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RACI Chart Template
RACI Chart Template is a tool that is used to assign roles and responsibilities in a project or activity. It clearly maps out which task is being done by whom, who is a reviewer, and who is accountable for a task. Ultimately, this chart eliminates any confusion and helps in identifying the person accountable for an activity.
RACI stands for Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed. Let’s understand these four responsibilities from below brief description –
#1 – Responsible
It is the person who actually works on and completes the task. There can be one or more persons responsible for one task depending on the difficulty level and time consumption.
#2 – Accountable
It is the person who is also the reviewer and assigns the various tasks to the responsible person. The responsible person can also be held accountable for some tasks. However, SOX review now a day makes is compulsory to have another person review the task completed by one person. It is always a good idea to have just one person accountable for one task to avoid any ambiguity.
#3 – Consulted
These people are being consulted regarding feedback or confirmation that the project is going fine; output quality is as desired; if any, bugs or loopholes in the product or project. The parties for consulting can be internal or external, depending on the nature of the task open for consultation.
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#4 – Informed
These are the parties who are being informed about the progress, bottlenecks, or the completion of the project. Most of the time, Informed people are final recipients or senior leadership who just want to be updated about the progress, changes, and any other significant amendment.
Let’s understand the RACI chart template by using the below template in which an accounting manager has delegated various task within his team and can take the follow up with responsible and accountable people –
About the RACI Chart Template
- It is a straightforward RACI chart prepared and used by one of the accounting directors in any organization for doing the monthly close activity of a month. So, we see here that there are different teams for different functions. Invoice booking, which is done by the accounts payable team, has three members who are responsible for booking invoices in a particular region.
- The name of the associates can also be mentioned here. Then the person accountable for the job invoice booking is accounts payable manager Lucy. It means that if there are any issues with invoice booking or concern from a Vendor regarding payments or invoicing queries – the accounting director can always get in touch with Lucy to get the update and resolve the issue. Then for consulting, there is an oracle and group team, Oracle is the financial tool commonly used by the organizations, and the group team is responsible for consolidating the books of accounts from various regions and countries to present it to senior leadership, investors, and other stakeholders.
- So, for the accounts payable team, if there is any system issue, they are supposed to refer to the Oracle team for guidance and support. And if there is any functional issue like exchange rates, the status of a Vendor, or any accounting issue, they should refer to the group team for guidance. Then the informed group is whole of the accounting group so that everyone is aware that one of the departments has completed its task, and we are on the track of closing the books on time.
- In the same way in the above template, the RACI chart is laid out for billing, revenue, intercompany, CAPEX, and other functions.
How to Use the Template?
- It is a simple, concise, and comprehensive template that is explained here. The person uses the RACI chart to make a change in the attached template and update the various functions and names of the people depending on team size. Also, they can include and exclude certain members from the team depending on the information and how critical it is for the organization. For example, if there is an update regarding merger and acquisition and it is still in the initial stage, and then it should not be shared with everyone in the organization, and informed people can only be the senior leadership and involved associates. The same way the accountability must be distributed in such a way that one person is not burdened with many responsibilities and task completion becomes difficult. Also, the same person must not be accountable to departments with conflicting interests to avoid SOX and other compliance issues.
- The main aim of this chart is to understand which team and person are doing what and reach out to them in the case when information is needed from them. Also, because nowadays, in a digital world, all the departments are connected, and there is the reliability of one department at another department’s task completion. For example, in an accounting environment, the general ledger – GL team can only start working after the accounts payable and receivable team has completed their task. In that way, the RACI chart provides a quick overview of the distribution of the task and responsiveness of one department to another and provides better integration and task completion.
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This article has been a guide to the RACI Chart Template. Here we provide you with a free downloadable RACI chart template, which is used to assign roles and responsibilities in a project or activity. Also, you can download and use this template in Google Sheets, ODS, or CSV format.
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