Comprehensive management information delivers stakeholder confidence

The challenge

The club had a financial controller working for 3 days a week delivering everything within the accounts function. They’d had two people in the role in quick succession who hadn’t worked out for them.

Margins on all the different businesses fluctuated wildly and without apparent explanation. The volume of work combined with lack of continuity in delivery meant the club secretary didn’t have either the management information or the confidence in the numbers being produced, which was reflected by the club committee too.

There was also a lack of sufficient controls in place, while a review of billings identified £60k of missed invoicing relating to corporate visitors. To compound all this, when the club first met with YRH, the current Financial Controller was leaving the day after so a very quick set up and handover was required.

The key issues were summarised as:

• No continuity due to rapid staff turnover
• Margins fluctuating wildly with no explanation
• Lack of consistency meant little confidence
• Lack of sufficient controls in place
• Fast turnaround implementation needed to keep things running
• No management information regularly produced

The solution

YRH carried out a full financial review, benchmarking the club against our 12 key areas of best practice. The results confirmed significant gaps in their accounting function and clear areas for improvement. The review also highlighted to the club that they had outgrown their current accounting structure, and that it was not a role for one person, but a combination of a bookkeeper to deal with the day to day AND a Financial Controller to prepare the reports, improve the controls and manage the finances for them.

First and foremost, the YRH financial controller focused on improving processes. Controls were quickly implemented into the revenue side of the business, checking till takings, reconciling invoicing and visitors. Processes were then implemented to facilitate regular reporting on all aspects of the finance function.

This framework allowed regular management information reporting so all key stakeholders could quickly and clearly see how the various business areas perform against budgets and prior periods. Monthly reviews were also introduced with the Club Secretary and Treasurer to give them full confidence in the finance function.

Most importantly this comprehensive management information allowed the Club Secretary to meet with his internal stakeholders with confidence, knowing he could provide full visibility for the different business areas.

The results

YRH were able to hit the ground running, providing a team with within just 24 hours, despite the complex requirements of the club. Within 6 weeks we produced numbers month by month YTD that the club secretary and committee were able to interrogate and have full confidence in.

A snapshot of the results achieved:

• Within 3 months accounting resource was reduced to 2 days a week and within 12 months to 5-6 days a month.
• The ability to quickly see how the business areas are performing gives the Club Secretary 100% confidence.
• Margins on the different businesses are now consistent and trusted.
• The confidence of the treasurer and the committee is at 97%.

Thanks to the processes and controls put in place the golf club can look ahead and confidently plan for future investments. The new structure has allowed the Club Secretary to let the department run autonomously so he can focus on other key aspects of his role.