Every business needs to take a step back and analyze how it’s operating from time to time. This is also a good practice if you want to focus on how a specific department in your company could improve. If you’re performing an audit of how your accounting department works, there is a variety of factors to consider. Here are five key points you’ll want to make sure you’re doing if you want to have a successful accounting department.
1. You have the staff you need for the jobs you are trying to accomplish.
Put simply, if you don’t have the right team or team members, you won’t be able to handle accounting properly. If your employees are overworked, it might be time to look at hiring a new staff member. If your employees are underworked, they may be growing bored or even committing time theft as a result of the fact that you have too little for them to do.
In these sorts of situations, you either need to scale up your accounting team’s responsibility or you need to eliminate a position or two.
2. Your accounting department has the supplies and equipment needed to do their job.
Without the right tools, no team in your company can succeed. This is particularly true of your accountants since they often need advanced software and other programs in order to perform their work efficiently.
Professional development opportunities also fall under this category. Tax law changes often, so making sure that everyone in your department understands the latest rules and regulations is important if you want to thrive.
3. Marketing material is on point to attract new accounts.
If you’re actively looking to grow your company, your accountants may have to represent their work to other potential clients. When it comes to attracting new accounts, it’s important to present a professional image of your business’ work, culture, and past successes.
Even internally, having custom presentation folders can make a big difference when it comes to putting your best foot folder and showing how serious your company is. A professional, consistent brand can do wonders for both company morale and outsiders’ perspectives about your business.
4. You are outsourcing work that is overwhelming your team.
It’s worth noting that in some situations your team may be working at its maximum capacity but still need extra help. If your business isn’t able to hire another full-time employee because of the cost of extra benefits and health insurance costs, it may be worth looking into outsourcing a function of your accounting department elsewhere.
Maybe that looks like having your current team continue to handle your brick and mortar sales while Fully Accountable eCommerce accountants handle your online sales. Being able to clear up a portion of the workload while entrusting it with a team of collaborative, third-party experts can give everyone involved peace of mind that your accounting will continue to be completed on time and accurately.
5. You have clear channels of communication.
Many times, the best ideas for how to improve a department come from within. After all, the junior staff members working in the trenches are much more familiar with the daily workload than their supervisors or anyone in the C suite. By establishing a workplace culture where all employees are empowered to discuss their ideas with higher-ups, it becomes easier to capture these sorts of suggestions.
Establishing quarterly or monthly all-staff meetings can be a great way to more efficiently gather employee suggestions and concerns. With all of this information, it becomes much easier to continue improving your accounting department, as well as other areas of your business.
