SABAH 02L
POST EXPEDITION REPORT 02 L
ACCOUNTS
Background to Raleigh Sabah
Purpose of PXR
Introduction
Source of Funds
Use of Funds
Record Keeping
Quicken
Cashbook
Reconciliations
The Budget
The Bank
Major Milestones
Initial Deployment (helping LOGS)
Changeover
Foreign Exchange
Project Floats
Washup
Administrative Tasks falling under Accounts
Interaction with other Teams
LOGS (Logistics)
Meds (Medical Teams)
Project Staff
Head Office
Others
Other Things I Did at Fieldbase
IT Support
Mt Kinabalu Co-ordinator
Who does Accounts when you are away?
My Personal Experience
Appendix I Accounts Files
Appendix II Large RM Peaks
Appendix III Useful Contacts
Appendix X Accounts Notes from HO
BACKGROUND TO RALEIGH SABAH
Raleigh International has previously run expeditions in Malaysia, including Sabah, between 1991 and 1998. However, this expedition was a start-up one, so some of the issues discussed will not necessarily be relevant to Accounts in the future, but will hopefully provide some of the background to the matters discussed.
PURPOSE OF PXR
This PXR has been written in order to provide you with:
An appreciation of what “Accounts” is about before arriving in Sabah.
A written reminder of what you will need to do while on expedition, including the priorities and timescales involved.
Information regarding all of our contacts.
Tips and advice, which obviously can be ignored.
Advice regarding the reactions and interactions you are likely to encounter with your staff colleagues and the venturers.
It is intended that the PXR is a ‘working document’ and should be amended and added to throughout each expedition; if you find the PXR useful, be assured that the next accountant will feel the same way and will be grateful that the information is up to date.
I read the Belize PXR after having written most of this and found it to be a bit brief. Then again I’ve gone on a bit here. Hopefully you don’t mind.
Lastly, I’ve gone through this PXR a few times now and the thread to a few sections is a bit poor. There’s also a fair amount of repetition due to additions and amendments. I hope it’s not too hard to read. You’ve always got the option of contacting me.
INTRODUCTION
Hopefully there isn’t too much egg sucking in this document. The accounts process is simple but initially a challenge if you are used to dealing with GBP millions!
There are many ways in which to run things and being one to avoid unnecessary rework I adopted the systems set in place by the PRO before my arrival, which worked fine.
Obviously you will have enhancements or alterations you wish to make. You could go-to-town on it if you wish.
I did consider using only online systems but because of the major problems with hard drive failures decided to maintain the manual cashbook. It’s not required provided Quicken is always available but is a nice backup and also means that it’s easily passed on whilst you are out of Fieldbase.
SOURCE OF FUNDS
Funds are primarily sourced from London Head Office (HO). The main contact being Kenny Tan. Other sources are from local fundraising for the Host Country Venturers (HCVs), and goods-in-kind e.g. free fuel from Shell.
Requests for HO GBP transfers are made on the London Email – ask the Administrator about how to use email. It usually takes 3 days to hit the Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) account.
For some reason we always came to close to being out of money as the requests tended to be made that way. I’m not sure why and don’t see any reason for why. I suggest you ask for money when cash at bank + petty cash gets to say RM 20,000 or RM 40,000 if near changeover.
USES OF FUNDS
There are three primary methods:
Cheque
Cash advances
Direct cash payments (reimbursed)
In addition to this there is a Raleigh Sabah VISA card that the Expedition Leader (EL) uses and it may be necessary to reimburse the EL for Raleigh expenditure paid personally although this should be kept to a minimum and only be pre-expedition when expedition funds are not available to the EL.
Having said that, I know that Drew received RM 6,000 as “play money” and a few charges have been made to 03C already. This account is shown on Quicken as Expedition 03C.
Forms for expenditure requests are detailed in Appendices and are self-explanatory.
The introduction information from London stated that no more than 1 advance should be outstanding to a person at a time. We simply found that this was impractical and that the main reporting times being post changeover meant that so long as most forms were in then it really wasn’t an issue.
For those people who were slow or poor record keepers I ensured they only had 1 advance outstanding and said I wouldn’t advance another till the 1st one was in. But in the majority of cases people had 2 or 3 advances outstanding at one time.
The record I think was 5 and of course that was a Logs member. Average Logs advances were RM 1,000 and varied from RM 100 to RM 1,000 for the rest (the RM 1,000 one being PR trips to KL).
To be honest, if the medics are run on a rotation basis again, I wouldn’t give them an advance. They had one advance and it was a nightmare getting details and getting it returned. I would use a reimbursement basis of paying these bills or even better encourage all bills to be paid by cheque.
RECORD KEEPING
I maintained folders for:
General which included bank statements and a few printed reconciliation’s (I rarely printed these out)
Cheque requests and invoices
Cash advances and invoices other than Logs
Project advances and invoices
There are other little bits and pieces mixed in the folders as well. I never really got a good process going and found the record keeping a bit of a mess. You’ll think of a better process I’m sure.
Never the less all the information is there.
I cannot recommend enough that you backup all data and frequently. This would be all Word, Excel and Quicken files.
QUICKEN
Quicken is installed on two machines: the accounts machine and as a backup the administration machine.
Now that systems are networked I wouldn’t expect the administrators machine to be used most. But if required you just need to backup from accounts and restore to admin to get the data across. The admin machine is much more readable for some reason.
My personal comments on Quicken:
I loved Quickens ease of use. I spent a previous life providing accounting solutions to all sorts of businesses and found Quicken a very simple yet solid package that does all you need for a small operation such as a Raleigh expedition. It’s not full ledger double entry but you can pretend it is e.g. expense accruals “cash account”.
