To allow everyone to maintain full confidence in an organisations’ operations, financial accountability in clubs is extremely important. Keeping club finances safe needs to be a priority for any group, and there should be consistent, transparent protocols in place to avoid any doubt about how things are run.

To make sure everyone is on the same page, here are three tips you can use to safeguard your club against the dangers of theft, embezzlement, or divisive accusations.

1.                  Have clear rules that everybody follow

Yes, everybody. Policies that work to safeguard finances only work if they apply to everyone. There is no room, or need, for exceptions to good policies. Some good ones to consider: All travel expenses must be approved. All purchases must have receipts to qualify for reimbursement. All cash must be counted by two people.

If managers decide the rules do not apply to them, the atmosphere surrounding the protocols is compromised, and before long others will find justification to bend the rules also. It should be obvious, but remember that everyone is only accountable if everyone is accountable.

2.                  Know who is responsible for what

Then if there are any questions, you know where to find answers. If an organisation is of a size that makes it practical, some find it useful to separate financial duties. For instance, they may have someone who is responsible for checking invoices, and someone else is in charge of signing all cheques. Others may be responsible for petty cash and online banking. If duties are clear and consistent, losses through error is rare, and “passing the buck” so to speak, becomes impossible.

3.                  Reconcile the bank statement

Regularly, as part of standard process.  On a monthly basis, have someone other than the main bookkeeper or treasurer open the bank statement and look it over. This simple step is very important to ensuring that the money that should be available is available, and that bills that should have been paid have been paid. If there are any problems with dishonest staff, they will be short lived, and any worries or rumours can be put to sleep with this one crucial cross-check. If you are using the Admin Bandit club software, it’s easy to monitor your club finances on a regular basis.

Keeping club finances safe allows members to confidently get on with the activities or operations that they are most interested in, without distraction or difficulty.