Internal Controls with Sage Intacct

• February 1, 2021
• Kathy Jastrzebski

By: Matt Yezukevich, Consulting Director

What’s the only kind of work that becomes easier in our COVID/remote work world? Fraud! Over the last 10+ months, non-profit organizations have made a seismic shift in operations to continue to meet their mission and overcome COVID related challenges. Most finance offices had to quickly adapt to ensure this shift was successful. Unfortunately, in many cases, adapt really meant skip internal controls which opens the door for all kinds of fraud. Luckily, there are simple solutions to get back on track:

Vendor payments

• • Ensure that ACH changes are legitimate by calling the vendor (and not for an employee that has been working remotely from Tahiti).
  • Verify new vendors exist with a quick check of LinkedIn or other independent sources. If the requester is the only person linked to the vendor, there may be a problem.
  • Consider implementing Positive Pay. With Positive Pay, you would upload a summary check register to your bank. As checks are presented for payment, the bank verifies the check matches the name, amount and check number provided in the upload. If there are any discrepancies, you are notified so you can approve or disapprove.

Online bill/purchase request approvals

• • Was that bill approved and where is it? There’s no doubt that physical copies of bills have always gotten lost but at least you would know it’s in the building. In a remote world, the bill may be anywhere within a 60-mile radius of your office. In the chaos, bills are entered and paid without regard to the normal protocol.
  • Moving to an online bill approval process provides the security that bills are being actually approved with the added benefit that supporting documentation will remain easily accessible now and in the future.
  • The process should be the right size for your organization. For smaller organizations, 2 or 3 people may need to be involved from entry to payment. For larger organizations, the number of people involved may be tied to a dollar threshold, type of purchase, or other factors.

Spend management

• • At a minimum, department managers should be provided real-time access to budget vs actual reporting and dashboards.
  • Even better, provide real-time feedback to available funds as requests or bills are entered. If there’s no money to spend in the budget, the request is denied at entry.

What’s next?

Register for the webinar: Survival Guide for Nonprofit Finance Teams to learn how to not only survive but thrive in the ever-demanding world of nonprofit finance.

Tags: ACH, AP Bill Approval, approval process, Nonprofit, payment approval, positive pay, spend management, webinar, Accounts Payable, Events | No Comments »