Financial Controls to Protect Your Money w/ Bob Abbott

Good Life Property Management

Welcome to the Good Life Property Management podcast! I’m your host, Steve Welty. This is a show for property management entrepreneurs who want to build not only great business, but also great lives. I’m here to help you gain the freedom to live life on your own terms while creating a positive impact in the world. Also, please check out Steve Welty's Music!

My friend Bob Abbott from Charlotte, NC joins me today to talk about financial controls to protect your money. We’re in a mastermind together, so I know firsthand that he’s one of those people with a knack for seeing things differently and approaching them in an innovative way.

When I recently took a month off after my son was born, almost everything went really smoothly. The one hitch was that I started getting worried about the money and financial controls. I wish NARPM provided more information on financially protecting yourself, and I hope that in the future they do! For now, though, this conversation with Bob should help.

Bob’s background is in finance, so he has a solid grounding in these sorts of topics. We’ll talk today about strategies for how to implement checks to protect themselves once the business starts growing and we don’t want to have to do all of the financial aspects ourselves. He’ll reveal that the most likely person to steal from you and your company is the one you’d least expect. One of the best ways to avoid fraud and theft is separation of responsibilities, which Bob will outline today.

We’ll discuss best practices for financial controls, the value of doing reconciliations every day instead of just at the end of the month, giving people the right level of authority in AppFolio, separation of tasks and responsibilities, and much more. If you want to protect your business from fraud (and who doesn’t?), this episode is for you!

In This Episode:

[00:15] - Welcome to today’s conversation with Bob Abbott!

[01:50] - Steve explains why he wanted Bob to come on the show for this episode.

[03:00] - Why is Bob particularly qualified to speak on the subject of financial controls?

[04:32] - We learn about how to protect ourselves with financial controls once the company is growing enough that we don’t want to do everything ourselves.

[06:27] - Often people start out as trustworthy before some event leads them to commit fraud, Bob points out.

[07:21] - Bob talks about separation of responsibilities and what that can look like.

[09:35] - Once you have your vendors set up, it saves time for your bookkeeper, Bob explains. He also talks about the value of daily reconciliations.

[11:18] - How long do these daily reconciliations take, and what services does Bob offer regarding them?

[13:10] - Steve talks about some AppFolio issues with roles and the level of control that each one has.

[14:38] - Other than reconciling daily, what else should we be doing?

[16:40] - Bob talks about whether someone could fraudulently change a payee and not have it caught in the daily reconciliation or audit.

[17:58] - If you have separate people doing each of several tasks, you’re drastically decreasing the risk of fraud because people would need to work together.

[18:30] - Where can people get in touch with Bob to learn more about the daily reconciliation service he offers?

Links and Resources:

Steve Welty's Music

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Steve Welty on Facebook

Bob Abbott on LinkedIn

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Propertyware

Robert Gilstrap

AppFolio