MODERN BUSINESS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 285, 1 December 1936, Page 19

MODERN BUSINESS.

ACCOUNTANTS' LARGER PART.

ADMINISTRATIVE FUNCTION.

"The accountant is destined to play a very much larger part in the administration of industry than lie does to-day. The accountant's activities in connection with budgetary control and standard costs are gradually assuming greater importance in the structure of industry," remarks "The Accountant" (London), in an introductory note on a paper by Mr. Robert Asliworth 011 "The Accountant's Activities in the Commercial World." The writer referred mainly to the work of the accountant actively engaged in the management of the accounting and financial interests of some large industrial or commercial undertaking and variably styled chief accountant, administrative accountant, or controller. "Such an accountant's activities," he states, "have become increasingly important during the past 25 years by reason of the wide expansion of business activity, keenness of national and international competition, and the increased complexity of commercial and industrial transactions, so that to-day there is not much room in business management for the accountant whose imagination carries him 110 further than the preparation of the trading and profit and loss account, balance sheet, and comparative statements showing increases decreases "in""f-uriraven expenses, etc. "The administrative accountant must be able to visualise, through his figures, the operations of the business in all its departments, whether they be manufacturing, purchasing, selling, or administrative, and must place himself by investigation in a position to answer the question why? "As chartered accountants we have been trained to the principle that the practising accountant should only deal with the past results as such, but the administrative accountant is concerned with past history only in so far as it throws light 011 changing tendencies and, of course, for the purpose of his directors in accounting to their shareholders. "He must watch carefully the day-to-day manufacturing, trading, and financial position of the concern and use his skill in attempting to ascertain the probability of future business trends so that he may sound the alarm if necessary at the earliest moment, for 110 other executive has the benefit of the detached view of the business possessed by him, and consequently the other members of the management are entitled to look to him for help in this direction.

"There are, however, many concerns, burdened with incompetent _ general management in which, for obvious I't'jisons. the accountant is not allowed to use his full administrative capacity for the benefit of the business. In such concerns the 'trial and error lack ot method rules supreme." . Mr. Asliworth remarks that in a well -organised business the accountant is responsible for all accounting and statistical systems, and his activities on this side of his work should be directed to producing such accounts and statistics as will enable him to read and interpret the story of the business with maximum speed and efficiency.