CASH BOOK
Just a quick note on the cashbook. My recording information in the cashbook took priority over anything else. I tended to update Quicken continuously as well but looking back that was just a waste of time as the cash availability is easy to track in your head and as financial records were only required by the EL and head office after changeover you really only need to update Quicken technically 4 times on expedition.
Anyway – cashbook notation: I used a “P” to denote processed on Quicken up to this point and an “R” to indicate reconciled with physical cash in the cash box.
You can tell I’m not the best record keeper in the world!
I think I’ve mentioned this elsewhere but it won’t hurt saying it again - I asked that only the cashbook be updated whilst I was away on project sites.
RECONCILIATIONS
I’ve been reconciling the following accounts:
SCB account (screen prints can be provided upon request from counter 1 or Edward). Bank statements come out monthly and roughly 5+ business days after
Petty cash
Cash advance accounts
Foreign exchange account
Excel files for the above are detailed in Appendices with the exception of the SCB account which is reconciled on Quicken.
THE BUDGET
The budget is already preset so it’s just a case of matching costs to budget lines. This was initially very confusing as I hadn’t any time to look at the budget in detail before having to catch up on postings (due to IT problems and Quicken software not being available the systems were not up until very late and so a lot of catch-up was required which meant I guessed a lot of postings).
Post initial deployment and each changeover the EL and I sat down and went through each expenditure line. We referred to invoices to check the detail at initial deployment but after that I just tended to use the EL account as suspense and asked the EL where to code these items. Hence there was no need to check invoices.
The main difficulty with splitting costs was Logs equipment into consumables and tools and then Logs food into FB, project site etc.
It might be a really good idea to prepare separate Advance Analysis Forms for each of Logs food, Logs equip, Admin, PR, Drivers etc so that they appreciate their own different budget lines. The problem I had was that they just threw everything into “other” and I had to analyse it myself.
Even in Phases II & III I would post items to the EL line as a suspense entry and check the correct posting with them rather than constantly ask questions. It was a lot faster this way.
The post Changeover sit down with the EL lasted only half an hour each time.
If I had enough time I would print off expenditure summaries for each area so they could check them and I would also ask for any accruals to be made. This was very useful as I discovered RM 15,000 of missing expenditure for Phase I food once.
It’s pretty easy to see the expenditure gaps as most lines are either whole of exped or divided by 3 for the 3 phases.
I did ask for accruals for transport, food and accommodation being the large accounts. The concept of accruals was a bit tough for some but with the help of the EL it wasn’t too bad.
Subsequently I discovered how well the budget had been put together. If you spend some time looking at this and matching costs then you’ll be fine. My difficulties arose from coming into the accountant position late and having to catch-up in a hurry.
THE BANK
Raleigh Sabah uses Standard Chartered Bank. Our main contact is Edward Goei who is the bank manager.
The reason for choosing SCB is solely because they have a very flexible arrangement with regard to foreign exchange whereby the Expedition Accountant (EA) can take in multiple traveller’s cheques in anyone’s name and have the money converted effectively under their passport number. You will need to provide them with a copy of your passport.
Edward is very helpful and has also provided us with an unofficial “telephone banking” service which means that we can call him for account balances and transaction details.
Contact details are in the relevant files and business cards are held in the business card folder.
Personal info on Edward: he comes from Sarawak and by the time the 2003 exped starts he will hopefully have the wife and kids residing with him in KK. A very quiet
guy and it takes a lot to draw chat from him. You might have better luck!
Fill in the chequebook request form and hand it into the bank (signed) as soon as you hit it. I made the mistake of waiting and then finding out that it takes a while to come from KL.
The banks hours are 09:30 to 15:30 each weekday and 09:30 to 12:30 on alternate Saturdays. This means avoid the bank on the Monday following a bank holiday Saturday!
Deposits can be easily made electronically by inserting a little envelope into the machine on the left-most side of the bank as you enter. Susie or Catherine can help the first time you do it. They are customer service types and very friendly. They float but can often be found at the reception desk.
Bank statements come out monthly but I found this wasn’t frequently enough so arranged for screen prints to be given to me upon request. You can request them from Counter 1 or Edward direct.
I found calling up on the telephone and asking for things to be ready at a certain time a complete waste of time. Malaysia doesn’t work that way. It’s better to turn up to the bank.
The bank are happy to let other people deal with transactions at the bank provided you call ahead to advice them. If they are getting funds for petty cash (a cash cheque) then they will need their passport for identification. You won’t need yours as a) you’ll be so well known at the bank! And b) you’ll have given it to them already.
I found it initially hard work to get the staff to relax and chat but it was worth it in the end as it made it more fun to visit the bank.
Like all Malaysians they are all friendly.
MAJOR MILESTONES
INITIAL DEPLOYMENT
Most of my time was spent helping the LOGS team with equipment and food transfers from FB to deployment and allocating to teams i.e. lifting and carrying.
The main task from the accounts side was to agree the project floats and have those funds available for the project managers (PM) together with a summary of what they have received and also an analysis form for them to complete during the phase.
The floats were given to the PMs just before they hopped onto the buses for deployment in the early hours of the morning. The first being Maliau (to catch flights) which was a 04:30 departure.
I was lucky to get some sleep that night (about 3 hours) as our LOGS team was experienced and well sorted for deployment. I’ve heard it’s usually an all-nighter.
