ISSUE:   Our accounting system has historically been understaffed and under constant revision.  Our financial records have been kept accurate at great effort, but have not been sufficiently current to be relied as much more than an archival resource. 

 

• The records have provided some real-time operational support (e.g. invoicing of CALI institutional payers). 

• Data to assist in collections have been manually retrieved and manipulated. 

• Staffing has been insufficient to keep the records in a condition to be a source of timely guidance for managerial decisions.  

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Often, in fact, Kinshasa and Salt Lake have had to spend long hours working together to reconcile the two different sets of records.  This has often happened weeks or months long after the fact. 

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Because Salt Lake has been understaffed and constantly revising its accounting practices, Quickbooks records have not been kept current enough for the staff on the ground to rely on them for that purpose.

 

Often, in fact, Kinshasa and Salt Lake have had to spend long hours working together to reconcile the two different sets of records.  This has often happened weeks or months long after the fact. 

 

OUR OBJECTIVE IS FOR QUICKBOOKS TO BE THE AUTHORITATIVE, TIMELY SOURCE OF THIS INFORMATION so Kinshasa can pull vendor billing and payment reports from Quickbooks instead of having to manually create them from ad hoc Excel files.  This will make us a single team, united in the effort of entering accurate info into Kintone on a timely basis and getting it posted to Quickbooks just as rapidly. 

 

The people who know the situation on the ground, and who need the info for dealing with vendors, should be relying on the data in Quickbooks.  This will save them time and will motivate them to constantly be checking Quickbooks for accuracy, immediately communicating any errant info to the Quickbooks team so it can be corrected while memories are fresh and recent transactional information is close at hand.  

 

This is a major upgrade to our financial operating system.  Achieving it is one of our four major goals for 2024.  Success will require: 

 

• More human resources and expertise

  • we are engaging a part-time CFO and bookkeeping team effective 1 Feb.

  • Susan's responsibilities will transition to a sole focus on getting financial inputs from Kinshasa ready for the bookkeeping team to upload to QBO, and helping the Kinshasa team use the info in QBO for billing and collecting from customers and communicating with vendors (invoices, customer and vendor statements, special reporting).   

• d e it, 

 

The system, and the expertise of those who operate it, will be under continuous improvement.  Everyone will have a stake in a fast, efficient and accurate bookkeeping system.  Problems will become apparent so they can be addressed, whether in our system ( a change to a Kintone form, an accounting chang.

 

For all of this to work, Quickbooks has to always be up to date.  That's why we are adding more resources   

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myCALI and online payment -- no more hand-reconciling