Light at the end of the tunnel

My role as a volunteer with Accounting for International Development (AfID) is to improve the record keeping, the financial controls of the previously audited financial processes from an earlier volunteer and offer training to the Accounting Clerk on the highlighted areas of concern. The ultimate goal is for St. John’s Ambulance to honestly attest to their fellow members, Trustees and donors of the financial information and processes in place.

 

Today I started working through the 42 page findings of the notes that the previous volunteer at St John’s Ambulance in Uganda had compiled.The first Accounting and control risk was the 2010 budget which is an important management tool for fund applications, realistic strategies and highlights overspending. I sat down with Christopher the Accounts Clerk who had a go at a 2010 budget which consisted of a one page summary. I went through where the figures came from trying to gauge where he thought 2010 financially was going to go. After comparing the 2008 and 2009 actual figures which was just simply a 50 percent increase from 2008. We started with a turnover. Due to the lateness of the budget being finalised (five months into the year) we analysed the income to date.  After going through St. John’s Ambulance major revenue source which is public duty I was able to get across the point that he needs a basis for the 2010 budget.

 

We managed to analyse eight streams of income in four hours. I asked a few hard questions, after multiple interruptions which involved being booted off our computer twice because someone wanted to use it as there are only 3 computers being shared between 9 people. Christopher decided he had enough. “Accounting is not meant to be this hard”, he said. So instead of doing something that would be a good guideline and provide accountability for all staff, Trustees, Donors and to the board he decided to change the filing of the Petty Cash vouchers from highest voucher number to lowest.

 

My patience ran out. I have been working too long in a high pressure; deadline and result based driven environments to handle that. Four hours of thinking and using the ambulance driver as a translator obviously must have taken a toll. I wanted to say something but decided to walk out and enjoy the sun outside a watch a local Soccer game next door for a while.

 

After two hours of filing he decided to come back and go through it at 16.45 knowing that I get picked up at 1700. I bit my tongue and we started to analyse the income again. At this rate it will take a week to get the budgeted Cash Flow. After all This is Africa...

 

After the frustrations of yesterday I came to the office wondering what the day would hold. With the thoughts that he might turn me grey before my time I decided to not to return to the 2010 budget. So we returned to the Quick Books training entering the 2009 transactions.

Christopher and I put yesterday behind us and it was an extremely productive session. The sleep seemed do us well and he did extremely well.

 

I could not believe the improvement Christopher showed. It was like a different person.  When I first arrived I never thought I would have gotten Christopher to systematically analyse every month for discrepancies and fix them.

 

For the first time I thought that I have actually conveyed some accounting knowledge that actually would be continued to be demonstrated. This made me extremely happy and I thought to myself that is what I came to Uganda for. I left the office for the first time with the feeling of there is light in the end of the tunnel. I am looking forward to building on our progress tomorrow.