For changeover I gave the Maliau float out the night before (next team was 06:00) but I still recommend the early rise for initial deployment as the PMs don’t really need to worry about money for their first deployment – there’s plenty of other things to worry about. The EL will probably have ideas on this too.
Plus it’s fun seeing the anticipation and nerves on their faces - worth getting up for!
CHANGEOVER
FOREIGN EXCHANGE
This is probably the most difficult task to deal with both in terms of record keeping and logistics.
We have an arrangement with SCB that allows the EA to take everyone’s signed travellers cheques and have them changed along with cash at the bank.
You might need to see Edward especially for this but going to a counter will suffice and mention that we have an arrangement with them and they should check with Edward (who will sign it off anyway).
Their normal charge is RM 20 per transaction but this has been waived for us and they adopt something like a 1% charge. You will not be able to change money if the banks auditors are about - something I found out from trying to do so.
This is because Edward is breaking the rules for the banks limits per customer (USD 200!).
The hard part is the record keeping and I never really found a great solution so hopefully you will. The other headache is that it requires large amounts of cash (up to RM 15,000) and also in smallish denominations.
I used very rounded rates but they were close to the real exchange rates. London suggested very poor rates but I didn’t feel comfortable with that and neither did the EL e.g. London recommended 5 when rate was 5.888 – I used 5.8.
We are charged transaction charges and I haven’t quite worked it out yet as they’ve not been consistent. They are supposed to charge RM 20 per single transaction which would be hellishly expensive but again we are waived this in favour of a 1% rate. There are some additional small charges but it’s basically a good service as they are bending the rules quite a bit for us.
I obtained the cash from the bank and then arranged times to get the signed travellers cheques and cash alongside the administration valuables collection.
I had every person count and sign for the RM received.
The idea was to keep a running balance of what Raleigh owed each person and return this to them at the end of expedition. This idea has actually become true. I ended up giving some too much and some too little due to exchange rate fluctuations and wanting to be as fair as possible.
No one was really short-changed that much and I used the underpaid to cover the overpaid. The balances remaining over RM 5 I returned to the venturers and staff. This ended up with a RM 300 balance or so being left which I transferred to shop profits.
One important point to get across to everyone I think is to tell them that there will be money changed at deployment and changeover only i.e. none at wash-up and so they need to sort themselves out accordingly. Obviously this is up to you but I certainly wasn’t going to change money for them at the end of exped.
The other unfortunate thing with our lot is that a lot of them had never travelled before and were unprepared wrt foreign exchange. This meant that some venturers had their parents deposit GBP into the Raleigh HO account with me giving them RM here at the same rates as everyone else.
This was not advertised as an option as neither we nor HO want to do it.
Again you’ll help yourself by making sure you have a slot to talk to the group at deployment about money issues and what you can and cannot do.
A tie up on money changing is with the administrator and flight changes. This was a lot of hassle for the administrator (flight changes are where the V’s are not using the standard Raleigh return flight and wish to extend their stay and hence the flight needs to be changed).
In the end the way we worked it was to ask for RM 310 (due to the rate increasing here this was just over GBP 50 the amount required by MAS to change flights). I would only deal with the money changing side and treated it as any other kind of money changing hence ignoring it’s use.
We did adopt a GBP 50 limit for changing initially to avoid ridiculous requests which would have meant some missed out. The other thing to factor in is the bank holidays on Saturday (every fortnight) just in case you need to run to the bank for more cash!
PROJECT FLOATS
These are relatively simple once agreed with the EL after taking advice from the project staff from their recces.
From the project reports you can identify each sites specific needs and then add on amounts for contingencies based on location and what type of project they are i.e. adventure, community or environmental.
The project team recce reports finance sections did not have enough info to complete the floats & so the details were provided by the EL.
The main omissions were in relation to transport costs. It pays to be clear whether the costs are paid up front by FB or by the PMs as they deploy direct with the operators.
There was also the odd accommodation cost and contingency based on this being a set-up expedition and some poor providers being selected but this has now been corrected and we are happy with our providers.
I prepared float packs in nice plastic zip bags to help keep it all dry. Each pack contained the following:
Float money
Summary of what the money comprised in terms of budget lines
Analysis form for completion and return at next changeover
An emergency phonecard
See Appendices for spreadsheets.
The packs are handed out to PMs prior to leaving and returned at the next changeover.
WASHUP
Ugh! Part way through it and it’s a hard grind. Somehow I’m sure it will be a lot easier for you.
It largely depends on how many little stories there are attached to the finances. Posting the cash entries is a breeze. It’s the other ones that can be fun. You’ll know fairly early on whether Drew likes spinning financial yarns!
Some suggestions which have come up going through washup:
Get staff to pay their phone bills each phase or even better make sure they use phone cards for all personal calls
Same with shop IOUs. Get them cleared each phase or offset them against the kit deposits
This one I’m not sure how you’ll sort it – but get them to meet the accounts cut-off. Don’t know whether it’s human nature or not but about 5 people came to me hours after cut-off to say “Oh I forgot I spent my own money on …”.
Keep on top of all the little “stories”. I left it all to the end of expedition – silly me.
There are project float jackets in the “archive file”. Have a look through the files for little goodies here and there (sorry just papers not real goodies !).
Lastly the invoices and all paperwork need to be put in envelopes and sent off to London. I’m not sure if I sent all I should but you will know from what Kenny asks you.
ADMINISTRATIVE TASKS
There are a few small things that seem to fall into the accounts hat:
Making sure FB utilities are paid and up to date; bill payments I tended to give to the drivers and ask them to drop off at the utility – most of which are at Komplex Karamunsing
Clearing phone bills and ensuring personal calls / internet usage is reimbursed to expedition. In the end internet usage was paid for by the expedition
OTHER TEAMS
LOGS
I was very lucky in that the 02L Logs team was a large team and had an experienced Logs Manager (LM) which meant that it ran very smoothly.
