Friday, September 05, 2008

Accounting 101: Payroll

While our wonderful Swiss accountant is off in Brazil to be married, I have been asked to take care of just one tiny facet of his job: Payroll. Iris Pemba employ over 300 local workers, (NO the missionaries do not get paid!) and I have to make sure that they get their money! We usually pay at the end of the month, but because of some other pressing matters, the data I have to use to prepare the payroll was only given to me this week. So it was a busy busy week! But it all went really well.

I spent nearly 10 hours sitting at a white plastic table, stuffing various combinations of dirty bills into envelopes, and needless to say after a while my brain got really tired! I had some help tho for the last few hours, so I was happy! This month I think the idea is to pay some of the workers who have bank accounts directly thru the bank... which would mean less envelope stuffing for me, BUT all the time sheets and spreadsheets have to be 100%, and the encryption program will be tested for the first time.

Looks like us here in deepest darkest Africa is catching up with technology eh? :-)