How do parish councils, lodges, foundations, and charity shops report?

If you're a parish council, a small group, or something that doesn’t quite see itself as a traditional association, you’ll usually still be treated like one. That’s because most banks apply the same requirements to you as they do to other associations. And at the heart of those requirements is one key principle: know your customer (KYC). Financial institutions are now required by the Financial Supervisory Authority and the Data Protection Agency to know their customers more thoroughly than before.

Below, we’ll walk through the different parts of the reporting process that might raise questions for parish councils and similar groups when you're asked to identify yourselves as an association.

Often, your group already has all the information and documents needed for reporting, they might just go by different names.

For instance, what Unioo refers to as an "association" might in your context be called an "order", "council", "volunteer group", "union", "movement", "club", "society", "organization", or something else entirely.

"Bylaws" might be referred to as "statutes", "laws", "rules", "foundation documents", "resolutions", or "clauses".

A "general meeting" might be called an "annual meeting" or "congress".

Roles within your group might not match what’s listed in Unioo’s system either, maybe you have "council members", "captains", "sergeants", or other titles instead.

You’re completely free to use the terms that make sense for your group, just try to find the closest equivalent when entering information into Unioo.

As a parish council, you don’t technically have a board, you have a council. But the council members count as the board members of your "association."

If you run a shop with volunteers, the volunteers can be listed as board members.

In general, if there’s no formal board, just list the group of people actively running the organization.

You'll need to upload your bylaws, or the closest thing to them, as a PDF. These serve as your internal rules and guide how your group operates.

If your parish council doesn’t have its own bylaws, you can upload the official regulations for parish councils ("Bekendtgørelse af lov om menighedsråd") or your rules of procedure if you have one.

For charity shops or similar groups, we recommend reaching out to your parent organization or related groups for help, they might already have standard bylaws you can use.

You can also generate bylaws online. Read more about bylaws here.

It might feel like the questions in this section don’t really apply to your kind of group, but it’s a key part of how banks are required to understand your association and how money flows through it.

Just do your best to answer as precisely as you can. If the questions feel completely irrelevant, we recommend calling your bank for help, since Unioo isn’t allowed to advise on the details in this section.

Some parish councils hold their general meeting, where the council is appointed, a few months before the annual accounts are finalized. If that’s the case for you, it might be a good idea to set the month of your general meeting to when the documents are actually ready.

For example: if your general meeting is in December, but you don’t finalize the documents until March, you can set the general meeting month to March. This way, the automatic reminder flow from Unioo will start on April 2 (reminders always begin on the 2nd of the month after your stated general meeting month).

This gives you more time and helps avoid unnecessary stress. If the gap between the meeting and the approved accounts is close to a year, just upload your most recently approved accounts, that’ll make sure you’re never more than six months “behind.”

If your group handles money, you need to create accounts, no matter what you call it.

Maybe there’s a finance committee or a few people handling funds. In that case, you’ll need to prepare an annual financial statement based on those activities, even if it’s just a few items. Read here how to prepare accounts. If you genuinely don’t think a financial statement is needed in your case, contact your bank for guidance.

We hope this article answered your questions, and best of luck with your reporting!