Why Is Accounting So Important?

The significance of accounting has never been more apparent than in today’s market, with the struggling economy and the job market in decline.  Though the loss of jobs may be happening in many fields the one that continues to stay strong is accounting.  The reasons for this are the same reasons that accounting is such an important aspect in the economy and in society.

                Before we can begin to understand the importance of accounting, we first must understand what accounting is.  Accounting can be defined as the theory and system of setting up, maintaining, and auditing the books of a firm.  It is the art of analyzing the financial position of a business through its sales, purchases, and overhead.  These records must be kept in chronological order and must be summarized in a useful format.   It is also responsible for identifying information on the transactions, analyzing it and then interpreting each and every document.

                Now that we have begun to understand what accounting means we can begin to examine how important accounting really is.  The first way in which it is important is that an accounting education can be applied to any job industry.  For instance a secretary uses accounting in managing a company’s check book.  Also the executives of this same company must be able to analyze the success of their business through analyzing the accounting statements from the past and present.  These are just two of the many job positions found in any company that must have some knowledge of accounting.  Another reason that accounting is important to all business majors is because of the fact that the business world has now come under much scrutiny.  As a result they are held much more accountable for their financial practices.  This has occurred because of the events of the Enron and WorldCom scandals.  For this reason nearly all businesses require their employees to have a general knowledge of accounting.

                Another way in which accounting is such an important aspect to any business is that accountants are responsible for providing information that is used to determine the present and future economic stability of the organization.  It has been proven that these companies that use good accounting practices have a competitive advantage over their opponents.  Also they have the ability to improve their decision making abilities.   Those that do not use these practices face an inability to compete in the market and make their decisions simply on a hunch.

                Not only is accounting very important in the business world it is also beneficial for ordinary people to know as well.  Each and every person uses these accounting skills in their daily lives when making financial investment decisions.  They also use it when assessing their interest rates in order to pay off their house mortgages.  The final way in which they can use these skills is to balance their check books and to calculate the rates of their car payments.

Within the accounting department can be found the forensic accountants these are individuals who use the audit and investigative skills to assist in legal matters and to make recommendations in order to minimize future risks.  Their jobs also can be extended into civil matters, for instance to find any hidden assets in certain divorce cases.  These individuals are just as important as regular accountants because of the fact that they are also in very high demand.  The reason though that their jobs are so important is because of the fact that fraud is becoming much easier to commit.  These actions are a result of the fact that technology has increased significantly and that gives people individuals the ability to commit fraud on a massive scale and get away with it very easily.

The significance of accounting not only is clearly vital in the business world but it also can be shown that it plays a part on the individual scale as well.  For these reasons and many more it can be shown that accounting clearly is if not close to the most important skill in todays’ society and will continue to be in the future. 

Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007 – First Look


Image by programwitch

The Time Accounting module is for maintaining a time card based on Projects and Tasks. Once correctly setup, the tool can, in addition to the working units in OTRS, be a great controll point for managers and company owners, not only for billable hours, but for personnal management. This short video will help you understand and setup the basics.
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How To Plan And Prioritize Your Time As A New Sales Manager

Plan and prioritize your time! was the first instruction ever given to me by my very first sales manager. He was ex army and I was fresh out of

university.

I had a whole lot of enthusiasm and not much else. He had the experience, though maybe not the best coaching skills.

I laugh now about how bad I was. I can honestly say planning was one of the best and most productive skills I ever learnt.

Time management and organization are like evergreen trees- they never lose their importance and are frequently discussed topics in managing a sales team.

With the economy the way it is it is so easy to panic and run around,trying to do every thing. Where as, if you take time to sit down and really think about what you want to achieve, your focus and results can’t help but happen.

Everyone tends to understand that the key ingredient to living a life that is less stressful, moreenjoyable and one that allows you to find the time to fit everything into a jam-packed schedule is proper planning and prioritizing of your time.

What most people don’t seem to know is how to make that happen!

How can you prioritize your work and tasks so that you have enough time for it all, and still keep your sanity?

Get a Calendar/Planner/Diary

Regardless of what you call it, you need to have some sort of calendar that you use to plan out your time.

Preferably one that you can carry around with you, and physically write in- but some people might find the digital versions to be just as effective.

The trend is for everything electronic. It doesn’t really matter as long as it happens. You might be surprised to know that I have actually gone back to a page a day large diary.

Its great to be able to write things down quickly. The bonus is psychologically I feel great to when I see how much I have got through.

The night before each day, take 15 minutes to plan the following day.

Using To-Do Lists Effectively.

Making a list of 50 things that need to be done is not the best use of your time; nor will it actually help you manage your time better.

I follow a great tip that you will find in a number of books. Look at your major goals that you want to achieve say over the next 90 days.

Focus on your top five.

You could make these business or a mix of business and personal. Then committ to do something each day with each one. It could be minor.

Let me give you an example. Say you decide that you want to have a team vision by the end of the 90 days.

So your week might look like this:

Day 1: Decide and brain storm all the positive things about having a vision.Set your outcome.

Day 2: Research in full the company vision and how that could translate to your team.

Day 3: Email your boss to let them know what you are

doing.