You are lucky in that one of the Logs team will be on 03C! I’ll leave you to discover who.
The bulk of your expenditure comes from them.
They completed expense analysis forms by computer and tracked expenditure internally themselves.
After keeping control of the advances myself I found it easier to pass this task onto the Logs team. Whilst they sometimes missed advances, that came especially from the dedicated drivers (which I treated as part of Logs), it seemed to run more efficiently that way.
It also meant that the LM knew what was outstanding.
I still maintained all advances outstanding on spreadsheet and Quicken but didn’t keep the advance requests or analysis forms.
Shop
One of the things that technically fall under the Logs hat is the Shop run at changeovers. This was a pain in the neck for me as no one briefed them on the requirements for accounts.
I strongly suggest you state that they will need to keep a track of sales, purchases, do stock-takes and maintain a record of shop cash.
For 02L the shop job was passed around a lot and a proper stock-take was hard to obtain and I reverse derived profit by recording cash as sales.
I asked that the medics do a stock-take of their stuff separately from the Logs stuff. This was often left undone due to the change in fieldbase medics each phase and no accounting related handover being done by them.
MEDS
For 02L we had 5 meds. As the stay at FB was shared amongst them it was often hard pinning down expenditure details from them as it was often spent by the previous FB med who was now out on project site.
In retrospect I would have sat them down at FB induction (which I missed out on) and explained the requirements to them.
This would include keeping a track of the shop medical stock and providing stock-take details to me immediately after changeover.
Both Logs and myself felt it unreasonable to expect Logs to track this even though the shop seems to fall into their hat.
Other than that the only thing to track is recoverable medical expenditure (insurance claims) separately from expedition costs. I had a look at this in Phase III and looking back I would put the onus on the Meds to do this from day one.
They should be advised to tell you the recoverable / irrecoverable split on all their expenditure. They should also keep the original invoices (giving you copies) for the insurance claims. They are responsible to preparing the insurance claim pack.
PROJECT STAFF
I found the project staff to be quite a mix in terms of helpfulness and it was especially odd for me as I’d spent most of my time with them in project staff induction anyway.
The main thing here is to sort them out into giving you the float monies immediately upon arrival at changeover. It’s the last thing on their priority list but it’s really handy to have these in, checked for accuracy and cleared. That way you can ask about specific expenditure if not detailed enough and also have additional cash available for foreign exchange dealing if required.
I would suggest putting a deadline for returning these on the Changeover timetable and I also recommend that it be the first day they return.
HEAD OFFICE
Kenny Tan is your man. He’s done it all before and has the answers you need. To be honest I only really emailed him a couple of times early on when I had a Quicken question or two. Other than that the only contact with HO was to request money. There was never any questions coming back on the accounts. And I didn’t provide any reconciliation’s or information in addition to the Quicken files.
OTHERS
The other main parties are:
EL
DEL
PROs
Photographer
Administrator
Of these the hardest one to get expenditure forms from was the photographer and that was only because he spent all his time out on project site and was only at FB for the odd day here and there.
When they arrive they must hand in their forms. This is a point I would make at FB induction.
OTHER TASKS
IT SUPPORT
I had the unfortunate task of being “IT guru” which was a major headache with our old equipment constantly falling apart.
Hopefully now it’s all working pretty well.
I recommend you steer well clear unless you get particularly bored and have lots of time on your hands.
MT KINABALU CO-ORDINATOR
I personally found the whole FB experience to lack any form of challenge which is what I thought Raleigh was all about. With the exception being dealing with people and hence maybe I missed the boat a bit here!?
As a result of this, I think, I was given the task of organising the Mt Kinabalu climbs.
Luckily for me the administrator had done all the hard work making the contacts and preparing a Mt K pack with instructions in it in Phase I. I got the task thereafter.
Up to you I guess.
From a personal point of view I enjoyed going up the mountain tremendously and also the organisation of the event. The staff at Parks HQ are lovely and fun to deal with. I almost convinced them to join the next expedition!
ACCOUNTS 2ND
For 02L the accounts number two was one of the PROs. It could be anyone but needs to be sorted early so they know they will have extra duties when you are away from FB out on project site if you choose to take this up.
I personally had them do very little as it’s really a small task to catch up on the data entry when you get back.
All I asked them to do was:
Provide advances
Pay cheques
Keep the manual cashbook up-to-date
I asked that returned advances and analysis forms be put in my intray rather than being dealt with in my absence as this was easier.
The PRO for 02L did an excellent job but didn’t keep the cashbook up-to-date in Phase II which was a pain when I came back but luckily it reconciled fairly quickly after I married advances out to what wasn’t in the cashbook. It was just unnecessary to do this if the cashbook was up-to-date.
In actual fact I was really lucky having this 2nd as she was superb at record keeping (much better than me) and also made my life a lot easier for Changeover II when I was away organising the Mt K climbers.
MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
For me 02L was all about the project sites and doing interesting tasks other than the accounts.
This is a personal issue and I was already in the throws of considering a career alternative so naturally wasn’t mad about the accounting side.
It was however quite a laugh to get down to the simple nitty-gritty of running a small office which is something you never do as a Chartered Accountant.
Anyone with simple record keeping skills can run the accounts process. It’s very simply money in – money out. [Please bear in mind I wrote all this prior to knowing you and your background!]
