Annual reporting
Every year, each charity registered in Scotland must send us their:
- Online annual return
- Annual accounts
- Trustees’ Annual Report
- External scrutiny report
This is a legal requirement, and charities must send this information to us within 9 months of their financial year-end date.
What is an online annual return?
All Scottish charities have a legal duty to send us certain information each year. This information shows OSCR, the public and others (such as funders) that you are carrying out activities and providing public benefit.
This information is sent to us through an online annual return. Some of the information from your online annual return will be published publicly on your charity’s Scottish Charity Register entry.
What information you need before submitting
As part of the online annual return, you will be asked questions about your charity, its finances and how the charity is run. All the questions should be straightforward to answer for anyone who has a good understanding of how the charity operates.
You will also be asked to upload your required annual accounts, Trustees’ Annual Report and external scrutiny report.
Creating your accounts
You must prepare your charity's accounts in one of two ways (receipts and payments accounts or fully accrued accounts), depending on the size of its income, its legal form or how its constitution is worded.
See our step-by-step guide to help you understand what type of accounts your charity should prepare, and to find guidance and templates with more information.
How to submit your annual information
Annual reporting information should be sent to us through our online service, OSCR Online.
A charity can have up to three charity users in OSCR Online, who can log in and complete the online annual return. Charity users can be trustees, staff or volunteers – or even professional advisors such as your accountant.
You will then be asked a series of questions about your charity. As you work through the online annual return, you will see pop-up guidance to help you complete it fully and accurately. You can save the online annual return as a draft and finish it at another time. Don’t forget to attach your annual accounts, Trustees’ Annual Report and external scrutiny report before submitting your completed online annual return.
How to use OSCR Online
To submit an online annual return, you must log in to OSCR Online. Each charity has a principal contact and up to three charity users who can log in to OSCR Online.
It’s important to keep your contact details up-to-date as we will send you email reminders when your next online annual return is due to be completed.
More guidance
For more detailed guidance about annual reporting, please see the following sections: