To prepare for their future growth, in January 2020 they legally and operationally separated out their non-profit activities into a new entity. With the support of prior AfID volunteers they created a new chart of accounts and improved financial processes, keeping them parallel across the organisations including two separate QuickBooks Online accounts.

These processes were designed for a new startup non-profit which needed high levels of centralised control in order to ensure several years of clean audits which would unlock access to larger grants and fundraising. These policies have served them well for the past few years, but with their growth and expansion they have now become a constraint.

Specifically, they are seeking a volunteer to provide support in the following two area:

Review and re-validate their standard operating procedures and finance manual

Make any recommendations for improved, updated finance and operations protocols that maintain controls while delegating authority. Work with the team to create an updated finance manual with supportive scripts and aids. Evaluate budgetary planning and work with senior leadership to create budgets and migrate them into QuickBooks for regular budget-to-actuals variance analysis.

Review and refine systems to facilitate monthly management reports and dashboards

Examine data collection and how it leads up to management and board reports and decision-making, before making recommendations for improvements, developing the templates for monthly, quarterly and annual management reports, and introducing automated management dashboards.

They are seeking the support of an experienced finance professional to offer coaching to their 11 non-finance Heads of Departments and Heads of Units. 3 years ago, they moved to a practice of getting the non-finance budget holders to take responsibility and ownership of the annual budgeting for their departments; this year, additionally, they are going to look to introduce them to annual planning. 

Your role will be to work with the non-finance heads to support and coach them through this process, ensuring that their annual plans and departmental budgets are aligned with the organisational budget. This will include:

• Having an induction meeting with the Head of Finance to understand how the process has been developed, the tools that they are using, and the challenges they have faced with the process over the last two cycles.
• Delivering group-based coaching on planning and budgeting to small groups of the non-finance heads. This may include short meetings to understand the work they do in their departments, and their own challenges in successfully completing their annual planning and budgeting. 
• Offering some tailored support & advice individually to the department heads outside of the group-based training.
• Whilst the focus will be on budgeting & annual planning, time permitting, they would also like to explore additional coaching covering understanding key accounting/finance terms and jargon, and how to interpret and use management reports. 

This exercise has been lead by the Head of Finance over the last two years; however, it has had its challenges, and that is why they are seeking the support of someone external to lead on facilitating the coaching. 

As their annual planning & budgeting and process has already started, they are seeking the support of someone able to start the placement from mid-September, offering 2-3 hours of weekly support, over a 3 month period.