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The good work done on a daily basis by The Fred Hollows Foundation NZ is celebrated throughout the Pacific.

But what is less well-known is the cutting-edge financial and operational strategies in place within the organisation, facilitated by a chartered accountant with the knowledge and expertise needed to ensure the charity's ongoing success.

Visionary work to restore eyesight

Aregistered charity that carries on the work of famous Kiwi eye surgeon Professor Fred Hollows and his vision to end avoidable blindness, The Foundation's chairman Craig Fisher FCA, says their mission remains vital.

"Tragically four out of five people who are blind in the developing world don't need to be, and this can be addressed often with cataract surgery and if there is access to trained doctors and nurses,"he says. "The New Zealand Foundation exists to address this issue in the Pacific."

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Jessie Napong, (pictured middle) is a patient of the Fred Hollows outreach clinic, Port Vila, Vanuatu.

Business strategies vital to governance

Fisher, a Chartered Accountant, was asked to join the governance team of The Foundation nine years ago - at a time when they had "less experienced in-house accounting capacity."

"While some good hard working well-meaning people had been employed, they were not of the level of an experienced chartered accountant.

"The appeal of me joining was my knowledge of financial and other systems," Fisher says.

Chartered accountants are well trained and experienced in financial systems, and are able to provide input that ensures appropriate strategies are put in place to significantly assist the organisations they work with.

Transforming for a digital era

Fisher says that a large part of his role as chairman has been to progressively improve the professionalism, effectiveness and impact of the organisation.

To this end, he identified the need for an experiencedchartered accountant to help bring the organisation into the digital age, and up-to-speed with the changing regulatory environment, which demanded much more accountability from the not-for-profit sector.

Enter Sharon Orr. A Chartered Accountant with many years' experience in senior finance roles in the commercial sector. Whilst she had not worked for a not-for-profit before coming on board as finance andoperations director in early 2017, she quickly made her mark at The Foundation by incorporating many of the protocols and disciplines adopted in a commercial environment.

She says "I realised early on that while many charities focussed on minimising administration costs, it often came at the expense of under-resourcing their finance teams who were charged with ensuring the charity met the vast array of compliance, regulatory and statutory reporting requirements. In the case of The Foundation, these spanned multiple countries with complex and often confusing taxation systems."

One of the more challenging achievements was meeting the Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance requirements as the standards dictated that the thousands of credit card details processed by The Foundation, had to meet the strict processing standards and privacy requirements.

"Charities such as The Foundation, who operate across multiple countries also have the added complexity of managing their foreign currency exposure especially when dealing in volatile currencies. Often significant grant funding is received from overseas institutional donors in foreign currencies and the finance team is tasked with managing the foreign currency risk."

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Sharon Orr CA is the acting chief executive of The Fred Hollows Foundation NZ, she is also a Chartered Accountant with many years' experience in senior finance roles.

Instilling confidence in donation allocation

One of Orr's systemic changes was putting in placesystems that provided for integrated reporting of financial and non-financial information.

"Key considerations for all donors are the ability to see where their donations have been spent, the impact that the charity has made in meeting its vision and that the utilisation of donor funding is maximised. Charities must also have appropriate forecasting systems to manage cash flows and ensure that future revenues will be sufficient to meet forecasted expenditure on programme activity."

Chartered accountants offer a big picture approach

With Orr's appointment, the operational and financial arms of the organisation were brought together, allowing for a "big picture" approach that would take in the entire organisation.

"I found travelling to our managed clinics, in the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and Fiji, gave me a real sense of the issues and challenges faced by our in-country finance teams. It armed me with the information I needed to be able to support and guide them to success with issues such as achieving a smooth audit process, strengthening internal controls and implementing cloud based digital platforms," says Orr.

Andrew Bell, former CEO for The Fred Hollows Foundation NZ, says that he wasn't aware that chartered accountants could work across both sides of an organisation so effectively; and that Orr's depth of knowledge allowed her to tackle multiple issues facing the charity.

"There have been significant changes to the Charities Act, which meant we had to undertake the same level of reporting as a company. Alongside this, there has been a rise in cybercrime, particularly targeting charities; and we needed to use our digital accounting software more efficiently."

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The Fred Hollows Foundation NZ operate across multiple countries also have the added complexity of managing their foreign currency exposure.

Improving security through tech changes

Bell says Orr led from the front; maximising the efficiency of the accounting system (Xero), ensuring the organisation's digital components were ironclad and safe from external threats; helping train and mentor more junior staff (giving them more responsibility and freeing up her time), and shoring accounting and privacy issues ahead of regulatory changes.

"This is the level of trust the board has in her abilities," he says. "As a chartered accountant, she's part of a breed of finance professionalsshe's active, up front, and everyone knows who she is."

Fisher agrees"She has helped our organisation to be more resilient and sustainable, which are two key drivers for me in my governance. "[Very quickly] she became a key member of our senior leadership team and her thoughtful methodological accountant's approach is greatly appreciated by others here."

To see how a CA can make a difference to your business, or to find one in your area visit http://www.cadifferencemakers.com.

See the rest here:
What does restoring a person's sight and an accountant have in common? - Stuff.co.nz

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