RACI Chart Template

The RACI chart template is a layout or format that acts as a guide for project managers or sponsors, the team members or other stakeholders of the project to have a control over the project process with responsibility, accountability and precision. It is a customizable template that helps all members successfully complete the objective on time.

RACI stands for Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed. The chart template one can use to assign roles and responsibilities in a project or activity. It maps out which task is being done by whom, who is a reviewer, and who is accountable for a task. Ultimately, this chart eliminates confusion and helps identify the person accountable for an activity.

The RACI template is a model of format that facilitates management of projects in a responsible and systematic manner, In this layout of free RACI chart template, a very comprehensive form of chart or template is made available either using Microsoft excel of a format downloaded from internet and used by members who are involved in the project to achieve their aim successfully.

Let’s understand these four responsibilities from below brief description:

#1 - Responsible

It is the person who works on and completes the task. Depending on the difficulty level and time consumption, there can be one or more persons responsible for one task.

#2 - Accountable

The person who is also the reviewer assigns various tasks to the responsible person. Therefore, the responsible person can also be held accountable for some tasks. However, a SOX review nowadays is compulsory to have another person review the task completed by one person. Therefore, having just one person accountable for one task is always a good idea to avoid ambiguity.

#3 - Consulted

These people consult regarding feedback or confirmation that the project is going fine and 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.

#4 - Informed

These are the parties who are informed about the progress, bottlenecks, or project completion. Most of the time, informed people are final recipients or senior leaders who want to update 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 tasks within his team and can take follow up with responsible and accountable people:

The members of a project may include sponsors and managers, the teams or any other stakeholders who play a role in it directly or indirectly. The project may involve various phases and steps, and every phase must be completed successfully so that the next can start. This free RACI chart template helps in the systematic processing of those steps with transparency and responsibility through the proper flow of information and communication.

• It is a straightforward RACI chart prepared and used by one of the accounting directors in any organization for the monthly close activity. So, we see here that there are different teams for different functions. For example, invoice booking by the accounts payable team has three members responsible for booking invoices in a particular region.
• One can also mention the name of the associates here. Then, Lucy's accounts payable manager is responsible for the job invoice booking. It means that if there are any issues with invoice booking or concerns 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 a financial tool commonly used by organizations. The group team is responsible for consolidating the books of accounts from various regions and countries to present them to senior leadership, investors, and other stakeholders.
• So, the accounts payable team should refer to the Oracle team for guidance and support if there is any system issue. And if there is any available issue like exchange rates, a vendor's status, or any accounting issue, they should refer to the group team for guidance. Then, the informed group is the whole accounting group so that everyone is aware that one of the departments has completed its task. We are on track to close 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.

Let us understand the concept of blank RACI chart template with the help of a suitable example.

Let us assume that AB Ltd has taken up a project to install a software in one if its client’s office for facilitating the sales and marketing process. It will require coordination among teams related to technology, finance, marketing and human resource. So, some selected members from each of the above department will work on it.

In such a case an blank RACI chart template will be ideal for managing the same. The responsibility will be for all who are a part of it, accountability will be on the members who are ultimately answerable for the task, consulted will be members who will provide input and feedback on each step and who are usually the ones having good experience in handling such situations and lastly informed will include those who are playing both an active and passive role, which means people who are directly involved in the implementation and those who should be kept well informed.

From the above example it is clear that this layout of excel RACI chart template and process empowers and allows all members of a project to cross any barrier and preset limit to achieve new heights. It is a platform that is designed with a lot of flexibility, which matches with the job requirement and also helps members adjust to any change. Overall, it is a great concept that acts as a guidance to plan, manage and capture any type of work done and also report it with accuracy and clarity. This excel RACI chart template helps in free flow of information which leads to effectiveness in work done. It keeps the entire team connected through reporting over key metrices and obtain a real-time perceptibility of the job.

Let us understand how to use the simple RACI chart template in the best way possible for tracking individual contributions as well as group objective so that the project can stay on time of the list through successful completion of each phase.

It is a simple, concise, and comprehensive template explained here. Then, the person uses the RACI chart to change 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, suppose there is an update regarding merger and acquisition, which is still in the initial stage. In that case, one should not share it with everyone in the organization; informed people can only be the senior leadership and involved associates. Similarly, accountability must be distributed so 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 case they need information. Also, in a digital world, all the departments are connected, and one is reliable at another department's task completion. For example, the general ledger – GL team can only start working in an accounting environment 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.

This concept of simple RACI chart template has been designed with the continuous changes in organizational practices and the flexibility required to deal with them in mind. Any change will lead to changes in roles and responsibilities that have to be addressed, controlled, and tracked, and deviations should be rectified within the least time possible. This is a perfect one time solution for managers who have to organize and mobilize large groups of people in order to achieve a common goal.