Almost no festival money goes missing through dishonesty. It goes missing through delay, through memory, and through the assumption that someone else wrote it down. These are the seven failures we see again and again.
1. “I’ll enter it later”
Cash collected at 9pm and entered at midnight is cash entered from memory. Record it at the point of collection or accept that your books are an approximation.
2. One person holds all the cash
It is not about trust; it is about exposure. If one person carries the collection and the record, then that person alone can answer any question — and is alone if anything is questioned. Spread collection across volunteers, but centralise the record.
3. No receipt, or a receipt with no number
An unnumbered receipt proves a payment but not the completeness of your collection. You cannot show that nothing is missing if nothing is sequenced.
4. Expenses without bills
“₹6,000 — decoration” is not an expense record, it is an assertion. Photograph the bill and attach it when you log the spend. Thirty seconds then saves a very unpleasant hour later.
5. Advances treated as spending
Money handed to a volunteer to buy samagri is not an expense — it is an advance, and it is still your money until the bills and the change come back. Track it separately, and settle it.
6. No daily close
Counting the box against the record every night converts a month-end mystery into a nightly, solvable, five-minute difference.
7. The report as an afterthought
A report assembled in March from records kept in September is an act of archaeology. Keep the records as you go and the report is a by-product, not a project. This is the whole idea behind Kosh: the ledger is built while you collect, so publishing it is a tap rather than a fortnight.