Coming from a project staff background I found the fieldbase staff to be more individual rather than team based in their approach. But of course that was just our particular mix.
It is important to look after yourself!
There is certainly a lot you can get involved in if you want to.
Enjoy yourself!
Mark
PS You know my email address so feel free to use it. Be nice to get updates from you on how you are going and what’s the latest!
Finally …
The good stuff:
Check out the Coffee Bean – Merdeka Centre (town) or Damai (near here)
Internet cafes – the best one is at Damai but hard to get to without transport. Other good ones are behind Sugar Bun/ Beach II something or other – they use RM 1 coins there which they give you. Also on the outside of Centrepoint. And finally there is one at Lintas Plaza which is open from 10am to 2am.
Never checked out the movie theatre but there is one. Mat will supply you with as many VCDs at fieldbase as you require.
Swimming at Likas Pool is a great relaxer. We usually arranged for a group to go from fieldbase every now and then.
Pizzas and roti are a good treat for food but require the Logs team to be as efficient as ours and also Drew to sign-off on it (I’m sure he can have his arm twisted)
“Milo pink” is a really neat hot and cold Milo drink
“Selamat Pagi”, “Tangi-hari” and “petang” (spelt the way they sound to me) are good morning, lunchtime, and afternoon
“Terimikasi” is thanks to which you’ll hopefully get “sama sama” in response
Everything is cheap – ask the Logs team where to get stuff but Merdeka, Karamansing and Centrepoint are good places to start.APPENDIX I ACCOUNTS FILES
These are roughly in a kind of importance / use order:
| Filename | Use | Location |
| | | Accounts/… |
| Accounts 02L-PXR.doc | PXR | |
| Advances Allocations.xls | Records advance history and outstandings. I found this useful to keep alongside Quicken | |
| Cash Advance Form.doc | Cash requests | |
| Cheque Request Form.doc | Cheque requests | |
| Advance Form Analysis.doc | Married to request once advance used up | |
| Petty cash rec.xls | Just that | |
| Project Team Floats.xls | Just that again with notes | |
| Daily Cash Projection.xls | As the FB team are crap at predicting their expenditure I tried to use this. It wasn’t much help | |
| General reconciliations.xls | Rent, Coke freebees … | |
| 02l bud draft1.xls | 02L Budget given to me by EL Should be higher up the list! | Budget |
| Shop Stock take.xls | A template I created for the Logs team | Logs |
| | | |
The remaining files are ones I’ve inherited or ones that relate to 02L.
APPENDIX II LARGE RM PEAKS
| Period | For | Amount RM (approx) |
| | | |
| Initial Deployment | Project Floats | 12,000 |
| Changeover I | Project Floats | 12,000 |
| Changeover I | Foreign Exchange | 5,000 |
| Changeover II | Project Floats | 12,000 |
| Changeover II | Foreign Exchange | 15,000 |
| | | |
Notes
We had a project out on Pulau Gaya which involved regular trips to KK and also a lot of money was spent out at Batu Puteh which is why the Changeover I foreign exchange was much higher than initial deployment.
FX is totally dependant on the projects and venturers so the figures above are a very rough guide.
Note also that this doesn’t include normal expenditure from FB or Logs. This is significant at the beginning of expedition and negligible at the end (funnily enough).
Appendix III Useful Contacts & Information
Standard Chartered Bank
Account: RALEIGH INTERNATIONAL TRUST 390-1-5071091-5
Edward Goei – Service Manager direct line 088 298 168
Catherine Chui – Consumer Banking 088 298 160
Susie Huang – Consumer Banking 088 298 180
Vincent Wong & Associates (Fieldbase owners law firm)
Colin or Jane 088 234 681
Appendix X Quicken Notes from HO
1. Introduction
Welcome to Raleigh International and many thanks for volunteering your services as an expedition accountant. We hope that you find your expedition an enjoyable and rewarding experience. This handbook aims to give you some forewarning of the tasks and responsibilities that await you on expedition and to guide you through the accounting procedures that you will need to follow, with some detailed guidance on the use of the Quicken accounting software.
2. The expedition accountant
A Raleigh expedition will normally last ten weeks and involve up to 100 young venturers and 30 to 40 volunteer staff. Such an enterprise costs money: you will find yourself managing a budget of £70,000 or more. Overall responsibility for the expedition rests with the expedition leader but, as the resident financier, you’ll be required to look after the processing of all financial transactions, to monitor spending against budget, to provide financial guidance and support to other members of the expedition, to liase with project partners, local suppliers, banks and government offices, and to keep in regular contact with the Raleigh Head Office in London. There will be busy times, particularly at changeovers (when all the venturers move to new project sites) but you should also find enough time to look around the host country and visit the expedition project sites.
3. The expedition budget
One of your first jobs on arrival will be to agree a budget for the expedition with the expedition leader. The expedition will be financed principally by funds transferred to you from London Head Office but you may be able to supplement this income with local sponsorship and donations. The budgeting process is begun at Head Office, where we will produce a rough budget for your expedition: you and the expedition leader will need to review this budget and do any necessary fine-tuning. Your spending will cover all the expedition necessities: food, fuel, travel, tools and equipment, accommodation, medical expenses and the costs of local guides, consultants and labour. Once your budget is drawn up (usually in spreadsheet format) it should be faxed or e-mailed to Head Office for our approval. You will normally receive confirmation of the budget from us within a couple of days.
