The Lone Specter - If one person is responsible for everything in your finance department (depositing checks, reconciling bank accounts, approving bills), your organization is at a high risk for fraud.

Many of these spooky situations are all too common with understaffed, overworked nonprofits fortunately, there are some easy fixes you can implement to keep your accountant from running away screaming.

You’ll lead the business with those numbers: and they won’t scare you any longer.Happy Halloween! In the spirit of the season, we’re sharing the top ten scariest things that our CPAs have encountered in our work with nonprofit organizations.

Recognise that some elements of accounting feels scary and confusing: but that doesn’t mean they have to stay that way. Begin the education process with us at Maverick so that you’re directly involved with the numbers. This process of moving from fear to fascination with your accounts starts by admitting the fear. Generating reports from Xero and saying, “I was just looking at my balance sheet today and…” You’ll become fascinated with your accounts, and find yourself checking them on a daily basis. It’s not only possible: it will change your business and your life. You’ll know how to go into these reports on your own, and see how the profits are, and know the relationship between your balance sheet and cash flow and profits. You need to have the ability to go through your management accounts and know what a balance sheet is, what’s in there, and why. That’s historically been what your accountant did for you: but we aren’t going to let you get away with pushing it off onto your accountant. If you’re in digital media, or a creative agency, it’s not enough to simply deliver excellent creative work and then hope that the accounts stack up. You’ll be more profitable and understand the direct correlation between the work you’re doing and the resulting numbers on those accounts. The numbers are there to help you, and to drive great business decisions. When you, as the business owner, look at your accounts and they scare you – or confuse you – that’s not an ideal situation. It’s an education process: and we’re here to help. We’re working hard to change this, and using tools like Xero we are helping our clients log into their accounting system and understand exactly what’s in there. When I look at my accounting reports, the terminology is created for professional accountants, not me.” We’ve actually had clients tell us, “Accounting scares me. I don’t understand how cash flow forecasts work, or the ins and outs of a balance sheet. The finances for your business can feel like a complex, confusing burden.

Accounting playing spooky scare