No matter what type of business it is you run, your accounting department is crucial to your overall success. Without a strong team of professionals in place in this instance, quite simply, anything could go awry with your company finances at any time. You could be overspending, losing money, or not turning over a profit, and without a team of hardworking accountants on your payroll, you wouldn’t even know!
To ensure that your business avoids all potential financial pitfalls, you need to set about the task of bettering your accounting team. Quite simply, there can be no room for error — your accountants need to be on the ball, all the time.
Here are three ways you can improve your accounting department:
Provide them with an opportunity to learn
If your accounting department is to flourish while they are on your payroll, you need to provide them with an opportunity to learn. You must allow them to hone their craft and garner a deeper understanding of business finance. Only then will you see improvements with regards to the way that they operate within your workspace.
Providing your accounting department with the opportunity to learn can entail you doing any number of things. It could simply mean offering them the chance to undertake a week’s long in-house training course, for example, on which they will learn about all the latest financial trends. If you wish to see your employees truly improve, however, then you’re going to have to go one step further and allow them to take an advanced accounting degree. If you want to go one step further still, you could offer to pay their tuition fees.
The education that they will receive on a Master of Science in Accounting degree will set them up for years of success in the field. On such a course they will learn a spectrum of skills that will be sure to improve their workflow, and they will develop a better understanding of all the regulatory challenges that accountants face. Worried that allowing your employees to enroll on this kind of program would distract them from their work? If so, then you take a look at www.online.suffolk.edu/programs/ms-accounting. Suffolk University offers MSA courses that are taken 100% online — if they were to enroll on this course, your employees would be able to balance their learning with their professional commitments, meaning neither would have to be sacrificed.
Improve the way they collaborate with other departments
Your accounting department cannot do their job by themselves, that’s just a fact. That’s not to say that your team is necessarily unskilled or inefficient, just that they need to collaborate with your other departments in order to get a hold of the data they require to keep the books balanced. In order to improve your accounting department and the way that they work, then you’re going to have to resolve to improve the communication flow around the whole of your business. By bettering interdepartmental collaboration, your accountants will be able to keep a tighter track of both your spending and your earning. The end result? An overall improvement in the way your accounting team handles your finances.
To optimize your efficiency in this instance, it is recommended that you integrate all of your departments using one shared ERP system. This will allow your accountants to access the data they need whenever they need to access it, cutting out the need for them to waste their time and energy chasing up other departments.
Automate your team’s manual processes
In today’s tech-savvy world, there’s no reason for you not to automate the bulk of your accounting team’s manual processes. By making use of all the automation tech that is now made widely available, you will be sure to improve the way your department works both as individuals and as a team.
One of the biggest benefits your accounting department will stand to reap when you invest in automation tech, is how they will have more time on their hands. By allowing technology to take over their most complex and time-consuming tasks, they will be able to devote more effort to other financial areas that are not as difficult yet just as important. By making use of an accounting system, for instance, your team will be able to create invoices, record transactions, generate data, and calculate losses in only a few clicks. As a result, they will be left with more time to sit down with you and go over how much money you have left at the end of each month to invest in resources and on your workforce.
Want to improve your accounting department? If so, be sure to put the above advice into practice.