Tool

Accounting training

Training on monetary transactions and compilation of financial statements.

DESCRIPTION

The purpose of accounting is to accumulate and report financial information about the performance, financial position and cash flows of a company or organisation.1 In accounting training, the financial staff are trained in accounting skills such as classification and recording of monetary transactions and compilation of a financial statement, comprising the income statement, balance sheet, statement of cash flows and statement of retained earnings. 1

PURPOSE & LINK TO INTEGRITY

Accounting and finance lie at the heart of any organisation, and serious faults within the management and control of the finances will sooner or later lead to its failure. Good accounting helps to keep the organisation under control and provides information and confidence to make the right decisions.2 Ensuring that financial staff members have sufficient accounting skills is essential to being able to issue accounting transactions correctly, keep the books clean and produce proper financial statements as well as to detect mistakes in accounting activities.

Well-trained financial staff can ensure that accounting serves as an important measure to promote transparency and accountability. The use of transparent financial accounting information enhances the effectiveness of the governance process, which in turn can help prevent corruption.3,4 Disclosure of financial statements and accounting can prevent:3

  • The establishment of off-the-books accounts
  • The making of inadequately identified transactions
  • Recording of non-existent expenditures
  • Entry of liabilities with incorrect identification of their objects
  • Internal destruction of bookkeeping earlier than foreseen by the law.

KEY REQUIREMENTS

  • Do you have an overview of the required skills and knowledge?
  • Which staff members require training on accounting?
  • Which staff members have already been trained during or before their engagement in your organisation?

HOW TO

Basic training in accounting should consist of:

  • Familiarising staff with basic concepts such as income statements, balance sheets, and debits and credits
  • Providing staff with the necessary skills to operate a (computerized) financial accounting system
  • Teaching staff the specific accounting requirements for the particular organization
  • Training staff in bookkeeping
  • Training staff in producing balance sheets and income statements.

It is important that all staff working in finance (also clerks) have at least a basic understanding of accounting procedures.

KEY GUIDING DOCUMENTS

Ryan, B., 2008, Finance and Accounting for Business, Cengage Learning, USA

UN, no year, United Nations Convention Against Corruption. Preamble, United Nations (UN), USA

Arvanitidou, V., Konstantinidou, E., Papadopoulos, D. & Xanthi, C., no year, The role of financial accounting information in strengthening corporate control mechanisms to alleviate corporate corruption, University of Macedonia, Greece

FURTHER  READINGS

Bragg, S., 2011, What is the purpose of accounting?, AccountingTools, http://www.accountingtools.com/questions-and-answers/what-is-the-purpose-of-accounting.html, accessed 28.10.2015

Pearson Education, no year, The importance of financial accounting, Pearson Education, UK

MANGO, 2012, Financial Management Essentials – A Handbook for NGOs, Management Accounting for Non-governmental Organisations (MANGO), UK

IBRD, 2010, Mitigating the risks of corruption, The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), USA

UN HABITAT, 2008, Finance and accounts policies and procedures manual, United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN HABITAT), Uganda

FULL REFERENCES

  1. Bragg, S., 2011, What is the purpose of accounting?, AccountingTools, http://www.accountingtools.com/questions-and-answers/what-is-the-purpose-of-accounting.html, accessed 28.10.2015
  2. Ryan, B., 2008, Finance and Accounting for Business, Cengage Learning, USA
  3. UN, no year, United Nations Convention Against Corruption. