Financial controls establishment

We write the control framework for how money moves through the group: who commits spend, who approves it, who releases a payment, who reconciles the bank and who reviews exceptions. Limits are set by entity, by value and by type of spend.

The framework lands as a short authority matrix and a set of working procedures, and we install it with the finance team and the owner.

• An authority matrix with limits by role, entity and category of spend.
• A segregation-of-duties map that separates raising, approving, paying and reconciling.
• Written procedures for purchasing, payments, payroll changes, expenses and bank access.
• A control calendar of monthly and quarterly checks with owners and evidence.
• A board summary of residual risks and the controls the group should add next.

• Owners spend less time approving payments below their delegated limit.
• Payments follow the authority matrix.
• Duties held by one person are separated, and the count of those left sits on the board's page.
• Bank accounts are reconciled within the agreed number of days, and the board sees how many are.
• The monthly control check lists the exceptions found and resolved.

In a young group control is the owner. As entities, sites and staff multiply, the owner becomes the bottleneck or, worse, steps away and nothing replaces them. Payments are released on trust, bank accounts have too many signatories, and the finance team can neither refuse a request nor evidence that it was approved. The cost is waste, error and decisions no one can trace.

• Every payment above a small amount waits for the owner.
• One person can raise, approve and release a payment.
• Bank reconciliations are done late, or by the person who made the entries.
• A lender or investor asked about controls and the answer was a conversation.
• No one can say who approved a commitment made last quarter.

Owners and chairmen of fast-growing and family-run groups where approvals still run through one person, and boards of investor-backed groups where a lender or shareholder has asked how the group protects its cash.

Qasim Abbas has spent more than 16 years inside Gulf family-based and venture-backed groups, where controls are tested the day the owner steps away. We build your framework to pass that test.

We build the controls into the systems the group already uses: approval workflows in the ledger, bank platform dual authorisation and expense tools. See how fees work.

What changes for the owner?

Ordinary payments move within the limits, and only the large or unusual ones come up for the owner's approval.

What do our auditors and lenders receive?

The approvals, limits and evidence trail we build, with clear answers to their questions.

Pick the last payment that waited for the owner longer than it should have. We show how the framework handles it, in a private briefing.