Launched on 20 October 2025, the INPAS project, driven by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) and Humentum, a global consultancy for non-profits and NGOs, sets out a financial reporting standard for non-profits.

The standard was developed with three goals:

• to improve the quality, transparency and credibility of financial reports for non-profits;
• to support the provision of financial information for decision-making and accountability for preparers and users; and
• to address specific issues to promote comparability of non-profits’ reports.

A long journey to INPAS

An extensive consultation process attracted an enormous international response, which was in line with quality research into the need for a global standard. Research from the University of Sheffield drew 605 usable responses from 179 countries, with 72% of respondents agreeing that an international standard would be useful. In 2020, feedback was sought on a consultation paper. Between 2023 and 2024, three exposure drafts were released for public comment.

Samantha Musoke, INPAS Adoption and Engagement Director, International Non-Profit Reporting Foundation (IFR4NPO) and former Director – INPAS Adoption, says that her involvement in the project has been “the most amazing privilege” and she praises the “visionary” work of the early funders who were prepared “to take a bet on something as totally outfield” as an accounting standard on this scale.

On 18 November, Musoke and Ian Carruthers, CEO of IFR4NPO, will present an ICAEW webinar on INPAS to provide charity finance professionals and volunteers with a detailed overview of its structure, objectives, and practical implications for the sector.

INPAS was created with feedback from a consultative advisory group, a technical advisory group, and a practical advisory group, which is where Musoke says, “the technical meets the real world [and] the real world is going to win every time”.

She says this interaction between the three groups was “fantastic”, with “push and pull, vital tugs at every stage” to bring practical and technical considerations together.

Features of the new standard

Designed to meet the needs of a range of non-profits around the world, INPAS focuses on accrual-based reporting for complex transactions. Musoke explained that many non-profits work “a mish-mash of input and output-based expenditure classifications, [which create] most of the headaches in the sector”.

INPAS maintains an accrual basis, despite some donors preferring cash reporting. This conflict was resolved by identifying asset reporting, such as buildings and vehicles, as the biggest pain point for many report preparers.

The INPAS grant report format includes optional adjustments to remove depreciation and add capital purchases, satisfying donors while maintaining accrual-based consistency. As well as accrual-based reporting, the standard has a requirement for a narrative report to accompany the financial statements.

“INPAS is based on IFRS for SME, so that’s the foundational document and then we’ve made adaptations to make it relevant for non-profits,” says Musoke.

A practice guide for grant reporting is another key part of INPAS, which Musoke says is quite different from IFRS for SMEs and SORP. She said the project’s early funders were incredibly bold in this regard because they could see that harmonised grand reporting was “a headache” on a daily basis, but the priority was greater transparency and clarity about support costs.

“[The early funders] thought they could help drive conversations about better cost coverage and better quality of funding, and especially more transparency about unrestricted funds, which you have in the UK under SORP, but globally, there was no standard,” says Musoke.

INPAS doesn’t replace SORP

Musoke says that for UK-based accountants, SORP guidance remains in place: “If you’re a UK preparer, SORP isn’t going away; INPAS is not going to replace SORP – that’s the number one takeaway – but in the longer term, alignment is already happening.”

The latest SORP provision looked at the INPAS exposure drafts as part of their thinking, it’s likely that we’ll see more alignment between SORP and INPAS over time, Musoke explains. “Every time there’s a [SORP] revision, [it will be asked] what is INPAS doing and do we have a good reason to do something different?”

If there’s a good local reason to deviate from INPAS, SORP revisions can, with national consultation, but Musoke believes that the international standards will increasingly become the default. “At a philosophical level, it will become increasingly difficult for SORP writers to diverge very much from INPAS over time.”

Ultimately, there is no substitute for individual practitioners familiarising themselves with INPAS. Musoke says that overall the impact of INPAS on the day-to-day work of accountants depends on their perspective, She says: “You could be a local, UK-only preparer; you could be from an NGO with overseas branches that you consolidate; you could be an auditor maybe relying on audits from overseas; you could be a grant-maker or you could be a grant recipient – so depending on where you’re sitting in that ecosystem, there are different things you need to know.”