4. Financial procedures and Head Office reporting requirements
Now you are ready to set up your expedition budget and accounts on the Quicken software and get down to business. But, in setting up, you should bear in mind the following procedures and reporting requirements:
(a) Payment protocol
Wherever possible you should make purchases that are settled by cheque against a supplier’s invoice. On receipt of an invoice, the expedition leader (EL) or logistics manager (LM) should check it and authorise it with their initials. When payment is made, the invoice should be stamped as ‘PAID’ and the date, cheque no and expense category noted on it. The cheque should only be signed by the signatories to the bank accounts which will normally be the EL and in some cases the LM. Once posted to Quicken, invoices should be filed away methodically, preferably in cheque number order.
(b) Petty cash reimbursements
Because so much spending on expedition is cash-based, you need to run an efficient and methodical cash system, including keeping a manual petty cash book There is a petty cash box which should be securely locked away in the safe at all times. Cash can be issued either as reimbursements or advances but in either case only with the authorisation of the EL or his/her deputy. Receipts and paperwork for all cash transactions should be filed methodically. A simple but consistent numbering system for all transactions in the petty cash book (pc1, pc2 etc) should cross-refer to supporting vouchers and to the transaction entry on the Quicken software.
The expedition leader has final responsibility for protecting Raleigh’s assets on the expedition. You should feel comfortable that the cash system is properly controlled and encourage the expedition leader to check it and do a cash count at regular intervals. There will be times when you are away from field base: when you return, make sure that you are satisfied that the cash position is all in order and has been properly maintained during your absence.
(c) Cash advances
Quite a lot of the spending done on expedition will involve giving cash advances to members of expedition staff. In all cases an advance request form must be completed and authorised by the EL or deputy EL. The project managers will require cash advances at the beginning of each project phase (there are three project phases in every expedition) and will not be able to tell you how the money was spent until the end of the phase (the changeover period). To speed up the handing over of advances during changeovers, it would be a good idea to get the cash ready and the amount checked by the EL/DEL. The cash can be placed in a document case together with the Advance Analysis Form and passed to the project manager. At the next changeover, the Project Manager can bring back the document case with all receipts, the completed Advance Analysis Form and any unspent cash for you to check and record. The advance should be posted without delay to a special advance account in Quicken. The relevant expenditure will be posted to the Quicken advance account with unspent amounts transferred back to the cash account. All paperwork to be filed methodically.
NO ONE, NOT EVEN THE EXPEDITION LEADER, SHOULD BE GIVEN MORE THAN ONE ADVANCE OR FLOAT AT A TIME. EACH ADVANCE SHOULD BE RETURNED AND ACCOUNTED FOR BEFORE A NEW ONE IS ISSUED.
If you find yourself making advances to more than a few people you might consider opening a separate advance account in Quicken for each individual. Note also that at changeover, when you become the moneychanger for the venturers and staff (i.e. cashing their travellers’ cheques which can be deposited later by you at the bank), you will need to have a large stock of cash at the field base. It is a good idea to plan this operation well in advance and to keep all venturer cash separate from the main petty cash tin.
(d) Reporting to Head Office
The purpose of the expedition accounts is to show how the funds provided by Head Office, local sponsorships and other external funders are spent in-country. A set of interim accounts, comprising a budget variance report, a balance sheet and a forecast for the remainder of the expedition, should be produced within ten days of each phase changeover and faxed or e-mailed to Head Office. Explanations should be included of any large variances or unusual items of expenditure. You should also e-mail back-up copies of the Quicken data files to us (see below).
At the end of the expedition the final accounts, together with all the receipts/invoices/bank statements/supporting documents and copies of your Quicken files on floppy disk should be returned to Head Office. You should leave a copy of the final accounts and a final bank and cash reconciliation at the field base for your successor on the next expedition. Back in London the final accounts will be thoroughly audited by Raleigh’s honorary treasurer.
5. Using Quicken
The Quicken software is now installed on most of Raleigh’s in-field computers. If you do not find it on your field base computer you can install it from floppy disks (see appendix).
Quicken is actually not an accounting package but rather a money-managing program designed for non-financial people. If you are used to accounting software you may initially experience a mild culture shock: there is no double entry here, no mention of debits or credits, no journal or batch posting options.
The only “accounts” in Quicken are those that one would normally find on a balance sheet: bank and cash accounts and sundry other assets and liabilities. One of your initial jobs will be to set up these accounts, which are the basic building blocks of the software. When posting transactions, you will go into the “register” of the relevant balance sheet account and enter each item, allocating it to a “category” of income or expenditure. For example, when paying a grocery bill by cheque, you would choose the bank account from the accounts list and go into its transaction register to enter the cheque date, ref. number and amount and allocate the transaction to the “Food” category. A report on these categories will function as your income and expenditure account.
The guidance notes on the following pages will assume that you move around Quicken using the drop-down menus accessed on the menu bar at the top of the screen. You can supplement these notes by reading the Quicken manual which you will find at the field base.
6. Getting started
(a) The new data file
You must begin by setting up a new file for your expedition in which all your transactions will be stored. Choose File - New - New Quicken File - OK. The file’s name can be no longer than 8 characters - something meaningful like Chile98F is suggested. Once you are in your new file you should never have to leave it and you will find yourself in it automatically each morning when you enter Quicken. When you open your new file the program will take you straight away into the accounts set-up procedure but you should cancel here for the moment so that you can set up your currency.
