accounts, or link the charity to their existing account, if they already have one set up.

More information on setting up an account can be found at: Setting up ‘My Charity Commission Account’ – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

If you have not already set up My Charity Commission Account please do so, as the account will be required to file Annual Returns, changes to the charity details and the financial statements. If you need any support in setting this up, please speak to your usual Ensors contact.