Year End for Finance Staff
Posted on 09 December, 2022 at 13:28
As the curtain comes down on year 2022, people are in holiday mood and the last things they want to think about are the work tasks at hand. However, year-end is a perfect time for finance people to perform some of those tasks that nobody else thinks are important. During the peak of programme implementation, it is difficult for a finance person to convince their non-finance superiors that she/he needs to also prioritise supplier reconciliations, tax position etc. All the boss wants to know is “Do we have enough money to go for the field.” All else is trivial at the time. Now that the programmes are on hold as people are ready to go for holidays, you can spare a day or two just to clean up these “trivial” things.
Supplier
Reconciliations
The types of suppliers that organisations deal with
depend on the activities being undertaken. Those undertaking “software” based
projects (i.e. those that involve a lot of interaction with communities through
workshops and related activities, without much purchases of physical goods)
will have suppliers of workshop venues, hotels, external facilitators and car
hire companies as their major suppliers. On the other hand, organisations
involved in construction, advocacy, intensive training of trainers etc will be
dealing more with suppliers of building materials, training materials and
materials for advocacy. In both these cases, organisations sometimes maintain
short-term credit accounts with these suppliers and there may be supplier
balances that would show as outstanding from the supplier’s perspective whilst
in the organisation’s books, everything would be paid-up. Similarly, the
organisation might have overpaid the suppliers on events; for instance, the
organisation might have paid for the attendance of 60 people for a hotel
workshop but only 53 showed up.