Overlooked habits that save
students’ unions and charities
real money
Students’ unions and charities are often encouraged to save money by tightening budgets but two of the biggest savings we see in practice have nothing to do with cutting spend. They come from how (and when) an organisation handles its own accounting.
1. Get the process right from the start – or pay for it later
It’s tempting to treat proper accounting processes as something to sort out “once we’ve got more capacity.” In reality, the opposite is usually true and usually cheaper.
We regularly carry out a quick diagnostic review of how an organisation’s accounting processes actually work day to day: how income and expenditure are recorded (including any split between restricted and unrestricted funds), how invoicing and grant claims are handled, what software is being used and whether it’s being used consistently. More often than not, the fix isn’t complicated. It just needs to be simple, well documented and followed.
The cost of skipping this at the outset can be eye-watering. One organisation we worked with had let their bookkeeping drift; inconsistent coding, an accounting system that wasn’t being used properly and no individuals really owning the processes. By the time it needed sorting out, ahead of an audit, untangling it wasn’t a quick job. It took a proper forensic exercise to reconstruct what had actually happened and the bill for putting it right came to over £40,000.
Compare that to the cost of getting it set up properly in the first place. A few hours with someone who knows what a clean, simple process looks like and the maths speaks for itself. It’s the accounting equivalent of “a stitch in time saves nine,” except the stitch might cost a few hundred pounds and the alternative might cost tens of thousands plus a difficult conversation with trustees or auditors.
2. Get on top of the bookkeeping – daily, not eventually
Getting the process right at the start only pays off if it survives contact with a busy term, a change of sabbatical officer or an annual handover. That’s where the second habit comes in.
Timing matters more than ever for organisations juggling grant income, membership fees and restricted funds against fixed running costs. With today’s accounting apps, there’s no excuse for waiting on a bank statement before you know where things stand.
The habit itself is simple: as soon as transactions happen, record it. That means two things, done regularly, ideally daily: 1. Reviewing the cashflow and 2. doing the bookkeeping
There’s no single “amount saved” here but if you want clean numbers ready for trustees, funders or auditors, this pays for itself many times over.
Here’s why. A busy day brings in income, payments or a grant claim. Leave it even a few days and good luck remembering which fund a particular receipt belongs to or finding the right paperwork. Do the job you like doing least first and handle it while it’s fresh: update the cashflow, check reserves aren’t dipping where they shouldn’t, log the entries, send the invoices, reconcile the bank. Leave it and the costs stack up quietly:
None of this is dramatic on its own. But add it up over a year and “we’ll do it later” is one of the more expensive habits a students’ union or charity can have.
Get the process right once. Then keep it that way, every day.
If you’d like a quick, no-obligation review of how your organisation’s accounting processes are set up or want help building the daily habit and handover documentation that keeps them working through get in touch.