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In the process of slashing expenses? Just be careful not to cut essential items, such as sufficient staffing to maintain strong internal controls, from your not-for-profit\u2019s budget. Internal controls are critical for preventing occupational theft. Cybersecurity is something else your organization can\u2019t afford to do without. The good news is fraud prevention measures don\u2019t have to be expensive. Some simply require rigorous oversight and effective communication.<\/p>\n
Bad timing<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s usually imprudent to remove internal controls when employees and volunteers are under increased financial pressure and your organization has fewer people \u201cminding the store\u201d due to budget and staff cuts. Financial stress and greater opportunity could tempt even longtime, trusted stakeholders to misappropriate your organization\u2019s funds. So if anything, you might want to increase internal controls at this time.<\/p>\n For example, your nonprofit\u2019s policies need to specify that no one person should have sole responsibility for tasks such as receiving invoices, recording payments and making bank deposits. If your nonprofit is shorter-staffed than usual and only one accounting employee is available, assign an employee from another department or a trusted board member to provide necessary checks and balances. What if those solutions don\u2019t work? You may need to bite the bullet and pay for an outside vendor to pick up the slack.<\/p>\n Also maintain strict policies for financial outlays, such as requiring dual signatures on checks over a certain amount. In fact, you may want to lower your current threshold of expenses or payments that trigger a manager\u2019s review or a co-signature and start performing random audits more frequently.<\/p>\n Make workarounds feasible<\/strong><\/p>\n If you ask staffers from elsewhere in your organization to assist temporarily or part-time with accounting duties, be sure to fully train them. You might want to shadow them for a while to ensure they follow all procedures correctly.<\/p>\n Now is also an excellent time to offer an internal controls refresher course for managers. They may be asked to authorize expenditures or perform other new duties. For instance, supervisors may need to provide greater oversight to team members and investigate potentially suspicious activities.<\/p>\n Protecting your network<\/strong><\/p>\n You\u2019ll also likely need to authorize expenditures for continued cybersecurity. Cyberfraud is the most common way for outsiders to gain access to nonprofit donor and employee data, including bank account and credit card numbers. Regardless of the cost, maintain software licenses that entitle you to manufacturers\u2019 patches and consider upgrading your security tools as technology evolves to keep up with emerging threats.<\/p>\n Also, be wary if a new volunteer offers to perform IT tasks for free. You may be able to save on the cost of paying IT employees or consultants, but you risk giving network and data access to a potential bad actor.<\/p>\n More with less<\/strong><\/p>\n Even with fewer employees working harder, you may have to stretch your budget and hire outside professionals. Make the most of these engagements by having staffers work closely with consultants so they acquire knowledge they can use in the future. Contact us for help with trimming your budget and doing more with less.<\/p>\n \u00a9 2025<\/em><\/p>\n <\/body> In the process of slashing expenses? Just be careful not to cut essential items, such as sufficient staffing to maintain strong internal controls, from your not-for-profit\u2019s budget. Internal controls are critical for preventing occupational theft. Cybersecurity is something else your organization can\u2019t afford to do without. The good news is fraud prevention measures don\u2019t have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,10,15],"tags":[8,11,12],"class_list":["post-17355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-news","category-not-for-profit","tag-articles","tag-news","tag-updates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sfw.cpa\/news-and-guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sfw.cpa\/news-and-guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sfw.cpa\/news-and-guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfw.cpa\/news-and-guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfw.cpa\/news-and-guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17355"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfw.cpa\/news-and-guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17356,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfw.cpa\/news-and-guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17355\/revisions\/17356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sfw.cpa\/news-and-guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfw.cpa\/news-and-guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfw.cpa\/news-and-guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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