Kikondo, UG – Wamukisa appreciates the value of keeping a good ledger – 27 Oct 2016

Michael’s 12 year-old niece Becky keeps ledgers for vegetable and water sales when no one else is home.

Wamukisa manager Michael Kiwanuka kept his first ledger to track revenues and expenses for Wamukisa’s community water project. The tool has proved so useful that Wamukisa now maintains a number of ledgers and is teaching local families to do the same.

When Wamukisa completed construction of their community water project they knew the real work was just beginning. They had a responsibility to their community to provide a continuous supply of clean drinking water and a responsibility to their supporters to make timely loan repayments. They also hoped to prove the viability of water delivery as a business so they could expand the project in the future. All of this would require strict adherence to a Plan, Do, Check, Act- based schedule with close accounting of project revenues, expenses, repayments, and (hopefully) profits. Michael and Better Lives believed that a ledger was the basic tool most fit for these purposes.

Michael began keeping a ledger as soon as the project was open for business. The basic accounting information has allowed him to:

• Plan by forecasting future revenues and expenses
• Do by spending operating budget efficiently and making timely loan repayments
• Check by understanding which financial performance targets are not being met
• Act by proposing improvement ideas to meet performance targets in the future

Wamuksa’s vegetable ledger with handwriting from team members of all ages.

Michael and the rest of Wamukisa appreciated the benefits of the ledger and decided to keep a ledger for vegetable sales as well. Michael trained his 12 year-old niece Becky to make ledger entries because Becky was often home doing school work when the Wamukisa team was out doing work. Now the ledgers are a true team effort, with myriad styles of penmanship to prove it! Each day Michael takes the daily ledgers, audits them, and enters the final numbers into the official project ledgers.

We interviewed Michael to discuss how this basic tool is helping families improve their lives:

What benefits  have you noticed from keeping a ledger?

It has helped us so much to budget the money we earn and to minimize unwanted expenditures. Ledgers encourage us to do more saving because we create reports at the end of the month and it is really quite embarrassing at the end of the month to have low savings. It is introducing us to a culture of saving instead of thinking day-to-day. If you have a plan for the money you earn you will begin to save more. At the same time, it keeps us focused on sales. You see that you can’t have a whole month of low sales and expect to grow.

So do you see a ledger as a tool for both Planning and Checking?

Really you can’t plan without first having some records. For example, after we kept a ledger of vegetable sales for our demonstration gardens we were encouraged to expand and begin making commercial gardens.

This is a challenge we have seen with many families in our program. They do not know how much they make in a month or how much they spend. A few have kept ledgers and were very surprised at some things they were spending money on. Some families will tell you they earn 100,000 UGS (US $33.00) in a month and spend 180,000 UGS (US $60.00). So how can this be? If they do not know how they are making and spending money they can’t make the best plan for their future.

It’s great to hear how useful this tool has been. What next steps is Wamukisa planning moving forward?

Of course we will keep doing our water and vegetable ledgers. We are really hoping to see an increase in vegetable sales soon when we start harvesting from our commercial gardens. We are also planning to keep ledgers for our piggery project. We have two pigs giving birth next month so keeping ledgers starting when piglets are born will give us a very good idea of the total cost. We want to expand the piggery project and we want to be very strict with our expenses. That strictness is brought about by the ledger.

For our families in our community, we are planning to organize up a training. We can train them using our own ledgers and share the impact of our own ledgers. We know they will be surprised what they learn about themselves.