Financial Management Best Practices for County, Area, or District Operations

1
Financial Management Best Practices for
County, Area, or District Operations
2
Objectives

• This lesson will help you learn best practices
  for financial management and apply them to the
  areas of
• Ethical Handling of Funds
• Collecting Funds
• Making Purchases
• Monitoring Financial Activity

3
Core Principles

• Ethics are rules of conduct.
• Ethics principles are guidelines that help
  individuals know what is expected from those
  handling funds and what is and what is not
  acceptable.
• Ethics are based on the values of the
  organization.

4
Core Principles

• Principles should be
• simple, understandable, concise and active.
• communicated to everyone who handles or manages
  funds for the county.
• reviewed periodically to identify any adjustments
  that are needed.
• Using ethical standards could result in better
  community relationships as well as in a higher
  trust level among those in the organization.

5
Collecting Funds - Sources

• Training Class Fees
• Newsletter Subscriptions and Publications
• Diagnostic Services Plants, Soil and Water
  Testing
• Fund Raising
• Food and Snacks
• T-Shirt Sales
• Other Items

6
Collecting Funds- Receipts

• Cash Receipt Form
• Pre-Numbered
• Date of Payment
• Payee
• Amount
• Method of Payment
• Program (Purpose)
• Cashiers Name

7
Collecting Funds - Safeguarding

• Designate Custodian (different than the person
  who collected funds)
• Make Timely Deposits
• Administrative
• Verification

8
Collecting Funds Common Audit Weaknesses

• Not depositing funds intact
• Paying expenses out of collections before the
• funds are deposited
• Mixing change funds with revenue
• No designated custodian
• Not depositing funds timely
• Deposits not independently verified
• ? Cash receipts not pre-numbered
• ? Cash receipts not used in numerical order
• ? No supporting records necessary to facilitate
  
• verification

9
Making Purchases Invoice Approval

• Received in good condition
• Billed to appropriate unit
• Original invoice
• Fair price
• Math is correct
• Signature of employee
• Pre-approval (if required)
• Tax exempt

10
Making Purchases - Checks

• Voucher
• Invoice or receipt
• Administrative approval
• Proper of signatures
• Do not pre-sign checks
• No food or alcohol
• Not made out to cash

11
Making Purchases Procurement Card

• No food or alcohol
• Only card-holder or card-holder approval
• Submit receipts in timely fashion

12
Making Purchases - Travel Advances

• To employees or pay registration, airline
  tickets, etc. directly
• Approval of administrator
• Employee submits receipts within a few days after
  returning
• Administrater verifies advances in a timely manner

13
Making Purchases - Common Audit Weaknesses

• Pre-sign checks
• Making checks payable to cash
• Not independently monitoring expenditures
• Not saving expenditure documentation

14
Reconciling

• Use standard computer accounting program
• Administrator compares
• bank statements with
• computer printout
• - monthly

15
Donations and Gifts

• Types
• In-kind
• Cash
• restricted
• or unrestricted?
• Reporting
• In-kind
• Cash
• What are the benefits of reporting?

16
Audits

• What exactly is an audit?
• What will an auditor be evaluating?
• Record of audit filed
• What are some benefits to using an internal audit
  committee?

17
What to do if you suspect

• DO NOT confront the suspected perpetrator
• DO NOT investigate the case yourself
• Work within your management chain of command,
• Contact your supervisor