Farai Mabeza, Senior Staff Writer 
THE Institute of Chartered Accountants of Zimbabwe (Icaz) says its members are well-placed to assist non-profit organisations (NPOs) fulfil audit requirements.
Icaz president Manyara Chigunduru made these remarks at the organisation’s recent inaugural NGO conference in Nyanga.
“Non-profits are crucial for economies like ours due to their significant social and economic impacts.
“They manage substantial budgets and are accountable for resources that are fundamentally public interest funds.
“As such full accountability and transparency in the NPO sector are not just beneficial but are essential to building trust and credibility,” Chigunduru said.
“Our focus on empowering NPOs encompasses not only top-tier financial reporting across Zimbabwe, but also the day-to-day management of transactions, controls, governance, and strategy.”
She said Icaz’s goal was to equip these organisations with the necessary skills and systems.
“By doing so, we aim to maximise value for the sector, ensuring that NPOs operate with the highest levels of efficiency and integrity.”
“We also appreciate the fact that NPOs should u
ndergo an audit, either at funding level or at the institutional level and as such because Icaz has almost 90 percent market share in auditing in Zimbabwe, we believe we are better placed to assist you with the audit requirements,” Manyara said.
“We understand that different developmental partners have their own way of verifying your transactions depending on the partnership agreements in place, but the processes always converge as it is all about verifying the authenticity of the transactions under audit.
“We have come across situations where an audit client is failing to keep the books of accounts, record transactions properly and have adequate supporting documents and this then tends to derail the audit process.”
Regional quality assurance partner (Zimbabwe, Malawi, Botswana, Zambia) at Baker Tilly Central Africa Kudzaiishe Chikwanda highlighted the areas that NPOs need to focus on to enhance audit processes.
“Adequate staffing levels, they must open separate bank accounts for different donors, have different paid stamps for different donors and ensure all expenditure is stamped by the relevant stamp and adhere to standard procurement processes.
“Manuals and policies are live documents, they should be updated regularly, …there must be review of bank reconciliations by senior personnel, assigning identified audit findings to senior personnel and doing follow ups on action plans… internal policies that clearly state what supporting documents are, and these are reviewed before payment is done to suppliers,” Chikwanda said. He stressed the importance of proper governance structures that uphold accountability and board trainings, use of proper and up to date accounting packages, updating employee files consistently, having formal expenditure requisitions, and improving asset management processes by maintaining up to date asset registers.
“Organisations should follow up on the recommendations of the auditors and also take actions to address identified findings and weaknesses.
“Organisations should ensure that taxes are paid according to the national laws and regulations and on time,” Chikwanda said.
“Organisations should ensure that reported expenses, included in the financial report, are traceable to the project in the books of accounts.”
Icaz is the largest and longest-standing public accounting organisation in Zimbabwe.
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