It’s a document your nonprofit can’t live without.
Have you ever looked up during a meeting and had that distinct deja vu feeling? “We’ve had this discussion before. I know we’ve talked about how to set up the tables for the annual charity ball at least a thousand times before!”
Well, maybe it wasn’t a thousand times before, but if your charity ball is an annual event, you’ve had the discussion about where to set up tables and chairs before. Most organizations do have a routine, a structure, a rhythm to their annual activities. Like the changing seasons, the annual audit, the annual charity dinner dance, raffle, or carnival is something you know will come up each year in the same season.
Yet many nonprofits find themselves scrambling to re-create such events. It’s as if the memory of last year’s event has been wiped from the minds of those who ran it. Given the volume of tasks the average nonprofit employee undertakes each year, it’s no wonder that they can’t remember the details of every decision. Hence the endless planning meetings and the deja vu feeling is so common to longtime nonprofit employees.
There’s a way to capture the information from activities that are annual events, organize, and share it so that if people leave the organization or change jobs within the organization, the new person leading the tasks has an easy way to learn what needs to be done. A process roadmap is a document that outlines the necessary tasks, people, equipment, processes, and other pertinent information so that you can smoothly hand off the task to someone else or duplicate it in the future. All it takes is a few minutes to document the necessary information to create your very own process roadmap.
An Outline of the Process Roadmap
A process roadmap simply lists the tasks needed to accomplish a project, with a detailed resource list added to flesh out the project. A simple process roadmap outline may look like this:
- Name and title of the event or task
- Last date the process was outline
- Task owner (who manages the task)
- List of steps in sequence of how to do the task.
- Section that includes resources to complete the task
- Due dates and timelines.
For an accounting audit, the process roadmap may look something like this:
Annual Nonprofit Audit
January 15
Owner: Jim Smith, Accounting Department
Steps
- Call the accounting firm to request dates for audit. Confirm audit dates.
- Reserve conference room.
- Contact building security for temporary building pass card and parking sticker for auditors.
- Contact IT for WiFi access for the auditors.
- Request all accounting documents for audit by [date]
- Call auditors one week before audit date to make sure everything is set up.
- Send company-wide email the week before the audit to remind staff that the conference room is in use and that the auditors should not be bothered while they are working.
- Clear calendar and do not schedule meetings while auditors are here so you can help them with what they need.
Resources Needed
- Auditing firm [list name and phone number]
- Conference room
- IT department – reserve WiFi password
- Building security [name, phone number, email address]
Due Date/Timelines
- November – call auditing firm
- January – audit date
- Two weeks before audit, reserve room and get parking spots.
- Week before audit, request WiFi access and send companywide email.
An effective process roadmap should be succinct; one page is usually sufficient. Make sure you keep the process roadmaps in a place where all employees can easily access them. The HR or accounting department are both great places to keep process roadmaps.
Make Accounting for Nonprofit Tasks Easier
Process roadmaps make accounting for nonprofits much easier. You can focus your time and energy on accounting when you don’t need to use it to figure out how to complete routine tasks.
Beck & Company: Accounting for Nonprofit Success
If you struggle with your accounting for nonprofits, Beck & Company can help. We are a CPA and business advisory firm dedicated to the nonprofit sector. Our many years of experience can help you update your financial compliance or handle all types of accounting for nonprofits. Please contact Beck & Company today for further details.