Capacity building and a power cut

CwFiZ is a fairly young organisation (less than 3 years old) and historically had one large donor (US based) funding all programme activities. More recently, the organisation has been successful in securing new donor funding (from multiple donors) and has several large projects in progress. The organisation has quickly outgrown its simple book-keeping records and the inexperienced Finance Officer (pictured) is now trying to squeeze transactions from two bank accounts through just one cash book, while transactions from a third bank account and substantial amounts of 'cash' donations from a German charity are being received and spent without either income or expenditure being recorded. 

Up until now, the organisation has managed to get by without Financial Reports or Budgets, but this is clearly inadequate for the growing organisation. A simple Receipts and Payments Report has been introduced, but this does not capture all sources of income and expenditure. Full accounts are produced only once per year, by the external auditor. 

The Executive Director and I both agreed that the organisation desperately needed a more detailed monthly Financial Report, comprising an Income & Expenditure Statement, Balance Sheet and individual Donor Reports. A Budget is also required, to allow proper monitoring of variances between actual and budget. 

With my work programme sorted for next week and everyone's laptop batteries drained of all life, everyone went home early. Heading through town to the bus station, I noticed that the biggest hotel in town (the Hotel Edinburgh) had electricity (via its own generator). With little else to do with my afternoon, I went inside and spent the next couple of hours in the bar nursing a couple of Mosi beers.