The Accounting Department: its Function and Roles in an Organization

Introduction

The respect and reputation gained by an organization came from the effectiveness of its internal department. The efficiency of a department differs on the level of knowledge and skills carried out by the people working within it. There are many important departments that an organization keeps in their system. Most of the departments are enumerated as the human resource department, research and development department, innovation and technological department (if any), the customer services department, and the accounting department. However, all of the departments are not given such importance because of the complexity and difficulty in understanding their functions. In most cases, the accounting department often involves criticisms because of the complexities from the external business environment and thus their roles within the organization change as well.

Significance of Accounting Department in Organization

Accounting departments are expected to perform, not only to relay all the needed financial reports and book-entering, but to also participate in making a sound decision. The shares of economics, logic, and mathematics in the accounting make the profession effective in the face of the world. Only if all the principles are equally utilized, then accounting can successfully integrates with the organization.

The usefulness of the department reveals on the influence and power it can contribute to the entire organization. However, the very same department that rests in numerous organization exhibits various challenges in the function of accounting department. Because of the growing competency in the international department, the accounting department is expected to contribute and integrate on the organizational strategies. A good accounting can gain competitive advantages if the people are not entirely focus in delivering a good financial statement but also understand the meaning of the statements. The people under the accounting department can be the organization’s strategists for they are the one who will have the access in accounting practices and calculations. By providing the necessary data, an accountant can be one of the organization’s human assets to draw for a conclusion and contribute in the long-term profitability (Lundberg, 2009).

Accounting department has a role in bringing sound information that can generate to the management’s decision making processes. By ensuring that all the information are valid, reliable, and justified, then there is a clear indication that people under this department should be responsible in controlling their own system (Siegel, 2000). Accountancy has its own objective that particularly contributes in the organizations aim for success. With the help of the new financial services and computation, there is a strong accounting department. Organizations can recognize the accounting department as their business partners because of the promising and broad opportunities such as creating the business initiatives (Sinclair, 2006).

Ignorance on Accounting Department

From giving the importance of accounting department and the practice of accountancy, still there are companies that took accountancy as a simple department and without the capacity to excel. Organizations that misunderstood the importance of accounting department might experience the inability of the department to produce a more sensible business and financial reports. The ineffectiveness of the accounting can affect the capability of the organizations to perform well in the international. On the other hand, organizations might find the accounting department inefficient because of the management’s comprehension regarding the data provided. Therefore, the accounting managers should explain the alternatives or other formula for computation that they utilized to achieve the most desirable results (Siegel, 2000). Changing of calculations only proves that the department understands the complexities and difficulties in the business environment that with the use of the traditional accounting computation may lead the entire organization into confusion.

Conclusion

In education, accountancy is one of the major courses that is sought by the students who has an outlook on how to manage the business, at least learn to make an input to their books. Accounting subjects are placed in the pedestal for the reason that it is one of the most competitive professions. This very same reason is the focus of an organization. Either way, if the accounting department did not played it part to help the firm towards the business cycle or if the functions are inappropriate for the organization, then the department is not effective. Both reasons are affected by the foundation of learning and the capacity of the department to catch up with the international changes. The positive contribution of the accountants is the norm for most of the universities to continue their teaching. And yet, the education as the foundation of professionalism should interact with the bandwagon of globalization.

References:

Lundberg, J., 2009. Accounting and Other Disciplines: How does accounting integrate with other disciplines such as economics, strategy and organization? [Online] Available at: http://users.ox.ac.uk/~sedm3306/essays/accounting-disciplines.pdf [Accessed 13 April 2010].

Siegel, G., 2000. Management Accountants’ Roles on Cross-Functional Teams, Practice Analysis – Strategic Finance [Online] Available at: http://www.imanet.org/pdf/Mgt%20Acct%20Roles%20Cross%20Functional%20Teams.pdf [Accessed 13 April 2010].

Sinclair, K.P., 2006. Accounting News, Department of College of Business and Economics, Lehigh University [Online] Available at: http://www3.lehigh.edu/images/userImages/les306/Page_7079/24031%20Lehigh%20Accounting%20News.pdf [Accessed 13 April 2010]