How you should run your accounting department

Here are some tips for running your accounting department:

1. Keep your accounting department accountable! If you want to run your accounting department well, keep it accountable. I know, this needs some explaining. The fact is that accountants occupy a very unique place within a company's structure. They're trained to deal in the single most difficult aspect of business, that is, how to keep track of all those numbers. Accountants have many responsibilities, ranging from keeping track of company gains and losses to taking careful account of what's being spent on company credit cards. Now, many accountants that you'll meet fit a definite personality type: intelligent, hardworking, orderly, bookish, relatively clean and quiet, etc. It's funny, therefore, to learn that company accountants often feel a sense of superiority that has to do with the intricacies of their job: i.e., no one else can do it; they're the accountants, everybody else accounts to them. But who's keeping watch over the accounts? Who are the accounts accountable to?

2. You, of course-you're the big cheese, the big man or woman on top, the boss, the head, the brains, the power, the energy, the drive, the gusto, the spirit. Ideally you are, anyhow. The point is, you're the head of the accounting department, not Larry or Mary or whoever else you've put in charge in there. What does this mean? For one, it means that you're going to have to know something about accounting. That's right: you're really going to have to know something about accounting. The only way for you to run your accounting department properly is to know how an accounting department should be properly run. The only way for you to run your accounting department properly is to show your accounts, through word and deed, that you're up to the task when it comes to overseeing what they're doing day by day. Now, we're not talking about intimidation here; we're talking about regular employee-leader relationships. But hearken back to what I said earlier about the unique attitude that accountants can sometimes get. This attitude can only be checked if you've done your homework regarding accounting.

3. I don't want to give the impression that all accounts are uppity, damp-palmed, mealy-mouthed prigs who disdain authority and resent being accountable to someone. Not at all! Again, most accountants that work for you are the salt of the earth, the best folks out there. But still-you don't want to leave any doors to temptation open, however creakily. It's perfectly natural for even honest human beings to take a little time off here and a little time off there, to cut a corner here and a corner there, in order to ease their lives a bit and relax their minds from a difficult, tedious task. You want to make sure that your accountants get plenty of needed breaks; but at the same time you want to make sure that they're not taking more breaks than they need just because you can't tell the difference between an accountant at work and an accountant at rest.

4. Finally, therefore, it's a good idea to hold regular meetings with your accountants to get a whole overview of the company's direction, successes, failures, and so forth. If you want to really impress your accountants, keep your own book (or books) on this important information. Compare notes. Trust me, if Larry says, "Well, we spent-and-such in February," and you come back with, "Are you sure, Lar? My book shows that we spent such-and-such," jaws are going to drop and a new respect will enter the room. To run an accounting department properly, in other words, become, as much as is possible, an accountant yourself.

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