A car boot and jumble sale is held to raise funds for essential hall maintenance and after the event, while other trustees help clear up, the treasurer is left alone to count and bank the substantial amount of cash collected:
- Everyone knows and trusts the treasurer who has done the job for years and is obviously scrupulously honest and so there is no problem
- This is bad practice and the committee should draw up and implement guidelines for the processing of cash in future
- This is unfair on the treasurer and leaves them open to accusations of fraud that they might find difficult to refute, even though untrue
Actually options 1 and 3 are much the same aren't they? Well, option 1 implies that everything is fine, we all know the treasurer is honest and there is no problem but are they? Are you absolutely sure? You will never know! Option 3 takes that trust and leaves the poor treasurer in a hopeless position if someone is not so convinced of their honesty and makes an accusation.
Any committee that puts it's trust totally in individuals or exposes its individuals to accusations are betraying their own corporate security and the security of its individual members.
Option 2 is the correct answer, there needs to be an agreed procedure and it should involve some form of cross checking with other people involved in the chain or more than one person should be involved in the counting and banking process. How you do it is up to you but the procedure needs to be robust enough to protect the committee from theft and the individuals concerned from frivolous accusations of theft.