Petty Cash and Finance

A Petty cash imprest is the responsibility of a named officer. Cash should be kept in a locked tin, with access limited to one named officer. The tin should be stored in a secure place i.e safe.

In the event that responsibility for cash needs to be handed over for any period, (i.e annual leave) then cash must be checked by both the officer handing over responsibility and the officer to check that the cash balance correlates with the cash book balance. The receiving officer should then sign to confirm that the balance they have is correct.

The responsible officer must ensure that all expenditure is correctly accounted for, by;

• Ensuring receipts are available for every entry into the cash book;
• That a petty cash voucher signed by a staff member is available, for any money for which receipts are awaited;
• Petty cash should not be used to circumvent the procurement process;
• Single items of expenditure should not exceed £20 (this does not apply to young peoples clothing, birthday allowances etc).

A regular cash and imprest balance must be done to ensure that the imprest is correct. This will ensure all financial records and cash total up to the imprest amount and will pinpoint any potential errors that may occur to a particular time period.

The balance consists of the following:

• Money - all cash to be counted and broken down into denominations;
• Bank Balance - obtained from most recent bank balance print out obtained when withdrawing cash;
• Outstanding Claims - insert any claims yet to be processed by Exchequer Management;
• Floats - any money signed out to staff tin that has yet to be returned;
• O/S Petty Cash Slips - money which has been signed out, but for which receipts have not yet been returned.

Claims should be submitted once per week (it may be necessary to increase this in times of high demand i.e. summer holidays and Xmas)

Payment transactions are transferred from the Petty Cash/Bank Account reimbursement book and inputted onto the Petty Cash/Bank Account Reimbursement claim form (appendix 1).

Receipts should be numbered, and matched to their number on the reimbursement claim form. 

Where a receipt shows a separate VAT amount, this should be separated on the reimbursement form and the VAT amount placed in the appropriate column.

A physical reconciliation must be carried out each time a claim is submitted. Totals of receipts plus cash in hand (cash, bank account balance, staff float) plus any claims still outstanding should total to the imprest amount. Once balanced these figures are entered onto the Petty Cash/Bank Account Reimbursement claim form.

Completed Reimbursement claims are submitted to the Home Team Manager by email, who checks content, electronically signs and forwards to Exchequer Management expenses mailbox for processing.

Reimbursement Claims and receipts are stored in claim number/year order and kept for 6 years.

All returned money should be dealt with according to whether the money has been reclaimed, or not, from Exchequer management.

Not Yet Claimed

Show the returned amount as a credit in the petty cash book, adding the amount into the cash balance. Always include the details of the original transaction that it relates to, to allow cross referencing.

Note the returned money next to the original transaction, and claim the net amount on the re – imbursement form (i.e original transaction £10, £5 returned. The claim amount should be £5)

Claimed back:

Complete a Bank Account paying in slip and enter the amount being returned.

In the Reason box insert details regarding return and the original claim/receipt number in order to cross reference transaction. Note in the petty cash book IN RED, next to the original transaction that an amount has been repaid to the main account, and the date this happened.

Residential staff have a float to cover day to day expenditure for periods when business support are not available (i.e weekends and evenings)

Float is returned the following day by Social Care staff.

Business Support MUST ensure:

• Before accepting the float back that the Bank Account/Claim Receipt Forms and the remaining cash total the float amount.

In addition to the procedures for completing financial records, staff should follow the further procedures outlined below.

Any suspicion or occurrence of fraud or malpractice, however small or unfounded they may be, must be reported immediately to the appropriate manager.

Petty cash should be held in a secure place and access must be restricted to the responsible officer(s) who must make arrangements for its safe keeping.

Daily expenditure should be recorded in the staff cash book.

At each shift handover, a designated staff member/s should ensure that the stated balance is correct and then certify the contents of the petty cash tin and sign and date the Staff Cash Book.

Petty cash expenditure must only be used for occasionally incurring small amounts of expenditure, not exceeding £20 in any one transaction and where the use of the creditor payment system would not be practicable or cost effective.

All petty cash expenditure must be approved and supported with a valid receipt which, contain the following information:

• The date;
• The amount;
• The method of payment.

Prior to a member of staff going shopping, funds must be obtained from admin support staff. Credit cards, cheques and/or personal funds must not be used to purchase any item

Staff must ensure that receipts for all their purchases are obtained and given to Administration Officer.

Young people have separate financial recording systems

In relation to;

• Toiletries;
• Rewards;
• Clothing.

Young people should sign receipt of this money on the appropriate sheet.

The normal procedure in relation to petty cash expenditure should be adhered to in all instances.

Pocket money is paid on a weekly basis on a designated day, the rate of which is determined by a young persons age. Pocket Money sheets for each individual young person are kept on their file and young people are asked to sign these sheets.

All young people should have a bank account up and running whilst living at the home. Young people should be encouraged to use the bank account to save and support independence in managing finances for the future.