Where’s Our Money?

Unless you’ve been hyper-focused on your business of late, you have probably heard a bit about the banking issues at Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.  Moreover, like most, you are probably saying to yourself:  My bank is safe, I have nothing to worry about.

For the most part, your right and the issues seem to have a unique set of circumstances.  However, these situations bring up a lot of questions related to your organization’s internal processes for handling financial transactions.  If you don’t know what I mean, how about I ask the following:

1. How much of your business banking is with one institution?
2. Who has access to the business bank accounts and can write checks or update the account?
3. What happens if you change your bank account?
4. How do you notify your clients and vendors of an account change and who is in charge of that in your organization?
5. What is your process for updating a change in a client or vendor bank account?  How do you verify the requested change and who does it in your organization?
6. What is the process for reconciling your bank statements to your monthly financials?
7. How often do you reconcile your bank statements?
8. Who handles the reconciliation process in your organization?
9. Is there a backup person to reconcile the statements?
10. What happens if there is fraud in your account?  Are you covered by insurance or with your legal agreements?

If you are having trouble answering the questions above, you are putting your organization at risk.  I would highly suggest you come up with a process to handle the financial transactions in your business.  Your professional business advisors (accountant, lawyer, financial advisor, etc.) are a great place to start if you don’t know who to ask for help.

Here are some other items of interest:

• SALT: The Waterfall Effect of Hiring & Having Remote Employees (stambaughness.com) – 3/28 @ 2pm EST
• Smart Business Dealmakers Conference – April 26, 2023 (thanks to Murphy McCormack Capital Advisors for sharing)

As always, please don’t hesitate to email myself (jsanders@mpl-law.com), Andy Miller (amiller@mpl-law.com), Christian Miller (cmiller@mpl-law.com), Erik Spurlin (espurlin@mpl-law.com), Brad Leber (bleber@mpl-law.com) or anyone in our office with questions or comments.  

Please see all of our prior updates at this link or if you would like to be added to our email list, please click here.