Financial Monitoring & Management

Financial management cannot be driven by the finance department. The job of the Finance department is to provide timely and accurate financial reports according to the organizational structure and to advise management. Management needs to drive the Finance Department. To do so, good management systems are required to track budgets, forecast expenses, regularly account for variances, and develop and track annual budgets.  The Board is also closely involved through a Finance Committee to monitor on a quarterly basis the budget and balance sheets…

You need an accounting system that meets your needs and has room to grow as those needs change.  For example, as your funding diversifies, it also usually necessitates expanding and making your accounting systems more flexible…

Purchase a computerized accounting package no matter the size of the organization. Inexpensive packages can be purchased for a few hundred dollars and will provide the bookkeeping and reporting function needed for smaller organizations. They are more accurate, exportable to other software such as excel that are commonly used in financial management. They save staff time thus paying for the purchase very quickly…