Bookkeeping Volunteer - Using Xero - Volunteer in Bath

Support our small nature-based wellbeing CIC with regular bookkeeping and financial administration. We’re looking for a volunteer to help with Xero tasks, categorisation, reconciliations and simple monthly checks to keep our finances running smoothly.
What difference will you make?
This role will directly strengthen the stability and smooth running of our organisation. As we grow, the number of transactions, grants, project budgets and income streams we manage has increased significantly. Having a volunteer bookkeeper who can provide consistent monthly support will ensure our financial records remain accurate and well-organised—something that is crucial for a small team like ours.
Your support will save staff hours each month, freeing us to focus more of our time on delivering nature-based wellbeing programmes for young adults experiencing mental ill-health and social isolation. Instead of spending large amounts of time catching up on admin or correcting coding, we can put that energy back into our participants and our work.
This role will also strengthen our financial transparency. Clean monthly bookkeeping means better internal reporting, stronger grant reporting, and clearer budgeting for our programmes. It helps us plan responsibly, stay on track with project spending and avoid the financial drift that can happen when small charities are juggling multiple areas at once.
Your contribution will also support our sustainability. With tidy, well-maintained records, we are able to communicate more confidently with funders, produce accurate accounts and demonstrate that we are a well-run, responsible organisation. This helps us secure future funding and strengthens trust with partners and supporters.
Finally, your regular involvement will help embed good financial practice within the team. By supporting and encouraging staff with limited bookkeeping experience, you will help us grow our collective confidence and ensure that everyone feels capable of maintaining the system long-term.
In short, your role will have a real, tangible impact, allowing us to focus on what matters most supporting young adults to reconnect, find community, and build stronger, healthier futures.
What are we looking for?
We are looking for a volunteer who is confident with bookkeeping and enjoys keeping things organised, accurate and consistent. Experience with Xero is highly desirable, especially around categorisation, bank reconciliation, project coding and managing a chart of accounts. You don’t need to be a qualified accountant, but you should feel comfortable navigating bookkeeping tasks independently and explaining decisions clearly when needed.
Because we are a small team working partly from a small central Bristol office, we really value volunteers who are warm, approachable and enjoy being part of a friendly working atmosphere. Many of our staff are not financially trained, so the ability to explain things simply and kindly is as important as technical knowledge.
The ideal volunteer will be

• detail-oriented and consistent
• comfortable working with monthly regularity
• confident using Xero
• patient and supportive with staff
• organised and reliable
• happy to work independently but also collaboratively
• values-driven and aligned with our mission to support young adults

You may occasionally help staff understand why a transaction should be coded a certain way, or help us troubleshoot simple errors. A generous, steady communication style will go a long way in this role.
Remote volunteers are welcome, though the option to visit our Bristol office occasionally would be helpful. We are flexible in how support is delivered—video calls, emails, or shared-screen sessions are all fine.
Above all, we are looking for someone who enjoys tidy, systematic financial administration and wants to use that strength to support a youth-focused organisation doing meaningful work.
What will you be doing?
We are looking for a reliable and thoughtful volunteer to support our ongoing bookkeeping and financial administration. As a small but growing organisation, accurate and consistent financial processes are essential for our stability, our programme delivery and our ability to support young adults effectively. A few hours of regular support each month would make a meaningful difference to the smooth running of our charity.
We use Xero for our bookkeeping, and while we are steadily strengthening our internal systems, we would really value an experienced volunteer who can help keep our financial records clear, accurate and up to date. Our team is small, friendly and collaborative, with a small office space in central Bristol, so we welcome someone who enjoys working alongside others in a warm, supportive environment. Remote working is very welcome too.
Key responsibilities may include

• categorising income and expenditure in Xero
• light monthly reconciliations
• checking transactions are correctly coded to projects
• ensuring consistency in chart-of-accounts usage
• supporting our shift towards cleaner double-entry bookkeeping
• helping us maintain tidy monthly reporting
• flagging anomalies or areas that need follow-up
• supporting quarterly or annual tidy-ups as needed

This role differs from our Financial Systems volunteer role this is ongoing, light-touch monthly support, rather than a one-off systems redesign. You don’t need to build new models or redesign existing structures – your job is to help ensure what we already have stays clean, consistent and reliable.
We would also appreciate a volunteer who can help us build confidence across the team. Many staff members have limited financial experience, so a patient, friendly volunteer who can explain things simply or help someone understand a coding decision will be invaluable. You don’t need to be a trainer, just someone who communicates clearly and kindly.
You may also help us prepare basic information for our accountant or for project-specific reporting/preparing finance reports for trustee meetings, though this will always remain light-touch and well within reasonable volunteer expectations.
If you enjoy tidy, accurate bookkeeping and want to support a small charity with a big impact, we would love to hear from you. Your contribution will give us more capacity to focus on delivering our programmes, supporting young adults and strengthening the organisation long-term.