(b) Currency
Although the option of recording transactions in any number of currencies is offered (which will prove useful when reporting to Head Office) you will obviously want to keep your accounts in the local currency of your expedition country. Choose List - Currency and look for your local currency in the list. If it is not there enter it as a new currency with an appropriate three-letter code. You need to nominate it as your home currency (click the Home button to register a tick against your currency in the home column) and record an exchange rate for it against pounds sterling (Highlight pounds in the currency list and use the edit function to enter the rate). You should use the rate ruling at the start of the expedition: there is no need to record this rate to more than one decimal place. Once it is set up you should stick to the same exchange rate throughout the expedition. If you are uncertain about what exchange rate to use, head office can advise you. Note that, when changing venturer’s traveller’s cheques, it is prudent to use a rate slightly lower than the market rate. Any exchange gains made at the venturers’ expense can be effectively returned to them by spending the excess cash on something like the end-of-expedition party.
(c) Accounts
Now set up your balance sheet accounts (File - New - New Quicken account - OK). You will be taken through a series of dialog boxes asking you to define the type of account (either current (i.e. bank), cash, asset or liability), name and describe it, track VAT (select No to this), and nominate the currency (it will always be your local currency). You will then be asked for an opening balance for the account (i.e. “Quicken needs a starting point for this account”): see the next section on this subject. Select No to the “last statement of your current account” option and you will see a summary of what you have done. You can make changes before clicking “done”.
The accounts that you will certainly need to set up are Bank (possibly more than one), Petty Cash, Debtors and prepayments, Advances, Creditors, Accruals, Projects and Head Office Account. The last five are all liability types of account. The Projects account is an important one: you will find that you have incomings and outgoings that relate to the purchasing of materials for expedition projects (usually funded by local or special sponsorship) and which are not part of your main expedition budget. By keeping them in this account you will avoid confusion and you will be able to monitor that project spending is not exceeding sponsorship income. Similarly you will receive amounts from Head Office which are not part of your expedition income (personal money for particular venturers or staff etc) and which should be credited to the Head Office account until they are disbursed.
(d) Opening balances
If you are on the first expedition in a country new to Raleigh, there will naturally be no opening balances to record. However, if there was an expedition that recently preceded yours, there will be a local bank account already set up which probably has some cash in it and a few outstanding local debtors and creditors too. In this situation your opening balances will not necessarily be identical to the closing balances recorded by the previous expedition: the expedition leader may have initiated some transactions between expeditions. Where possible a note of your correct opening balances will be attached by Head Office to this document: otherwise you should liase with Head Office to establish your correct opening balances. You can enter the opening balances after you have set up your balance sheet accounts, using the date of the first day of expedition. The software will require you to allocate the balance to a category: you should allocate all opening balances to the Head Office account. Once the operation is complete you can check the balances by printing an opening balance sheet (Reports - Business - Balance Sheet - Create). Naturally it should balance, with the Head Office account equalling the sum of all the other accounts, and show an equity figure of zero (in Quicken the term equity simply refers to your surplus of income over expenditure). Confirm this operation with Head Office.
(e) Income and expenditure categories
These are set up via Lists - Category/Transfer - New. You may well find that Quicken has supplied you with a long list of categories, most of which are of no use to you: it takes only a few minutes to delete them all and set up your own. To achieve consistency between all the expeditions, we have standardised the income and expenditure categories as follows. The income categories you may need are: Local sponsorship, Staff contributions and perhaps London visitors. Expenditure categories that you’ll want to set up include accommodation, comms and admin, contingencies, equipment, exp. leader, food, fuel, insurance, local labour, medical, photography, PR, repairs and maintenance, vehicles and sundries.
Sub-categories can be created under the main category headings for detailed information.
(A note about the Head Office Recharges. London Head Office will be supplying some of the things in your budget direct to you, such as some food and other consumables, tools and equipment and so on. You should post these items to the Head Office account at a cost specified by us, allocating the items to your relevant expenditure categories)
7. Putting your budget onto Quicken
For the sake of variance reporting you will need to record your budget on Quicken. In fact you need to record two budgets, one in local currency and the other in pounds sterling recorded at your chosen exchange rate! Choose Features - Planning - Budgets. You will be provided with a default budget format laid out in months. The simplest procedure is to enter your totals for the expedition under the first available month, ignoring the other months. Or you can click View-Year to get rid of the months (N.B. to make this work you will need to specify, when producing your reports, that you are interested in the whole year). Key in your budget figures in local currency. Then choose View - Other Budgets - Create and enter another budget in pounds sterling. You can use the Rename option to give the two budgets useful names.
To view your budgets use the same View option. When you come to print reports of actual against budget, the program will choose the budget figures from whichever of your two budgets you viewed most recently.
8. Inter-expedition transactions
You will find that, in between the end of the previous expedition and your arrival in country a number of transactions will have appeared on the bank statement. Likewise the cash tin will probably show evidence of some inter-expedition incomings and outgoings. These should all represent the payment of the previous expedition’s creditors/accrued sums or receipts from debtors. You will need to liase with Head Office to make sure that we are aware of these items and that we agree with your opening balances. Once you have got the ledgers up to date, have a look at the remaining outstanding debtors and creditors: do they look reasonable and are there any that need writing off or chasing up? Do keep us up to date on any anomalies in this area.
9. Day to day transaction posting
You’ll quickly acclimatise to the way that Quicken likes you to post transactions through the “register”, which usefully arranges your various accounts on tabs at its foot, and you’ll probably be delighted to find that any mistakes can be corrected by editing the original posting rather than having to go through a reversing journal. Remember that any movements between bank and cash or to other assets and liabilities can be posted using the transfer option. Watch out for useful little icons like the mini-calculator and calendar. Make full use of the memo field attached to each transaction: you have 18 characters.
