The CFO'S Perspective

Repeat after me…

Accounting is a team sport."  

This has been my mantra for the past 30 years and it’s as important and true now as it was 30 years ago.  What I have learned in my 30+ years as a CFO is that accounting works best when it is integrated with the management team and you will never be at your best if your accounting team works in a silo.    

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
- Thomas A. Edison

For whatever reason, you've determined that it's time to close the doors and walk away from your business. Shutting down your business may be the hardest thing you'll ever do, but it's not uncommon. In fact, 90 percent of start-ups and early-stage companies close each year in the U.S.

If it's any consolation, most successful entrepreneurs have failed previously at some venture - or several. Walt Disney was reportedly fired by a newspaper editor for having no imagination and lacking good ideas.

Currently the world's richest businessman, Jeff Bezos had several failed ideas before Amazon took off. Most notably, his auction business called zShops never gained any traction. It's important to realize that it's okay to stop pursuing an enterprise that isn't working and start doing something else.

Closing a business, however, involves more than just shutting the doors and walking away. If you do this, you could open yourself up to unnecessary fees, loss of personal and business reputation, and even lawsuits. When making decisions about closing a business,  visibility to see issues coming is vital. Good financial advice is a great place to start.

There are professions that most people would consider trustworthy. Doctors & nurses, firefighters, and teachers all come to mind.  How about accountants?  Do you trust your bookkeeper?  The reasonable answer here is: Yes!  Trust is often built over time, through relationships and evidenced by past and ongoing performance.  The reality is, if you didn’t trust your employees, they probably wouldn’t still be working for you.

This is Part 3 of a series on the causes of a perfect employee fraud scenario.  Read “Employee Fraud Factor #1: Pressure” here, and “Employee Fraud Factor #2: Opportunity” Part 2 here.

In case you missed Part 1 & 2, there was once a really smart guy, Donald Cressey, who created a theory that said: “If three factors were met, any ordinary, trusted person could bring themselves to commit fraud.”

This is part 2 of a series on the causes of a perfect fraud scenario.  Read “Employee Fraud Factor #1: Pressure” here.

In case you missed Part 1, there was once a really smart guy, Donald Cressey, who created a theory that said: “If three factors were met, any ordinary, trusted person could bring themselves to commit fraud.”

In other words, given the right situation (or perhaps wrong situation), anybody could commit fraud.  Not just criminals, not simply “unethical” people, and certainly not just somebody ELSE’s accounting staff.

The three factors include:

>  Pressure
>  Opportunity
>  Rationalization

In Part 1 we talked about the first factor, Pressure, and how a person with an apparently SECRET financial problem might feel no other option than to steal company money.  They are on the prowl for just the right opportunity!

Consider which of these you believe to be true:

• Your bookkeeper is honest and would never steal from you  -> FALSE
• All the people you’ve hired are ethical people  -> FALSE
• A person is either ethical or not ethical, period   -> FALSE
• People who commit fraud are long-time criminals, waiting to pounce  -> FALSE

How do you plan or budget raises for your employees? As you create next year's budgets and update your strategic plans, you also need to take several vital steps.

These include looking at the big picture, understanding and limiting your risk, getting help if you need it, and utilizing a financial planning tool to provide the right raises to retain and attract talent.  This may seem like a tall order, but a systematic approach will help your organization achieve its staffing and budget goals.

An 84-year-old resident of Longview passed away this year, leaving $750,000 of her estate to three local non-profits. Relying on these types of unexpected donations is one way to build up your organization's reserves, but you can't count on these generous gifts.

Case in point is the Anacortes-based conservation nonprofit Pacific Biodiversity Institute, which just closed its doors due to a lack of funding. Whether flush with funds or struggling to keep the lights on, there’s never enough funding for a nonprofit to accomplish every initiative it would like.

Every organization needs to determine how much it requires for Operations, in Operating Reserves, and what can be dedicated to mission-focused initiatives. The answers to these questions are, of course, “It depends.”

The variables that must be considered include seasonality, worst case scenarios, and more. The key to developing a specific answer is knowledge - knowledge of the organization’s current financial state and donation history, as well as the data that is produced from a solid budget and cash forecast.

For those organizations that struggle, a plan must be developed to raise donations and reduce expenses. If you are fortunate enough to have a surplus of reserves additional questions arise. Where do you put those reserves? How should you safely manage them? While the answers vary from nonprofit to nonprofit, there are a solid set of financial best practices to follow and ensure that these questions are answered.