Financial Control

There are various ways of exercising financial control; through audit and risk management, segregation of duties, authorisation limits, policies, budgets, system controls, bank reconciliations, management accounts, forecasting and audit.

The role of the Risk Management Committee is to support and advise the Audit and Risk Committee, and through it the Court, on the implementation and monitoring of the risk management policy.

Segregation of duties is an internal control designed to prevent error and fraud by ensuring that more than one person is required to complete a task.

It serves as a deterrent to fraud and concealment of error because of the need to recruit another individual's co-operation, via collusion, to conceal it.

Effective segregation of duties must be in place between the preparer and authoriser, and based on an approved transaction.

See Appendix A for more detailed explanation.

Only Court may authorise the opening or closing of a University bank account and appoint University Bankers.

No staff member (other than the Director of Finance operating on the authority of Court) may open or operate bank accounts to deal with funds held by or due to the University Court.

All sums received must be paid into the bank and accounted for in full. There must be no payments from receipts before being banked i.e.

a.  All transactions must be recorded in the system at their full value.

b.  Payments must not be made by netting off the full value of any receipt.

All cash received from whatever source must be receipted in a timely manner using official University stationery.