Running a client's finance office under mandate
How an outsourced finance office mandate works between a firm and a business in Achekam, and what happens, and does not, when a payment is released.
By Achekam · · 5 min read · For Accountants & audit firms in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
When a firm runs a client's finance office, it stops being an adviser who looks at transactions after the event and becomes part of how money leaves the business. Supplier payments, payroll, tax payments and refunds go through the firm's people. That is valuable to a client without its own finance team, and it is also where an accounting firm's exposure changes most: a wrong payment is no longer a reporting error, it is lost money.
Achekam's finance office feature gives this arrangement a structure. This article explains how the mandate works, the four steps a payment goes through, the important difference between releasing a payment and paying it, and what the cockpit does and does not tell the firm.
Agreeing the mandate
Under ACHEKAM FINANCE OFFICE, a firm and a business agree an outsourcing mandate. The mandate is the formal basis for the firm acting on the business's payments, and payments under it can be released only while it is active.
The record in Achekam is one half of the agreement. The other is the written mandate the firm and client sign, which should cover:
- Scope: which payments the firm handles, for example suppliers and payroll but not loans to directors.
- Authority: who at the client approves which payments, and any limits above which a second client approver is needed.
- Bank access: who holds which banking roles, such as capturing payments and authorising them.
- Evidence: what supporting documents the firm needs before preparing a payment.
- Period and ending: how long the mandate runs, and what happens to payments in progress when it ends.
Settle these before the first payment, not after a dispute about whether a particular one was authorised.
Prepare, review, approve and release
Each payment under a mandate in Achekam goes through four steps: prepare, review, approve and release. A payment cannot be released unless it has been approved and the mandate is active.
The steps only protect the client if different people perform them. A common allocation in a small firm looks like this:
| Step | Who should own it | What they check |
|---|---|---|
| Prepare | Firm's bookkeeper | Invoice approved, amount and supplier correct, bank details verified |
| Review | Firm's senior or manager | Supporting documents, duplicates, unusual payees |
| Approve | The client's authorised person, or a firm member acting on their written instruction | That the business wants to pay this |
| Release | A firm member other than the preparer | That approval exists and the batch matches what was approved |
AccountingTools' explanation of segregation of duties describes the principle behind this: assigning the steps in a process to different people so that no one person can both commit and conceal theft or an error. In a finance office arrangement, that principle applies across the firm and the client together.
The supplier bills behind most payments have their own approval. In Achekam, a bill without a purchase order waits for approval before it posts, and a bill can be paid in full or in parts from a chosen bank account. Payment preparation should start only from bills that have passed that approval; the bill route is described in handling supplier bills for a bookkeeping client.
Release records the decision; it does not pay
This is the point most likely to be misunderstood. Achekam does not send a released payment to a bank. Releasing a payment records who released it and when. No money moves.
Likewise, when a supplier bill is marked paid in the books, Achekam only records the payment, and no bank payment file is produced for suppliers. The actual transfer happens in the client's online banking, by whoever holds the banking access.
That leaves the firm with two records that must agree: the release in Achekam, which says a payment was authorised, and the transaction in the bank, which says it happened. Agree them every time a batch is paid, not only at month end. A payment released but never made leaves a supplier unpaid; a payment made in the bank but never released has bypassed the whole approval process.
Making the payment in the bank
The bank's own controls are the last line of defence, and they should mirror the four steps. Most business banking platforms separate capturing a payment from authorising it. Use that separation:
- A firm member captures the released payments in the bank, exactly as released.
- The client's authorised person, or a second firm member where the mandate allows, authorises them in the bank.
- Someone compares the bank's confirmation with the release record and records the payment against the bill.
Never capture a payment in the bank that has not been released in Achekam, however urgent. If something is urgent, run it through the four steps quickly rather than around them.
Bank detail changes deserve their own rule: a change is verified with the supplier through a contact already on file before it is used, and the verification is recorded.
What the cockpit measures
The finance office cockpit shows the mandate's fee. It does not measure the cost of serving the mandate. A firm that wants to know whether a finance office client is profitable needs to measure that itself, from the time its people record against the client and the fee the mandate brings in.
That matters because finance office work tends to grow. Extra payment runs, urgent requests and supplier queries add up, and a mandate priced for a weekly run can quietly become a daily one. Review the time against the fee every quarter.
A worked example in words: a firm runs the finance office for a medical practice. Each week, the bookkeeper prepares payments from approved bills, the manager reviews the batch, it is approved on the practice manager's written instruction, and a second firm member releases it. The bookkeeper then captures the released batch in the practice's online banking, the practice manager authorises it there, and the bookkeeper records each payment against its bill once the bank confirms. At month end, the bank reconciliation confirms nothing was paid that was not released.
The CFO question
Some clients want both: someone to run the payments and someone to advise the board. Those are different services. The advisory side, and the limits of Achekam's CFO Office today, are covered in fractional CFO work and what the CFO Office shows. For the finance office itself, start by writing the mandate, agreeing the four-step allocation with the client, and making the bank's controls match it.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
