The scariest part about walking into any financial situation, whether it is your own or someone else's, is realizing that poor records (or no records at all) have been kept. Usually when this is the case, something has probably gone terribly wrong, and you've decided to bite the bullet and step in, take over, and recover. Thank the good Lord above that I've never had to be faced with such a situation with my personal finances. It's not that I keep extremely good records in the form of a checkbook register or balance sheet, but I do always know how much money I have, and I surely never throw anything related to my finances away. I have had the misfortune on two occasions that I can remember of walking into situations where others have asked me to help them recover their finances from long periods of mismanagement and near disrepair. On the first occasion, things ended up being resolved fairly quickly, because I was able to devote my full attention to the problem, and I had the monetary resources to get things done correctly.

More recently, I have come across another situation where I have been thrown into a situation of financial mismanagement and asked to make it all go away. The problem is though, in the first case I spoke of there were at least some records to work with (bank statements, check stubs, etc.), but in this new situation, there is absolutely nothing to work with. No one has kept track of money going into accounts, money going out of accounts, online payment accounts, or even materials leaving the building (not to mention whether or not they have actually been paid for). For all intents and purposes, I'm starting from an extremely negative position and just trying to break even. Add this to the fact that the person who had formerly been in charge of managing all these things is probably one of the most difficult person to get along with that I've ever met. Needless to say, I've got my work cut out for me.

So in situations like this, when we're trying to just figure out which way is up, where do we possibly start? This is the question that I've been pondering now for a few days since this financial issue got plopped into my lap. Is it best to forget about what happened in the past, accept things for a loss, and move ahead? Maybe it's better to try and dig back a little bit and figure out what went wrong, in hopes of discovering the hows, whys, and why nots of the whole situation. Maybe it's best to shoot for the middle ground and just start picking up the pieces. I've been struggling with this task for a few days now, and I won't lie to you and tell you that it hasn't been difficult, because it's been really very tough. Had I know that things were this bad, I would not likely have committed myself to trying to make it better. Yeah, that's how bad it is.

So, as with most things, I'm going to stick with what I know and take step number one on my list...organization. I need to figure out what I have to work with, what money is around, and what needs to be done with it. With a lack of records, this isn't going to be an easy task, but the beauty of the situation is that I get the opportunity to reinvent the system and set the precedent for the future of the group. Not exactly the way I wanted to leave my legacy among this group of people, but hey, I'll take whatever I can get at this point. So that's it at this point...organization. Lists, inventories, spreadsheets, databases,...all those lovely organizational tools that others tend to frown upon. I say bring them on, because the only way out of some situations alive is to get back to the basics and start from scratch. The others involved in this group have accepted my idea of heading back to square one, so at least I have a lot of support behind me from all angles. I know that I have the "know-how" to do this, but finding the time and the mental strength to push ahead is going to be a tough challenge. Hopefully, with God and some deep-seated determination on my side, I'll find the motivation and "oomph" that I need to get the job done right.