Running the books as a one-adviser practice
Which steps in Achekam need a second person, and how a one-adviser practice can arrange that with staff, a partner or its accountant while keeping control.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Financial services businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
You are the practice. You see the clients, write the records of advice, chase the product providers for commission statements and, on Sunday evenings, do the books. Perhaps a part-time assistant answers the phone and files documents. Then you set up payroll in Achekam, prepare the month's run, press approve, and the system says no.
That refusal is deliberate. A handful of steps in Achekam will not let one person do them alone, because those are the steps where one person acting alone is how money goes missing. For a one-adviser practice that can feel like friction. This article lists the steps, explains why, and shows how to arrange a second person without handing over the keys to your business.
Why some steps refuse to let one person act alone
The steps that need two people share a pattern: each one either sends money out, changes where money goes, or changes figures that have already been reported. If one person can both set up and approve those steps, nobody else ever sees them. Investopedia's overview of internal controls describes how such processes keep financial records accurate and help prevent fraud; a second pair of eyes is the simplest control there is.
For an advice practice there is a second reason. Your clients trust you with their money and their information. A practice that cannot show basic controls over its own books has a harder conversation with a compliance officer, a product provider or an auditor than one that can.
Payroll: a preparer, an approver and a bank-detail checker
Payroll is where the rule bites first. A pay run is approved by someone other than the person who prepared it, nobody can approve a run that pays themselves, and an approved run is never recalculated. In practice, a business needs at least two people in payroll roles to run payroll at all.
For a one-adviser practice that pays itself a salary, this has a direct consequence: you cannot approve a run that includes your own pay, even if you did not prepare it. Someone else must approve it.
Bank details are guarded the same way. An employee's bank account entered or changed by one person must be verified by another before it is paid in the payment schedule or bank file. That includes your own account and your assistant's.
Purchase orders, write-offs and reopening a closed month
Three more steps follow the same logic:
| Step | The rule |
|---|---|
| Purchase requisition | Someone other than the requester approves or declines it |
| Purchase order | The person who raised it cannot approve it |
| Writing off an unpaid debt | Allowed only once a partner approves |
| Reopening a hard-closed month | Needs a second approver |
Most one-adviser practices will rarely raise purchase orders; the procurement steps matter more as the practice grows. Write-offs and closed months matter from day one. A client fee you cannot collect should not disappear because the person who wrote the invoice also cleared it, and a month you have reported to the bank or your accountant should not change without someone noticing.
Moving your books in: a second person approves the cut-over
When you bring your accounts, customers, suppliers and opening balances into Achekam from CSV or Excel, the move reconciles to the cent before a second person approves the cut-over. That approval is a sensible moment to involve your accountant: they know what your opening balances should be and can spot a missing loan account or a commission debtor that never came across.
Who can be the second person
You have three realistic options, and you can mix them.
- A staff member. Your assistant or office manager can be the second person on payroll and bank details. Give them a clear instruction: check the run against the payslips you expect, and check every new bank account against a document from the employee.
- A partner or co-owner. If the practice has a silent partner or a family member involved in the business, they can approve write-offs and reopenings, and sit as the payroll approver.
- Your accountant. You can appoint your accounting firm by its Achekam address or firm code, as accountant, auditor, tax practitioner, payroll provider or adviser, with an access level, and the firm accepts or declines. The firm works directly in your own ledger, with no copy made.
The access level decides what the firm's people can do. Bookkeeping access covers the accounting but not your users, settings or payment gateways, and review access is read-only, so a reviewer can look but cannot approve anything. Before relying on your accountant as the second person for a particular step, test that step with them and confirm their access lets them do it. The firm must already be on Achekam; you cannot appoint an accountant who is not.
Either side can end the appointment later. The firm then loses access, and the books stay with you.
Writing down who approves what
Keep a one-page approvals list and review it every year, or whenever someone joins or leaves:
- Payroll preparer, payroll approver and bank-detail verifier, by name.
- Who approves purchase requisitions and orders, if you use them.
- Who approves write-offs.
- Who may reopen a closed month.
- Your accountant's access level, and what you have agreed they will approve.
When your assistant leaves, update the list on the same day and find a new second person before the next payroll. A run waiting for an approver who no longer works for you is a bad way to discover the gap.
For how a small brokerage handles the same payroll rule, see who approves payroll in a small brokerage. If you want your accountant to look but not touch, read giving your accountant review-only access, and for splitting duties once the practice grows, see separating duties in a small advice practice.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
