New treasurer mid year how do you do audit?

Debt_Free_Chick

kiwigirl wrote: »

A colleague is the treasurer for another organisation so I was going to ask her if she'd mind checking our books when we needed to audit and buy her a bottle or two to say thanks.

Is this going to be an "off the record" check that you've got things right, or an audit? If an audit, then you need to check if there are any specific requirements and I strongly suggest that you don't buy her the wine! It's the kind of thing that "looks odd" and could well arouse suspicion.

If you're just going to ask her to check things over for you personally, then you should be OK, but I would still caution against it.

If you don't need an audit, then there's no reason why the Committee can't get an independent check of the accounts and pay a nominal honorarium eg £100 for this.

kiwigirl

Savvy_Sue the old treasurer used to claim everything to smallest details, i.e. I pay secreatary for 1 stamp (I'm going to put book etc). No one attends meetings for the organisation only one off's and they're reimbursed, he wants mileage for bringing his son to fix PC's (or actually taking PC's away for 1 week to discover the virus which is the programme that keeps us valid and legal!) - we got charged £500 for that priviledge. He's claiming expenses for things such as attending raffle evenings - which we're doing voluntary.

Errata - the new seceatary is refusing to put the expenses in, so I might suggest as you've done ask her if she won't accept the money to put it back towards the funds. Have 4 on mandate but need to access internet banking just to see if money gone in etc and now have to have 2 on business banking details and business banker wasn't in yesterday.

DFC - ok so no wine. I was going to ask colleague just to go over things, not full audit as we don't get enough funds in to organisation for something like a full audit - although I'm sure the old treasurer will no doubt be asking loads of questions about our funds next AGM.

We've already had the old secreatary go into a mood as we've managed to get a full committee going without help and even a hon president which he didn't think we'd get at all - new one's a lot better for our organisation as she has already given us a substantial amount of funds in previous years, now being our president I'm hoping that she gets even more money our way ! Our raffles are continuing to sell well - £200 the last 2 weeks in 2 evenings and we've broke even weeks ago now so anything extra is a bonus.

Errata

Strewth - £500 sounds a bit steep ! Your local Council for Voluntary Service (CVS) might know of a small company who does IT maintenance a bit cheaper than this. Worth checking out. My local district has a social enterprise firm that does IT repairs and refurbs for local charities and vol organisations.
It might be worth checking your mileage rate against your local council's mileage rate. Ours at the moment is 27p a mile and this often works out cheaper than bus fares especially if people can car share.
A small word of warning, hiope you don't mind. Bad feeling can often arise and build up amongst ex and current committe members/trustees. Steer well clear and discourage all those involved from making any untoward remarks/gossip/comments as far as you are able to. If you don't have a code of conduct for office holders/staff, it's well worth having a sub committee develop one that defines unacceptable behaviour and the consequences that will result.

kiwigirl

Hi Errata, the IT prices were always expensive as our old treasurers son used to do the work and as most of the committee hadn't got a clue about PC's - his dad made sure that everyone who did got bullied off committee, he could charge anything he wanted :mad: . We didn't even pay £500 to the guy who did all the previous 3 years work for us, and normally had to give him cheques as he'd refuse to invoice us! his current colleagues (normal day job) hate him and he hasn't got a pleasant nick name shall I say! He's either really nice with people to make people think that he's correct with everything or if you challenge him he'll make you feel 2" high - people were pleasantly surprised to be asked their opinion the other day in the last committee, something he's never done.

We now have 4 teccies on board who I hope will help us if somethings goes wrong - most of us will do the work for cost anyway so I'm hoping that will reduce a lot of things.

our old secreatary is an odd one, after bullying me off committee he has refused to talk to me for the last 3.5 years claiming "she's an odd girl", he won't train anyone now, he won't sell any raffles and he won't help out so I'm not likely to be needing to talk to him so I'm not bothered but the others on committee have realised what they're like and even the "newer" ones have figured out who to trust and who not to. :T I think majority of the committee know that most can be trusted and a couple of others can't so we all know who to trust and not to trust and who will carry stories back to the old ones! 2 of us have been trying to catch the old treasurer at his normal workplace to say I've got his old role to annoy him! :rotfl:

The fact that 1/2 of committee left the thing was due to 2 - 3 with loose tongues in the organisation, and I don't think we'll be doing that too soon again!

Errata

Good luck - we all learn best from our mistakes. And I've certainly made my share. I like to encourage committees to discuss and agree decisions, spreads the blame !

Savvy_Sue

Errata wrote: »

spreads the blame !

:rotfl: yes, when I was most recently treasurer for the out of school club, I did my best never to interview staff for that very reason!

Sadly in my current job I'm about to have to interview for my own job, so I can do something slightly different, so it will ALL be My Fault if she's not as good as me. (And yes, it WILL be a she, because we're a women's charity and exempt under the Sex Discrimination Act, I'll quote chapter and verse if anyone needs me to.)

Thing about being Treasurer is, everyone SHOULD be nice to you, because you look after the cheque book. I'm very nice to our Treasurer at work, but then she's very good to the staff!