The position of an accountant is very essential in every organization. The accountant records all sorts of transactions on a daily basis. He or she can forecast the company’s growth as the basic financial parameters of an entity is thoroughly known to him. He can give an idea of how an organization will survive in the context of the Covid-19 situation. The most important aspects of surviving the present deadly crisis are to put more emphasis on financial accounting & analysis and following a penny-pinching method.
The situation like Covid-19 has never been seen in recent times. Many organizations are still struggling to run fully. New investments and import and export of products are seriously affected making the services and bills of accounts stock-piled. Yet, almost all the companies are paying their employees on a regular basis. In this situation, an accountant can provide guidance and necessary steps to avoid a financial crisis. He can suggest strategies, policies, and other measures to ensure the sustainability of the organization.
If the pandemic situation becomes normal, the economy will have an adequate fund inflow to help the businesses recover eventually, as past records show. Accountants can play a key role in both situations.
Two types of accountants work for an organization. The entry-level accountants collect and record information at the initial level which is called book-keeping. And the top-level full-fledged accountants work on analyzing financial reports and making strategic decisions. They represent and focus on the overall financial picture of the organization. Though large conglomerates and companies can hire full-fledged professional accountants, small companies cannot afford to do that. But they also need accountants to grow their company, keep daily accounts, and consider future expansion. In that case, they can appoint entry-level accounting technicians. But do we have experienced entry-level accounting technicians? Unfortunately, we don't. We have to think of a benchmark qualification that will meet our requirements.
The first complete account document was found in a mass of Mesopotamia 7,000 years ago. At that time, people used to write down all the information to keep a tab on their crop productions. This method also exists in the present era.
After the expansion of the Roman Empire, the work and requirements of accountants increased further. In addition to accounting for grain production, they were also required to distribute land-deposits, classify work, construct new buildings, determine the cost of troops, and calculate various festival-centric expenditures. Over time, however, work and responsibilities have changed. Now they are involved in:
- Creating income and expenditure accounts of the organization. The organization uses that information to implement its budget and future plans.
B. Collecting and preparing various economic documents to inform about the ongoing competition between different organizations. That makes it easy to determine the next step.
C. Banks or other large organizations always make big transactions everyday. Their customer base is also huge. Only a professional accountant can keep the track of transactions on such a large scale.
D. Not every customer in the company has the same requirements. Accountants are required to create separate accounts as they need. All customers can get their desired services this way.
(The writer is a chartered accountant)