Manual of Fiancial & Internal Control Procedures - Diocese of ...

14. Incoming cheques should be banked daily. If this is not possible they should
be kept in a safe and banked as soon as possible and in any case at least
weekly. Where they are banked by post full details should be kept (eg by
photocopying) so that if mislaid replacement cheques can be obtained.
Banking of cash should be gross and cash not held back for petty cash
15. The charity’s money must be kept quite separately from personal money.
(However this does not prevent expenditure being incurred originally in a
personal name with a view to reimbursement at a later stage by the charity).
16. Checks of cash books and the paying-in slips and cheque payments should be
made from time to time by someone separate from the person originally
recording the transaction. Bank reconciliations should be carried out each
month, then independently checked and reviewed.
17. Accounts may not go overdrawn without prior approval.
18. When making payments, expenditure must be properly authorised and
presented with the supporting documentation to the cheque signatories.
19. Means of payments such as cheque books, building society passbooks and
bank mandate forms must be kept in a safe with access limited.
20. If possible the preparation of documentation for authorisation should be
undertaken by someone other than the person authorising the payment. The
person authorising should ensure that the goods or service being paid for have
been ordered. The authorisation should be of original invoices only, if
possible, (in order to ensure that an invoice is not paid twice). It should be
stamped PAID with the date (or marked in some way in order to prevent its
being paid twice) which should be in red. The authorisation is of the invoice
and not the statement, again to avoid payments being made twice. Be
particularly careful to avoid double payments where invoices have been
emailed and can be downloaded and authorised twice in error.
21. An order shall only be placed with the approval of the department head. If
over £300 this will need to be written. Continuation of the following authority
limits were determined by the Board at its meeting on 28 th September 2011.
£300- £1000 Head of Department
£1,000 - £5,000 Financial Secretary/ Moderator of the Curia
£5,000 - £50,000 (£100 thousand having consulted the Board) Management
and Finance Committee
£5,000 - £250,000 (£650 thousand having consulted the Board) Building and
Sites Committee – property transactions only.
Above these limits Board of Directors.
22. The record placed of orders should allow for the amount of outstanding orders
to be ascertained.
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