Everything You Need to Know about Everything everything

Everything You Need to Know about Everything* *everything meaning finance, budgets, and events, and spending money generally

Overview • Staff Support What are we here for? • Key Concepts What do I need to bear in mind when accessing my section budget? • Spending Money How do I spend all of the money? • Running an Event What do I need to do when running an event? • Risk Assessments How do I make sure I don’t accidentally injure someone and get UCLU sued? • Budgets How does my budget work?

Staff Support • Each section has a designated member of staff support: • RUMS, SSEES, SOP – Representation & Campaigns Coordinator (Education) • LGBT+, BME Students Network, Womens’ Network, Disabled Students Network – Representation & Campaigns Coordinator (Liberation) • PGA, International Students Forum, Mature & Part Time Students Network, IOE – Representation & Campaigns Coordinator (Postgraduate & International) Diana Vicki Tom

Staff Support • Each section is also overseen by a full-time officer, who is ultimately responsible for decisions relating to your section • As staff, we work on behalf of the full-time officers to provide support and advice where needed to help you do what you want to do. • We act as a first-point-of-contact for all your interactions with UCLU to keep things as simple as possible for you, and to make sure we have a joined up understanding of what you’re doing as a section.

Key Concepts • Your Budget: Your initial budget is based on spending required in the previous year. Once you have planned out your year you can reforecast your budget and allocate spending differently to different activities, subject to approval. If money is not spent at the time you have planned, this money will be lost from your budget. • Advance notice: Spending requests should be received at least 2 weeks prior to when payment needs to be received. The UCLU finance office usually make payments on a fortnightly cycle. Additionally, it may take 2 -3 working days to gain approval from the relevant persons during busy periods, so ideally you should give us a little over a fortnight’s notice.

Example Budget

Key Concepts • Purchase Approval: All spending must be formally approved by UCLU. Agreeing to spending prior to gaining approval, or claiming money retrospectively, risks approval not being granted, and you could be left out of pocket. • Quotations: For larger purchases, we require you to demonstrate you have considered multiple options and have used the most costeffective (not always the cheapest). The number of options you should consider depends on the size of the purchase.

Quotations Purchasing an item or items

Spending Money Purchasing an item or items Inform staff contact of your intent to make a purchase On receipt of invoice, authorisation obtained and passed to finance office for payment Get quotes, choose most cost effective supplier Staff complete purchase order and request invoice Pass chosen quote to staff contact at least two weeks in advance. Staff contact checks quotes

Events Putting on an Event Tell us about the event you want to put on Finance office process payments Complete Risk Assessment prior to event and send to staff contact for approval Complete event budget form, and send to staff contact UCLU complete purchase order and request invoice Complete Post. Event Budget within two weeks after event Event budget form reviewed and approved (or returned for additional information) Complete ticket request form, providing all information needed Get quotes for required purchases and send to staff contact Tickets put on sale by RAC staff member

Events When to use the Event Budget form: Minimum Notice Required Cost of Event No need to use form, use standard purchasing procedures or reclaim <£ 150 4 weeks £ 150 -999 6 Weeks £ 1000+ 8 Weeks Upfront costs greater than net section budget for year

Contracts • For some activities you may require a contract with the provider. These should be sent to us and signed on your behalf by UCLU. • If you sign contracts yourself you are personally liable for any costs!

Finance, Budgets & Logistics

Using the Event Budget Form

Using the Ticket Request Form

Practise Exercise One The School of Astronomy academic section holds an annual Winter (Crystal) Ball. For 2017, this will be held on Wednesday January 11 th. Venue hire and catering will cost £ 5, 000. Decoration will cost a further £ 500, and entertainment will cost £ 750. Capacity is 200 and the event is expected to sell most of its tickets. The section does not want the net spend on the event to be more than £ 500. Complete the Event Budget Form for this event

Practise Exercise Two The School of Astronomy academic section holds an annual Winter (Crystal) Ball. For 2017, this will be held on Wednesday January 11 th. Venue hire, and catering will cost £ 9, 000. Decoration will cost a further £ 500, and entertainment will cost £ 750. Capacity is 200 and the event is expected to sell most of its tickets. The section does not want the net spend on the event to be more than £ 1000. Draw a timeline with dates by which you will need to: • Send the event budget form • Send quotes to UCLU for purchasing • Begin ticket sales • End ticket sales

Risk Assessment Risk Assessing Your Activities • Whether your event requires our support or not, you are required to risk-assess your events. Repeated failure to provide riskassessments for events will result in your funds being frozen. • Typically this will not require more than 10 minutes of your time and is largely common-sense • For larger events with external providers, you should only risk-assess those elements for which you are responsible, and should request risk assessments for any other aspects of the event from the venue and/or service provider. • We will provide template risk-assessments for different kinds of events which you can tweak as required to ensure relevance.

Using the Risk Assessment form

Risk Assessment Exercise The School of Astrology section is holding a charity bake sale for victims of cauldron explosions. The sale is taking place in the UCL main quad. Alongside the stall is a portable music player, which will be plugged into a nearby building. Exercise 3: Complete a risk assessment for this event. What hazards and risks might you consider?

Your Budget • The budget for your section is allocated based on the activity you have planned and the required funds needed, rather than a set amount in an account. • At the beginning of the year you will have chance to review your budget and reallocate spending based on your plans for the year. It is not usually possible to request additional funds at this point, however. • If your budget plans a significant spend at a certain point which does not take place, this money will be reabsorbed by UCLU and not released back to you to spend at a later date. • You can reallocate spending in advance, however. • As such, it is important to develop a plan for the year early, and stick to it where possible.

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