Power to Change - Financial Awareness

Introduction

This survey is intended to enable Power to Change to develop services to enhance the financial capacity and sustainability of Non-Profit organisations.

You will see that the Survey is in 3 sections:

How we work - descriptions of how you manage key financial tasks
Operating Details - checklist of main areas
Our capabilities - your assessment of how well you perform principal financial tasks

In this first section, after asking your name and organisation, we present 3 Anchor Statements per financial activity and ask you to indicate where on the continuum you fit in. You'll see that there are 'intermediate' answers if you don't fall precisely into 1, 3 or 5.

Question Title

* 1. Your name

Question Title

* 2. Your organisation

Question Title

* 3. How we record our sales

1. We put cash into a Cash Box or put cheques into the Bank. Periodically we summarise total sales.

2. Intermediate

3. We take cash or cheques as previously but do a periodic Stock Reconciliation to see what has sold.

4. Intermediate

5. Our till system and invoices are connectted to our accounts system and so we have a full and detailed sales analysis.

Question Title

* 4. How we manage price

1. Our prices are set on a pretty ad hoc basis. If we are retailing, bought in goods have a standard markup -- but this is not externally validated. If its services, we charge an hourly or daily rate that seems reasonable to us.

2. In between

3. Our prices are set using standard retail markups; often as advised by our suppliers or by talking to colleagues in similar organisations. Fee rates are set to be similar to freelancers offering the same kind of service. We do not aim to maximise margin but rather we focus on ensuring that we cover our costs.

4. In between

5. On all levels our pricing is proactive -- we are constantly looking to maximise them while not depressing sales. We use typical merchandising approaches -- offers, 2-for-1, sales periods, special promotions and the like. Fee rates are at least in the Top Quartiles of the sector and each project is charged at what we think the market will bear. This dynamic approach to pricing contributes substantially to our financial stability and sustainability

Question Title

* 5. Tracking sales volumes

1. This is very difficult for us. We know our overall sales value but have insufficient detail on key products or services. We are aware of our weakness here but other things always seem to take priority.

2. In between

3. It’s a mixed picture really. We have some small sellers where the data is poor but we also have lower unit volumes of much larger value per sale (e.g. service contracts, fees etc.) - and these we track very effectively, including variance vs historic levels.

4. In between

5. Our Till / Other system gives comprehensive sales reporting with Top Sellers, Variance Analysis, Re-order alerts and Margin Analysis - and we use it to its fullest extent for assessing sales performance

Question Title

* 6. Our commercial acumen

1. We are pretty weak here and none of us has a commercial background or training. We do our best to assess performance regularly. But we are caught unawares too often for our liking.

2. In between

2. We are fairly good at this but could always be better. Most of us are more comfortable with ideas and concepts than with numbers or forecasting. But we do our best and mostly we have no serious commercial surprises.

4. In between

5. At senior level, we have real Commercial Acumen and she/he is continuously assessing our performance data and interpreting it for the whole organisation. This leads to constant tweaking of our operational plans and to continuous improvement. We take this advice extremely seriously.

Question Title

* 7. Our Audit Trail

1. Our paper trail is rather rudimentary. Most major costs and sales have their own paperwork that we do file. But its by no means complete and does not enable full Bank reconciliation. It does provide our Accountant with difficulties at the Year End.

2. In between

2. We do keep a full audit trail of all costs and sales. But this is paper based only. We do however do a full bank reconciliation monthly against these documents. This also helps Year End accounts.

4. In between

5. We keep a full electronic audit trail of all invoices and receipts (including Petty Cash), using scans where necessary with automated input into our accounts software. This enables full and automatic Bank Statement reconciliation and facilitates Year End auditing.