Day 4: Plan out an email to the team

Day 5: Email the team to test the water

Each of these things won’t take long. Do these for each of your goals and you will be astounded how quick things happen.

A great top tip is when creating your list of things to do. Be realistic on how longs thing take. I have a theory that at birth all sales managers have a chip that is planted.

This makes us think we are superhuman. Fast does not always mean best.

Prioritise Tasks

Most Sales Managers are overwhelmed with a large number of activities that need to be done on a regular basis.

The best way to effectively plan your time and keep things under control is to prioritise the tasks according to their level of importance.

When working through the creation of your to-do list; you would want to schedule your urgent, or most important tasks for earlier in the day, to make sure they get completed.

As the day goes on, unexpected interuptions may cause some of your tasks to go undone; so it’s always a good idea to do the most pressing activities before doing those that are not quite as important.

It also has a psychological effect.It gives an energy boost.

To be technical its actually an energy release.

Think of how you feel when you have gone through your expenses finally and they are emailed or posted to the boss. Feels great don’t you think?

Delegate, Do, or Schedule

You’ve no doubt heard the saying:

Don’t put off til tomorrow what can be done today.

While this is true for avoiding procrastination, there is nothing wrong with scheduling less-urgent tasks for a later day or time- as long as you are actually scheduling them to be done and not just avoiding them!

When things come up during the day that you can do in under two minutes, just do them right away.

This could be answering an email, filing information, or putting a client’s folder in the file cabinet(versus setting it on the desk to do later!)

If there are tasks that you are faced with completing that someone else on your team could do just as well- quickly delegate those items to the proper people with a scheduled deadline for completion.

This only works effectively if you don’t have to spend as much time explaining the project as you would just completing it yourself, so make sure the activity is really something that can be delegated before passing it off.

The keys to successful delegation are that the person is capable of completing the work; they know when it’s due and will keep to that deadline; and it is a task that delegation results in giving you time to work on a more urgent matter.

Sales Management in This Recession – Improve Your Sales Team?s Performance

We limit ourselves when it comes to selling and business development. Here is another story from my networking association meeting the other night.  This article can help you or your people overcome self limiting sales beliefs and develop more business faster.

 

Back to the two ladies I talked about in my previous story, after I asked my favorite question.  “So ladies, what are your major issues as it relates to business development during this economic down time,” here is what happened.

I started giving my suggestions about what they could do about the low price issue (see previous story.)  As I’m talking, one lady is sort of listening as the other is checking out all the other people to see if there is someone better that she can network to.  As people walk by she actually starts talking to them as I’m talking and then comes back to my golden nuggets of selling wisdoms.  Obviously she wasn’t interested in hearing what she could to do about her issue.  The other paid a little closer attention, but then wanted to tell me why the customer was wrong.  Basically, without words, she told me she was going to continue doing it her way.

Now here is the irony.  These people need to win more deals.  Their business floats with the economy, meaning good economy, more business and bad economy, less business – always the same share or the pie.  Yet, their employers want business – no matter good or bad economy.  This means in a bad economy their share has to get bigger or they have to beat the competition more often.  So why don’t these people want to get some tips and try to use them?  Here are 2 reasons why.

People that are employed are content and feel they don’t need to do anything different.  If anything they want to change their employer – i.e. complaints, suggestions, and excuses.  Even if they are on an incentive or commission they blame the company for their failures.  That’s why I advocate a negative commission, i.e. you lose money if you lose a sale that’s forecasted.

These people have no reason (in their mind) to change.  This is where management has to step in (a) to tell their people what they have to do – coaching, and (b) then hold them accountable for producing results – task master.

People hold themselves back.  From childhood we are conditioned to attain a level (get a job.)  People get so far i.e. employed with a steady paycheck, and they have subconsciously reached their level.  Yes, everybody says they want more, but they are held back by their own negative self talk, and this, believe it or not, keeps them in their comfort zone.  Subconsciously they are saying, “The devil I know is better than the one I don’t.” or “Why invest in self improvement, I’m good at what I do.” or “This is as good as it get’s.  Why risk, why make the effort?” or “It’s everyone else’s fault,” or some other limiting negative self talk.

This again is where managers have to step in.  They have to realize these self limits about their people and (c) train them on how to sell,- trainer (d) show them on how to do it, – mentor  and (e) again, hold them accountable for the implementation – task master.  The lack of accountability for implementation is why training and self-help fails.  Without reinforcing the changes, the negative self talk that is solidly programmed in the minds of everyone, takes over and sabotages any progress towards change.  See John Assaraf’s book The Answer for more on this topic.  www.johnassaraf.com  

So the moral of this story is that employed people do not have the incentive to change.  They are content in their status and unless someone – like a manager – is not content with their outcome, nothing will happen to raise the level.  It’s as good as it gets with more of the same happening, but everyone hoping for better results – the classic definition of insanity.

And now I invite you to learn more.

Bonus tip:  If you’d like to see to what extent your people limit themselves, use this FREE SALES TEAM ASSESSMENT TOOL.  Just click this C-Level Relationship Selling Link -  http://takemetoyourleaders.com/Assessment . Sam Manfer makes it easy for any sales manager to be effective coaching his or her sales people to feel comfortable connecting with and relationship selling C-Level leaders.