Remember to make back-ups of the Quicken data files each time you have finished using Quicken. To make a back up, insert a floppy disk into drive A: and select File - Backup. Make 2 copies if possible. As your local power supply may not be regular, these back-ups are important.
10. Useful reports
You can produce a variance report, comparing your income and spending to date with the budget, in either local currency or sterling, through Reports - Other - Budget - Create. To convert your actuals to sterling, Customise the report and reset the reporting currency. Remember to View the budget that you want to report against prior to running the report. The balance sheet can be printed in either local currency or sterling through Reports - Business - Balance Sheet - Create. To get a full printout of every transaction on a particular account or category, or on all of them, choose Reports - Other - Transaction - Create.
11. Bank reconciliation’s
You can also use the program to do bank reconciliation’s. For more information on this see these quick notes or consult the manual.
Open up the bank account you want to reconcile. Click Reconcile and enter the ending balance from your bank statement, any charges or interest earned and click OK. Click to tick against items that have cleared on the bank statement: when the difference is zero, you have successfully reconciled the account.
12. VAT
The expedition’s VAT status will depend on local legislation. Your expedition leader should be able to tell you more on this subject, or you may be delegated to find out the position by contacting the local civil service!
Quicken comes with a VAT-tracking facility but this should not be used, even in countries like Belize where we are registered for VAT. To deal with VAT you should instead create an asset account for input tax and a liability account for output. When entering a payment, for the relevant category, choose the Split option. In the Split Transaction Window, enter the payment amount net of VAT, and the VAT amount as a Transfer to VAT Input Account. A printout of this account should yield all the information you need for your VAT return.
13. E-mailing your quicken data file to London
Although you can print various reports from Quicken and fax them to London, you may find it easier, and we often find it more useful, if you attach the entire data file to the daily e-mail from field base to us. The only drawback with this procedure is that the data sometimes corrupts on the way through: it may take a couple of tries. Your expedition data file actually consists of five separate files: you will see them if you do a backup to a diskette (Choose File - Backup and follow the instructions). These five files should be attached from the floppy to the e-mail document one by one: we need all five to retrieve your data.
14. Finally....
There are a number of things that we would appreciate you doing at the end of the expedition. We would be very interested to receive a report from you, telling us about your experiences and the challenges, rewards and difficulties that you faced as a Raleigh staff member. Useful tips and ideas for future expedition accountants will be particularly welcomed, as well as any suggestions for improving or updating this handbook. You should leave a copy of your report at the expedition field base where the next accountant will be able to find it, together with copies of closing bank reconciliation, petty cash reconciliation’s, a printout of all Quicken accounts and an analysis of the closing balance sheet. The more information you can give your successor the easier his/her job will be.
We look forward to hearing from you. Have a great expedition!
RALEIGH INTERNATIONAL
ADVANCE REQUEST FORM
EXPEDITION COUNTRY AND CODE _____________________
CURRENCY _________________
Advance required by: _______________________
Date required: ____ / ___ / ____
Amount of advance ( in figures ) : ___________
Amount of advance ( in words ) :____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
Purpose of advance : _____________________________________________________________________
Authorised by : ___________________________
RALEIGH INTERNATIONAL
ADVANCE REQUEST FORM
EXPEDITION COUNTRY AND CODE _____________________
CURRENCY _________________
Advance required by: _______________________
Date required: ____ / ___ / ____
Amount of advance ( in figures ) : ___________
Amount of advance ( in words ) : _____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
Purpose of advance : _____________________________________________________________________
Authorised by : ___________________________
RALEIGH INTERNATIONAL
ADVANCE ANALYSIS FORM
EXPEDITION COUNTRY AND CODE _____________________
CURRENCY _________________
Project Name ( if applicable ) :
For the Period :
Prepared By :
Date :
Signature :
EMBED Excel.Sheet.8
Reconciliation :
EMBED Excel.Sheet.8
Appendix: installing Quicken
System requirements
486 or higher IBM Compatible computer with 8 Mb of RAM (12Mb for Windows 95)
at least 13 Mb of free disk space
VGA or higher resolution monitor
Windows 3.1 or higher and DOS 5.0 or higher
Installing Quicken
Before installing Quicken, close ALL other applications and turn off any anti-virus protection programmes. Press Ctrl + Esc to display the Task List – select each application except for the Program Manager and then click End Task. You can either install Quicken from the diskettes or, if there is plenty of hard-disk space, copy all the files from the diskettes to a temp directory on the c: drive and install the program from there.
To install from hard-disk
Double-click on the Program Manager icon. From the Program Manager File menu, choose Run, type C:\temp\setup and then click OK.
Follow the onscreen instructions and choose United Kingdom for the international option. When installation is complete, you will see a message telling you that you have installed Quicken successfully.
To install from diskettes
Insert Quicken Diskette 1 into the floppy disk drive.
Double-click on the Program Manager icon. From the Program Manager File menu, choose Run, type A:\setup and then click OK.
Follow the onscreen instructions and choose United Kingdom for the international option. When installation is complete, you will see a message telling you that you have installed Quicken successfully.
Setting international options
From the Edit menu in Quicken, choose Options and then choose International. Select United Kingdom in the country box and then click OK.
Dates and numbers
Quicken displays dates and numbers according to your Windows settings. To change the way they are displayed:
Windows 3.1 - From the Windows program Manager, open the Control Panel and then choose the International icon.
Windows 95 - From the Start menu, choose Settings, and then choose Control Panel. Double-click the Regional Settings icon.
Set the date number format and click OK.
FILENAME Accounts 02L-PXR PAGE 11 DATE \@ "M/d/yyyy" 12/14/2002
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