By Eugenio Micheletti* for staffingamericalatina

“Efficient” internal controls have to be implemented in each critical process of the staffing business, to avoid or mitigate deviations.   To automatize controls and not to double them is the key to achieve this efficiency, in a self-control environment that shows transparency and improves corporate image.

Knowing the core business processes and all the necessary tasks to provide the services, and with the goals definition process in place, we have to define the key controls which will allow us to mitigate the business risks and to achieve the budgeted results.

For example:  if the goal is to achieve the 20% of Gross Margin, through the budgeting process we have to introduce a control over the gross margin of each business, detecting those cases below that 20% and defining a procedure to analyze and approve or not the new business. The aim is to avoid “surprises”, ensuring detection of deviations and timely analysis.

We acknowledge as core processes the following:

• Candidates’ intake: from the cv’s data entry on the website, to the workers’ file management.
• Orders’ intake: from the tender of services to the clients or potential clients, to the billing and subsequent collections, through the business approval.
• Payroll and Billing: novelty timesheets reception, payroll and social security’s calculation, billing, additional documentation to the invoice.
• Purchasing and Accounts payable: includes purchase process, supplier intake controls, accounts payables managements, stock management.
• Payments and Bank management: financial cash flow, authorization workflow, bank accounts monitoring and reconciliation, and electronic payments.
• Corporate tax management: national, provinces and municipal taxes: budget, compliance and calculation.
• Financial closing and Reporting: monthly closing of each module in the ERP; provisions, depreciations and amortizations, accruals, and monthly reporting to compare with budget.
• Indirect staff management: additions, deletions and novelties in internal staff; file of relevant documentation (changes in staff situation, corporate policies related to security, confidentiality of the information, etc.).
• IT controls: includes business contingency plan, backup server, license of software, permission matrix for each employee, etc.
• General controls: in this row we include issues related to corporate governance, principles, values, policies, codes, procedures, law and regulations compliance.