Systemise your Financial Management Processes – using Xero

Systemise your Financial Management Processes – using Xero

Benkorp has been providing Bookkeeping & Accounting services for Churches, NFPs and Small business for over 2 years. The past 4 years we have exclusively used Xero Accounting software and have developed some great ways to systemise our processes.

What does “Systemise your processes” mean?

Systemising your processes means to create repeatable systems (procedures) to manage the operations of your organization.

The benefits of systemising processes are:

1. Strategic

The process of developing systems requires structured thought and decision making. Systemising may highlight decisions that need to be made, for example areas of responsibilities & role responsibilities

2. Saves Time & More Efficient

• more things are done correctly the first time
• people don’t need to re-invent the wheel to determine what and how to do things

3. Empowerment & Communication & Clarity

• Communicates the roles of people involved in processes
• People know what is expected of them
• People know when things will happen
• People know how to do things

4. Consistency & Confidence Predictability & Reliability

• Tasks are performed the same way each time
• Provides confidence in your processes for all stakeholders
• Processes performed the same each time are predicable and reliable

How to get started and what is the process after this

1. Brain Storm & Write down every task performed within a functional area – eg financial management
2. Re organize the tasks into subgroups
3. Prioritize the sub-groups into those that are most urgent – most at risk and ease
4. Breach down the tasks of the most risky/easy subgroup into steps
5. Decide on the steps to complete the task
6. Decide who will complete the task
7. Document
8. Test
9. Return to step 3 until all tasks in each subgroup have been completed

A detailed example of how Benkorp communicates the responsibilities of 2 bookkeeping tasks for our work with churches

Timing	XXXXX Church’s Responsibilities	Benkorp’s Responsibilities
Weekly Monday Tuesday/ Wednesday	Receipts Scan & email to Xero email address ·    Weekly Offerings ·    Rent & Miscellaneous receipts. ·    Any other Bank deposit documentation	Receipts   ·    Enter Weekly Offerings as Invoice ·    Enter Miscellaneous Receipts ·    Enter Customer Payments eg hall use, rentals ·    Attach documentation to every transaction
Fortnightly Wednesday	Payments Process ·    Receive & approve Supplier invoices & Expense Reimbursements ·    Scan & email to Xero email address ·    File all Supplier Invoices ·    Authorised Signatories receive email & approve payments online	Payments Process ·    Enter Supplier invoices & Expense Reimbursements as Purchases ·    Attach documentation to every transaction ·    Select items to be paid & create ABA file ·    Upload ABA file in Bank ·    Enter details of other items to be paid ·    Notify signatories via email

 

For Churches, Benkorp recommends the following processes:

• Create a draft repeating invoice for weekly offerings
• Decide on a bill/reimbursement payment day – say fortnightly. Don’t pay bills/reimbursements when they come in
• Set monthly due dates for the steps required to ensure that the appropriate leadership receive financial reports monthly. The steps to create these reports can be determined and calculated backwards from this

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you want some help or suggestions of how to systemise your Financial management processes using Xero