Wednesday 24 August 2011

How To Teach Finance To Your Board


As Treasurer, the management and control of the financial reports falls to you. Aren’t you lucky?

If you have read some of our interviews with treasurers, you will have noticed that they comment on how big that responsibility is especially when the members of the board or committee don’t really understand what you are talking about.  Many reports are approved on sheer trust and that isn’t a good basis for decision making.  It leaves treasurers feeling very vulnerable.

Sometimes it will fall to you to teach the board about how to read the reports and what they really mean. You might even have to show them that they are responsible for the contents of the report, whether or not they understand it.  For some members you might have to start at the beginning and show them what basic accounting and finance is all about.

Our Community has developed a simple, online course that will help you teach finance to the members of your committee.

The course starts at the very beginning and explains what financial reports are and what they should cover.  It gives readers a basic view of accounting, bookkeeping and financial controls.  It isn’t an in-depth course but it will give the members of a committee a better understanding of the role of the treasurer and what the reports actually mean.

The course is free to do and will help the members of your committee to support you better in your work as treasurer.