Standard 8: Timely and comprehensive project financial set-up.

• Primary responsible: Project manager/chief of party (PM/CoP)
  • The PM/CoP takes the lead in engaging finance staff and senior management to establish clear roles and responsibilities for project financial management. 

• Others involved: Head of operations (HoOps); head of programing (HoP); finance manager (FM) and other finance staff assigned to the project (e.g., accountant, finance officer); other project staff with specific financial management responsibilities (e.g., deputy chief of party)  
  • Senior management and finance staff review and confirm individual roles, responsibilities, and deadlines for financial management tasks.

• After completion of the handover from the proposal development team to the project start-up/implementation team, but before project implementation begins; ideally before the project start-up workshop

Follow these steps to establish clarity on project financial management roles and responsibilities:

1. The PM/CoP, with support from the HoP, HoOps, and finance manager, convenes a meeting with program and finance staff who will be involved in project financial management and reporting (e.g., additional budget managers from the project team). At the meeting, the team:

• Reviews the Project Financial Management Roles and Responsibilities Matrix.
• Adapts the matrix to reflect any country program or project-specific requirements.
• Assigns financial management tasks to specific team members.
• Develops a calendar of financial tasks and deadlines—for grants, this calendar must be based on agreement deadlines. Consider capturing this information in a sheet added to the Award Management Deliverables Calendar.
• Identifies project financial management requirements to highlight with partners during the project start-up workshop and partner project financial management set-up.

Face-to-face project financial start-up meeting: Good practice is to review project-specific financial management roles and responsibilities and develop the calendar of tasks and deadlines during an internal project financial start-up meeting. Other meeting agenda items could include a review of the operational context questions in the “Questions to Guide Budget Updates” tool (see Standard 8, key action 3); (for externally funded projects) the final donor agreement and financial reporting requirements; signature authority matrix; any special project coding guidance; status of financial management start-up tasks; and how to orient partners to project financial management requirements. If the project has field-based staff, remember to budget for travel so all field-based finance staff and heads of office can participate. To make best use of staff time and project resources, consider planning the project financial start-up meeting just before the project start-up workshop.

2. The PM/CoP documents the agreed assignments and deadlines and shares with the project team. The project team refers to the assignments, the calendar of tasks, and deadlines throughout project financial management (see Standard 13) and during project review meetings (see Standard 11, key actions 1 and 3), and updates the assignments as needed to reflect any agreement modifications.