A finance manual is a document that outlines a business’ internal financial processes and policies. It serves as a guide for staff to ensure consistency, compliance, and efficiency in financial operations. A finance manual may also be requested by investors, buyers, and board members to support making business/finance decisions.
The finance manual can be an essential resource for process improvements as your business grows. The visibility it provides makes it simple to identify bottlenecks, risks to the business, and where there’s room for improvement.
The manual helps mitigate risks by providing clear instructions and standards for managing financial activities. So, what can happen when a business doesn’t have an up-to-date financial manual?
Business Risks
- Operational Inefficiencies: When internal training is provided by humans and is not in accordance with a documented process, then that training content will naturally differ from person to person. This means that gradually everyone will have a different understanding of correct procedures which can lead to inconsistent and inefficient operations.
- Compliance Issues: Increased risk of non-compliance with legal and regulatory requirements, especially with no way to check that the work completed is compliant. This could lead to fines and damage to the business’ reputation.
- Audit Challenges: Difficulty in preparing for and passing financial audits.
Financial Risks
- Fraud and Misappropriation: Increased risk of fraud and financial misappropriation without proper controls, leading to fines and costs of data cleansing, reprocessing data, and recreating/resubmitting financial documents.
- Cash Flow Problems: Poor management of cash flow due to inconsistent financial practices, making it difficult to plan business purchases and manage debt.
- Budget Overruns: Difficulty in controlling and monitoring budgets, leading to overspending.
- Inaccurate Financial Reporting: Risk of producing inaccurate financial statements, affecting decision-making and investor confidence.
Staff Risks
- Role Confusion: Employees may be unclear about their financial responsibilities and duties, leading to mistakes and incomplete work.
- Training Gaps: New staff may struggle to understand financial processes without documented guidelines. Training may need to be reinforced by a senior colleague, increasing the cost and time related to staff onboarding.
- Low Morale: Frustration and decreased morale among staff due to unclear processes and expectations.
How to Get Started with a Finance Manual
Having a detailed finance manual can help mitigate these risks by providing clear, standardised procedures and guidelines for managing financial processes. It is recommended that these manuals are regularly reviewed to ensure they meet the needs of the business, as well as changing professional compliance guidelines.
A finance manual can include the following:
- Definitions page: To clarify the intended interpretation of terms used within the manual
- A flow chart: Detailing the various staff roles in the business, the teams they form, and the hierarchy of roles they report to.
- An audit log: Of dated revisions and additions to the manual.
- A documented internal finance policy and process:
For various functions such as:
- Petty cash (e.g. Issuing, topping up, and reconciling)
- Credit cards (e.g. Who is eligible, assigning a credit card, reconciliation)
- Purchasing (e.g How to raise purchase orders, approval processes, tracking of new assets)
- Invoicing (e.g Different payment terms for customer groups, debt collection)
- Expense claims (e.g Who is eligible, policy limitations, raising claims, paying expenses)
- Bookkeeping (e.g Bank reconciliation, balance sheet checks)
- Accounting/reporting (e.g Tax returns, cost analysis, preparing financial statements)
- Each documented process should include:
- The scope covered
- An explanation of approval processes
- When and how often the process takes place
- The trigger point and end point of the process
- Each activity that takes place
- The role responsible for each activity
- How the activity is carried out (e.g. verbally, via email, completed on X software)
- Details on who to contact for further queries
It is important that for each area (bookkeeping, invoicing, etc.) you consult with a minimum of two people to agree and document what the correct procedures are. This should be an open conversation with someone that currently carries out the process, and someone in charge of enforcing or developing it.
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