Annual reporting obligations

Annual reports must be submitted to the National Police Board once year, within six months of the end of each financial year. Annual reports can be submitted by email or post or via the Police’s online services. 

Read the instructions provided on this website carefully to make sure that your annual report complies with the rules!

Information to be provided in annual reports

Annual reports must contain the following financial information about money collection campaigns:

• Gross proceeds from money collection, i.e. the amount received from donors
• Necessary and immediate collection costs deducted from total income
• Net proceeds from money collection, i.e. the amount left over after expenses have been deducted.  This is the amount that must be used to promote the cause specified in the money collection permit.
   

Annual reports should only include information about money collection and the use of funds raised. Proceeds from money collection include all monetary donations received from the public in response to appeals without giving the donors anything in return. Your organisation’s other income, such as proceeds from raffles or sales (product sales and proceeds from car boot sales or from operating a market stall or running a café, etc.), should not be included in your annual report.

Only expenses directly attributable to your money collection operation can be deducted from the proceeds of the operation. Proceeds from money collection cannot be used to cover overheads or costs incurred from your other operations, such as your product sales.

Any expenses that you are deducting from your proceeds must be itemised in your annual report. However, you do not have to use your proceeds from money collection to cover your expenses. You can also use other monies to pay for expenses. Money collection expenses that have been paid for with your organisation’s other income should not be included in your annual report.

Using your proceeds from money collection to promote the non-profit causes specified in your permit should not be reported as expenses. The idea is not to report zero or near-zero net proceeds.

Instead, you should report as your net proceeds the amount left over after your expenses have been deducted from the total amount raised through donations. The way in which you have used your net proceeds to promote the non-profit causes specified in your permit should be described separately.

If you did not raise any funds under the financial year you are making an annual report of, then submit a zero report. In the zero report, you can tell for example that you did not receive any donations or that there was no money collection organised during the financial year. However, you still need to submit an annual report in these situations.

Supporting documents 

Supporting documents to be submitted with annual reports include financial statements and any associated notes. The financial statements should also include an auditor’s report.

If your organisation uses an accountant, your annual report should be accompanied by the accountant’s opinion. The accountant’s opinion should be based on a comparison between the money collection proceeds and expenses declared in your annual report and your organisation’s accounts. The statement should be given specifically about the money collection. 

Annual plan

You also need to supply the National Police Board with an annual plan either with your annual report or separately, at least two months before the beginning of the next financial year. Your annual plan should set out the money collection campaigns that you intend to run during the next financial year.

Annual plans must include at least the following information:

• Causes for which funds are to be raised (in keeping with the terms of your permit)
• Expected proceeds from money collection
• Estimated expenses to be incurred from money collection

Your annual plan does not need to be any more complicated than, for example, a list of the money collection campaigns that you intend to run during the year. With respect to your expected proceeds and expenses, rough estimates suffice. If your organisation has an ongoing money collection operation that you intend to continue, you can explain whether there will be any changes during the new financial year. You can also use the annual plan to let the authorities know that you do not intend to run any money collection campaigns during the next year.

Where should we send our annual report and annual plan?

Annual reports, annual plans and supporting documents can be submitted via the Police’s online services. 

If you have drawn up your annual report using the paper form, you can send your documents to the National Police Board by email to arpajaishallinto@poliisi.fi or by post to

National Police Board
Gambling Administration 
PO Box 50
FI-11101 RIIHIMÄKI.

Annual reports are checked and signed off on by the National Police Board. The National Police Board can request further information or ask you to correct any misstatements before signing off on your report. The National Police Board can also ask you to produce a new report from scratch, if there are so many misstatements that correcting them would be unreasonably time-consuming. It is therefore worth drawing up your report with care!