🛑 STOP Being Stupid: Week 2 of 40

Read time: 4 minutes

A Cautionary Tale: The Nice Person Who Nicks the Lot

Right. Let’s talk about your Treasurer.

They’re usually the hero of the hour, aren’t they? They volunteer to wrestle with spreadsheets while everyone else suddenly remembers urgent appointments. They understand debits and credits. They turn up to meetings with actual paperwork. And generally speaking, they’re a decent human being.

We trust them. They’re part of the team.

This trust is exactly where the stupidity begins.

We’re not talking about your Gran’s Christmas baking fund here. We’re talking about public money. Donated by people who believe in your cause. Grant funding that came with seventeen forms and a site visit.

And when you let one person—no matter how lovely, trustworthy, or frantically busy—control the entire financial process, you’re not saving admin time.

You’re building a single-point-of-failure that leads to two inevitable disasters: fraud or error.

Note: Look, the vast majority of treasurers do a fantastic, thankless job. The idea of nicking charity money would mortify them—and that’s exactly as it should be. But here’s the thing: with only one person looking after the finances and no checks in place, you’re not just risking the charity. You’re leaving that good, honest treasurer wide open to accusations they don’t deserve. Proper controls protect everyone.

The Dual Disaster of Stupid Financial Control

Internal controls aren’t bureaucratic nonsense. They’re the essential rules designed to safeguard your assets and minimise risk. When you let one person handle money end-to-end, you achieve neither.

1. The Friendly Fraud

“But my treasurer would never steal!”

Good. That’s statistically true for most people. But fraud isn’t always some shadowy villain twirling a moustache. Often it starts small—someone under immense pressure, or someone who simply sees the opportunity and takes it. Just once. Then twice. Then it’s a pattern.

If your treasurer:

• Writes the cheques and signs them
• Receives the income and banks it
• Reconciles the bank statement and manages the accounts

…then you have zero checks and balances.

They can pay a personal bill and mark it as ‘Office Supplies’. They can siphon off cash donations before they’re banked. They can, quite literally, write themselves a blank cheque—and you won’t know until it’s far too late.

The Charity Commission makes this crystal clear: trustees have a legal duty to protect assets. Relying on trust alone isn’t just naive—it’s a dereliction of that duty.

2. The Innocent Error

Just as likely? Your hero treasurer is juggling their full-time job, their kids’ homework, and your charity’s accounts in a spreadsheet from 2005. They’re knackered. They’re making mistakes.

Did they miss an invoice? Did they accidentally allocate a restricted grant to the wrong project? Did they pay the same supplier twice because they lost track?

If they’re the only one doing the reconciliation, who catches the error?

You’ve turned one person’s exhaustion into a major financial risk for the entire organisation. Brilliant work.

The Actionable Art of NOT Being Stupid: Segregation of Duties

The simple, non-negotiable fix is Segregation of Duties.

It’s the concept that no single person should control every stage of a financial transaction. Think of it as a buddy system for your bank account. A two-signature rule for keeping everyone honest—and sane.

Here are the bare minimum controls you must implement. Not next month. Today.

1. Bank Mandate: Two Signatories, Always

All bank accounts must require two unrelated signatories on all payments, transfers, or withdrawals. This includes online banking authorisation.

This is the non-negotiable gold standard for grant funders. It’s also non-negotiable for good governance. No exceptions.

2. Authorisation vs. Execution

The person who authorises the payment (e.g., the Chair approving an invoice) must be different from the person who makes the payment (e.g., the Treasurer setting up the bank transfer).

Split the responsibility. Protect everyone involved.

3. The Paper Trail

Every expense must have documented approval—an invoice signed by the Chair or another Trustee—before the money leaves the bank.

If you can’t trace it back, you shouldn’t be paying it.

4. Reconciliation by Someone Else

The person who reconciles the bank statement (checks it against the accounts) must be someone other than the person who writes the cheques or makes the payments.

This is usually another trustee or the Chair. And it needs to happen monthly. Not when someone remembers. Not “when we get round to it.” Monthly.

The Bottom Line

A good Treasurer should welcome these controls. If your Treasurer insists on being the sole signatory, or fights against the two-signature rule, you have a red flag the size of a double-decker bus.

It’s not about mistrusting people. It’s about protecting people from temptation, protecting your charity from catastrophe, and protecting your Treasurer from being left holding the bag when something goes wrong.

Stop running your finances on a ‘trust me’ handshake. Write down your controls. Enforce them. And let the nice-but-potentially-overwhelmed Treasurer have a sensible second pair of eyes.

They’ll sleep better. You’ll sleep better. Your funders will definitely sleep better.

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Next Week: The Most Basic Fail

Next Friday, we move onto safeguarding and tackle a core operational failure that makes funders run screaming:

The Most Basic Fail: The Non-Negotiable Necessity of DBS Checks

Because apparently, some charities still need reminding that this isn’t optional.

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Don’t miss a single step on your journey to administrative enlightenment (or at least avoiding the kind of catastrophe that ends up in the local paper).

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Know a charity running on crossed fingers and a ‘Trust Me’ Treasurer? Share this. It might just save them from a very awkward conversation with the Charity Commission.