Financial news and reports for January-June 2009.

2009 Q1 (Jan, Feb, Mar) preliminary finances

2009 Q2 (Apr, May, Jun) preliminary finances

You can read in more detail about changes to our accountancy system on our website (Moving to Xero.com and more financial news) but the quick update is that we are now migrating over to Xero.com, starting with our records from Jan 1st, 2008.

We’ll also be adding PDFs of our internal financial policies and forms to our website’s financial reports section.

This will mean faster and more detailed financial reports, reduce the time our reports currently take, without compromising on transparency and accuracy.

2008 finances are up, up.... UP!

You can download them in PDFs or as Excel spreadsheets from our financial records on our website.

They’re drafts because we have about a dozen unidentified donations, categories (so we can track spending) and everything to get audited externally. I’m handing them over to a volunteer bookkeeper to finish off and audit.

Thank you to all our donors who made 2008 possible - we somehow managed to raise enough every month for our work and more than double the children we reached.

Jan-Jun 2008 audit report (oh will the excitement ever end *g*)

We’ve grown hugely, pretty much doubling in the past year. As part of our growth, we hired a part-time accountant and put in regular auditing.

This is the first report, which will subsequently be done quarterly by Fontamillas Donasco & Co, certified public accountants in Phnom Penh. They also handle our payroll and fixed costs, now outsourced to them.

Riverkids Jan-Jun 08 Audit report (12 pages, 786kb, PDF) says that our basic accounting system is fine (much thanks to Peter Ray and Teena Ingram who helped set up and train staff) but we need more oversight such as signature approvals and so on.Since the draft of the report two months ago, almost all the changes have been put in place.

The only significant error was US$670 which couldn’t be accounted for. This was in our favour, and was most likely cash that I bought up from Singapore and didn’t account for in the Cambodia-side paperwork.

We’re still comparing costs between a full-time accountant or an external accountancy firm to do our books full-time. Then all the recommended changes will have been implemented!

Website revamp and 2007 finances!

After a lot of double-checking and catching-up, we have a new fresh look for our website! Check it out and thanks to Ellie Klerlein for the website and Sim Chiew Hong for the graphics!

Financial reports for 2007 - everything from the accountants

And an interesting read for Blum donors - The Only Train in Cambodia. The freight train goes out nearly every day and part of the track winds through the slum community Blum works in. Because the very narrow strips of land along the side of the tracks can't legally be built on, illegal builders have colonised it. You're not from the wrong side of the tracks here - you're on the tracks! The shacks are built right up to a couple of feet from the track itself, with tables, chairs and shelves set across the tracks during the day. When the train comes, tarps get untied and furniture shifted so the old train can chug slowly by, and then life resumes again.

Yay, financial reports!

Yes, it's not often something at the top of people's Happy Lists, but thanks to improved record keeping and clearer guidelines, I was able to sort out the financial reports for July, August and September 2007 while I was away. I've done the next three months but there are some queries to sort out before we post them online.

Riverkids is funded for the next two or three months ahead, which is incredibly fortunate, after many months of just scraping past. We need funding to grow a fair amount this year, and most of all, to improve all our services. 2008 is the year we go through everything we're doing and figure out how to do it better so we can take the plunge next year and roll-out several new sites and do them well.

Thank you so much to everyone who's donated and supported us. I hope our financial reports show how far we've stretched the funds!