East End Community Foundation is a grant maker and philanthropy advisor. Our mission – and my goal as CEO – is to alleviate poverty in the East End of London using our own financial resources, as well as managing charitable giving on behalf of others. Our head of finance left the organisation just before the pandemic. Rather than recruit during that difficult time, the charity chose to bring in outsourced finance support. We decided to appoint our auditor, who happened to be working with Julie, and they assigned her to us. While we were finding our feet with the new arrangement, we started to question the financial information we were receiving. As a result, we began to have direct contact with Julie, who became involved in our meetings. From that moment on, everything was presented to us with so much more clarity. Julie provided the information we wanted and we could chat to her one-on-one to get transparent answers to our questions.

After about two years, we were in a position where we could engage Julie directly, so we asked her for more support. Our new auditor advised us to make some accounting adjustments and Julie has been able to work with them to unpick problems and make sure our software is up to date. She’s also helped us set up funding campaigns, monitoring their progress and success through our accounting software rather than spreadsheets. On a day-to-day basis, Julie provides a full accountancy service, from restructuring our chart of accounts through to preparing us for financial audits and our five-year budget. She also comes along to financial committee meetings to answer questions and get the information she needs to prepare our management accounts, including variance reports and commentary.

We’ve always had a one-person finance team. Yet when Julie and I started discussing financial strategy, we knew we needed someone in house. In the interim, it made sense for that person to be Julie. Now, Julie is working with us on a part-time basis to help us transition to an in-house finance function and decide how that will look. Julie worked with us to recruit a finance officer, who she’s inducted and trained while acting as their line manager. She’s also working with our office coordinator. This role requires preparing monthly payments and sorting BACS payments, and Julie’s been able to oversee this in an advisory and supportive way. She might be a freelancer, but we see her as a true member of the team.

In the past, we’ve struggled a little when getting everything prepared for our annual accounts audit. But this year, I’m confident we’ll sail through – thanks to Julie. I know she’s sorted any past issues and made sure everything is running really smoothly. That’s because she’s so brilliant at time management and communication. Our team don’t have finance backgrounds, but Julie’s quick to interpret and understand our needs. If I was to sum up the last few years working with Julie, I’d say she’s been a breath of fresh air. She’s a very safe pair of hands and instilled confidence in us – and us in her. We were questioning many of our ways of working. Now, I get so much reassurance knowing the information and advice I need has come straight from Julie. Julie had several accounting challenges to address when she joined East End Community Foundation. Yet we’ve been able to iron out problems and even build a team with her input. It’s evident how much Julie enjoys seeing businesses, and most importantly their people, flourish.