Today turned into a beekeepers admin and drill day. I had some bills to pay, and so needed to find a counter-signatory. I've noticed that some clubs and societies operating a two signature rule circumvent it in practice, by leaving the Treasurer with a supply of cheques already signed by one person, for the Treasurer to complete and sign as needed. I don't like that myself. The point of requiring two signatures is that transactions should be checked by a second committee member, who can if necessary query them, a control nullified by giving full unquestioned power to issue cheques to the Treasurer, however convenient it might be sometimes. And even though I know I'm not going to embezzle the beekeepers' money, and I think the members assume I'm financially honest, I might have got hold of the wrong end of the stick about something. It's not a bad idea for somebody who has been on the committee for longer me to have the chance to say, Hang on a minute, why are we paying this?
Added to which, the Show Secretary and her husband are mates, and she is a professional cook who makes exceptionally good shortbread, so I'm happy to have an excuse to drop round for coffee, a biscuit, and a general chat. One of the cheques is for me, and another is for her, but luckily I should see a third signatory at a gig tonight at the Colchester Arts Centre, who can sign the two cheques that we shouldn't. I don't actually know if the bank would refuse to bank a cheque signed by the beneficiary, because the account was set up before my time and I've never asked them. It might be OK. As the Systems Administrator points out, our bank will process cheques from our joint account made payable to and signed by the SA, when the SA has paid for heating oil and so on. But again I don't feel it's good practice for an officer of a club to sign away money to themselves.
I have absent mindedly signed the cheque made payable to me, in among the pile of cheques, so I think I'll get a third signature to be on the safe side, and assume the third signing won't invalidate it. I don't know what clubs with dual controls on money movements will do, the next time there is a push from the banking industry to abolish cheques and make all customers go digital. There again, I don't know what people without computers will do. I would never want to touch my bank account from my phone, not least because I wouldn't trust myself not to type the wrong digits on the little touch screen and send my payment goodness knows where.
The accounts spreadsheet turned out to be more out of date than I'd remembered. I have been very careful about keeping the record of physical bits of paper up to date, sticking receipts and paying in slips on to A4 paper and filing it. There are print-outs of the invoice for each month's room booking, and I've written the cheque number on each one and the date of the meeting on the cheque book stub. There are improvised receipts for cash reimbursements to speakers, and show helpers who bought their own tickets, signed by the recipients (though the accountant who inspects our books will have no way of knowing whether I forged these). I've got notes explaining every deposit, which is just as well, since each one tends to be a weird amalgam of income sources, show sales, entry fees, tea money, raffle takings, late membership fees, and odd amounts raised by members taking stands at local fairs. Each individual transaction is pretty well documented, and I've been through them regularly, pulling together a report on the Tendring Show, and producing a Treasurer's report about every third committee meeting (if there hasn't been much activity I just tell them how much money we've got in the bank). I've even checked a couple of times for cheques outstanding. I just haven't input all the numbers into the spreadsheets that will generate my year end financial statement.
It seemed a good idea to start catching up with that. The year end is less than a month away, and the AGM is held before the end of January. Last year was the first time I'd grappled with the exercise, and the SA gave me a wide berth for the frozen day in January when I sat down at the kitchen table with my spreadsheets, and began to realise that I hadn't always recorded everything in a format that translated easily to the one required by the County Association. I would like to avoid any similar panics in January 2014. The rules of the Association limit the term of County Treasurer to three years in office, and I can honestly say that it has taken me at least the first year to really get the hang of it at Divisional level.
No comments:
Post a Comment