Protecting Your Nonprofit: A Practical Guide to Internal Controls and Payment Workflows
In the nonprofit sector, every dollar represents a supporter’s belief in your mission. Your organization exists to create positive change, and the funds you raise serve as the lifeblood of that work. However, inefficiency and fraud threaten to jeopardize the financial health and public trust of nonprofits across Canada.
Many organizations, particularly small to mid-sized nonprofits, still rely heavily on manual processes and informal controls. While this environment often grows from a culture of trust, it can accidentally create significant risks. In fact, on average, fraud costs 5% of annual revenue, and nearly 50% of all fraud cases stem from weak or absent internal controls.
To help Canadian organizations protect their funds and improve operations, Enkel partnered with Plooto. Together, they created a new resource: Protecting Your Nonprofit: Payments, Workflows & Governance to support nonprofit internal controls in Canada.
The Hidden Costs of Manual Financial Processes
Managing financial operations in a nonprofit environment comes with unique challenges. Limited resources, increasing compliance requirements, and growing expectations for transparency make it essential to have strong systems in place. Without clear payment workflows and governance practices, organizations face higher risks of errors, delays, and even internal fraud.
For many nonprofits, the accounts payable process remains stubbornly manual and paper-based. While familiar, these workflows are fraught with inefficiencies. Finance teams spend hours on manual data entry, increasing the risk of coding errors and typos. Executive Directors waste valuable time signing physical cheques instead of focusing on strategic work. Furthermore, scrambling to find paper trails at year-end leads to costly delays during the annual audit.
How Plooto Transforms Nonprofit Internal Controls in Canada
To effectively combat these risks, nonprofits must modernize their financial workflows. This is where our partnership with Plooto comes in. Plooto is a leading payment automation platform trusted by over 14,000 businesses and nonprofits across North America. It turns your accounts payable process from a manual liability into a digital asset, enforcing governance, enhancing security, and dramatically improving efficiency.
By using Plooto, nonprofits can replace paper routing slips with digital workflows that enforce approval policies automatically. Custom approval rules ensure every payment is properly authorized before release. The platform also eliminates the risks of cheque fraud through secure electronic payments and verified vendor data. Additionally, it syncs automatically with QuickBooks and Xero, saving hours every week by eliminating double entry and streamlining reconciliation.
As a client of Enkel, you do not need to worry about the operation or management of these tools. Our team fully supports Plooto, so you get the benefits of automated workflows without the technical burden.
What You Will Learn in the E-Book
Our new e-book, created in partnership with Plooto, provides a practical framework for understanding and mitigating financial risks. Whether you are an Executive Director, Finance Manager, or Board Member at a Canadian nonprofit, this guide can help. It offers practical tips. You can use them right away. By downloading the e-book, you will discover:
The fraud landscape: Learn the top five fraud schemes in the nonprofit sector. These include billing schemes, payment tampering, and expense reimbursement fraud. Learn the behavioural and financial red flags to watch for.
Governance essentials: Learn how to build trust. Use strict segregation of duties. Set up a formal approval matrix. Keep the board actively involved. This oversight should go beyond rubber-stamping financial reports.
The five essential internal controls: Learn the key policies every nonprofit needs to reduce risk. These include approval workflows, physical security, and system access controls.
The benefits of modernization: See how moving from manual workflows to automated platforms like Plooto saves time. It reduces errors and helps keep your organization audit-ready.
We Also Hosted a Webinar on This Topic
In March 2026, Enkel and Plooto hosted a live webinar. It was called Protecting Your Nonprofit: A Practical Guide to Payments, Workflows & Governance. We explored these topics in depth with Canadian nonprofit leaders. The session explained how to identify financial risks. It also covered how to set up internal controls. Finally, it showed how to use automation to save time for mission-driven work.
If you missed the live broadcast, you can watch the webinar on-demand here.
Download the Free E-Book Today
Understanding these financial risks is the first step. The subsequent, more critical step is implementing the right controls and tools to protect your organization. Well-designed workflows reduce risk and create consistency across your team. They also give your board and leaders better visibility into all financial activities.
Download our free e-book today. Get actionable checklists and frameworks. Strengthen your nonprofit’s internal controls. Modernize your payment workflows.
Need help with your financial operations? Enkel is Canada’s leader in bookkeeping, payroll, and financial operations services for nonprofits. Book a free consultation today to discuss how we can help your organization succeed.
