Bank & Cash management and general accounting of Save the Children International (Bangladesh Country Office)

Abstract

Save the Children is one of the best welfare organizations for children around the world. It was founded by Eglantyne Jebb on 1919 in England. At present it operates its activities in 120 countries around the world. In Bangladesh it has started its activities since 1972. The mission of this organization is to provide maximum benefits to the underprivileged children of the world. In order to do so they operate different programs around the world, most of these programs are based in the world’s poorest countries, where millions of children struggle to survive and thrive. Health, Population and Nutrition (HPN), Education, Field Operations and Disaster Management are their program focus point. Save the Children has worked through direct implementation and partnerships in many parts of the country, including Dhaka, Chittagong, Barisal, Khulna, Rajshahi and Sylhet divisions. Save the children mainly collect its fund from the individual foundations, government and different corporations, and spends as much money as possible on programs which benefit children directly. To achieve the aim of Save the Children is the mission of finance department of the organization. They are committed to managing the funds in a fully accountable way. Effective administration does cost money, but they try to keep this cost as low as possible. Save the Children is working to align their financial processes, planning and reporting through the transition to one Save the Children where, instead of many member organizations delivering programs in a particular country, there is only one Save the Children organization – bringing significant cost efficiencies in-country as well as across the rest of the organization. This allows them to focus more on working for children. SCI (Save the Children International) does all its financial activities through bank and cash management. So bank and cash management process is very important for running the financial activities efficiently as well as to achieve the goal of the organization. In SCI all bank & cash related activities are accomplished by the accounts & treasury section. SCI has its country office in Bangladesh to operate the regional activities, so after a certain period of time it has to top up its bank and cash balance according to the need determined by the budget & analysis department and operates its all necessary activities through bank and cash management by obliging the SCI fiance policy. Besides as SCI is funded by different government, individual foundations and corporate organizations so to maintain the transparency of their expenditure on different program and activities is another important aspect of finance department. To maintain transparency in the financial activities financial management system (FMS) section records the transactions by using coding attribute in an online spreadsheet (Agresso) for keeping record and generating report for various users. This section also reconciles the bank account and the SCI account on order to ensure the accuracy of the financial activities of the organization.