Business Process Consultant, Lebanon

Making every currency and rate decision someone's job

In many Lebanese companies, a transaction can involve dollars, pounds and more than one rate. The accounting consequences are well covered on my other Lebanon pages. The process question is different: at which step is the currency chosen, who chooses the rate, and what record shows it?

Without that clarity, the same customer can be quoted in dollars by sales, invoiced in pounds by accounts and pay partly in each, with each person applying a rate they consider reasonable. The figures may balance in the end, but nobody can explain the margin.

I build a currency touchpoint map across the main processes:

• Quoting and pricing: which price list and currency apply, and who may deviate.
• Invoicing: the invoice currency, the rate used for any second currency shown, and who sets that rate each day.
• Receipts: how a payment in a different currency from the invoice is recorded, and who approves the difference.
• Purchasing and expenses: the same questions on the supply side.
• Payroll inputs: how salary components in each currency are communicated to whoever runs payroll.

Rate policy for accounting and tax belongs to finance and your accountant, not to me. The map makes sure their decision is applied by a named person at a defined step every time. It also becomes a requirement for any future system, as described on multi-currency ERP.

Cash from outlets, drivers and reps

Cash remains a large part of Lebanese trade and hospitality, often in two currencies at once. Restaurants close shifts with tills holding dollars and pounds, delivery drivers return with collections, and sales reps bring cash from customers on their routes. Each handover is a point where an amount can be miscounted, recorded in the wrong currency or simply not recorded.

I map the cash cycle from first receipt to bank or safe and design steps such as:

• Counting by currency at shift end, with a second person present where staffing allows.
• A numbered handover slip signed by both parties whenever cash changes hands.
• A defined route from outlet or driver to a central cashier, with a cut-off time.
• Comparison of counted cash with the sales or collections recorded for the same period, per currency.
• A rule for differences: who investigates, who may approve a write-off and up to what band.
• Separation between the person who handles cash and the person who records it.

Petty cash and supplier payments in cash get their own steps, with vouchers and approvals before payment rather than after. These controls do not require new software. They can run on paper and a well-designed register while the business decides on systems. Background for hospitality groups is on restaurant ERP, and the Beirut view of cash controls is on the Beirut ERP page.

Purchasing when supplier prices move

Procure to pay in Lebanon carries its own pressures. Suppliers may price in dollars, ask for cash or prepayment, and change prices between quotation and delivery. Importers wait on shipments priced in one currency while selling in another. Under those conditions, purchasing staff make many small decisions every week, and the process should say which of them they may make alone.

I map the cycle with purchasing, warehouse and finance and agree:

• How long a quotation stays valid, and who approves a supplier's price change before goods are accepted.
• When a prepayment or deposit is allowed, who approves it and how it is tracked until the goods arrive.
• Who receives goods and records quantities, and how differences from the order are handled.
• How a supplier invoice in one currency is matched to an order placed in another.
• How landed costs on imports are gathered, and when they reach finance.
• Who prepares, approves and releases payments, especially cash payments.

For multi-outlet groups, the central kitchen or warehouse adds internal transfers that must be recorded as movements, not as sales, and requested through a defined route rather than by phone. The output is an approval matrix and a procure-to-pay map that management signs. Any system configured later inherits a design that has been agreed, not one improvised by the implementer during setup. The general logic is covered on process mapping.

Group companies abroad and the month-end

Many Lebanese groups run companies in the Gulf, Africa or Europe alongside the Lebanese entity. Record to report then spans several countries, currencies and sometimes several accounting systems. The common pain is a close that depends on emailed spreadsheets, intercompany balances that never agree and management reports finished long after they would have been useful.

I map the group close as a process in its own right:

• Which entity charges which for shared services, staff and goods, and on what document.
• The deadline for each entity to book its side of intercompany transactions and confirm balances.
• Who resolves differences, and how unresolved items are escalated.
• The reporting pack each entity sends, with agreed definitions of revenue, margin and headcount.
• Who reviews the consolidated view before it goes to the owners.

A close calendar sets out every task, owner and dependency across the entities. The order matters: recharges before intercompany confirmations, confirmations before consolidation. Accounting policy, transfer pricing and the tax position of each company belong to your accountants and advisors in each country. The process makes sure their requirements are met on time. Where the group later wants a shared system, the ERP business analyst page for Lebanon explains how these maps become requirements, and multi-company ERP covers the structure.

Procedures that survive outages and staff changes

Two realities shape how Lebanese processes should be documented. Systems are sometimes unavailable because power or internet fails, and experienced staff sometimes move on. A process that only works when the system is online and the senior accountant is present is fragile.

For outages, I write short continuity procedures: how outlets keep selling and record sales on numbered paper forms, how the warehouse receives goods and logs them, who keys those records once the system returns, and how anyone confirms that every form was entered once and only once. These are tested in a walkthrough with the staff who will use them.

For staff changes, each process gets an owner and a deputy, and each role gets a procedure of a page or two with the steps, the common exceptions and who to ask. Your team can produce Arabic or French versions; the English master stays current.

Software follows once these designs are agreed. The maps become demo scenarios, the approval matrix becomes system rules and the continuity procedures become requirements for offline tolerance. If the next need is removing repetitive steps from stable processes, see my automation page for Lebanon. The work is remote, visits only by arrangement, and I take no vendor commission. The underlying method is described under business process consulting, and the Lebanon hub and ERP consultant page for Lebanon cover the rest.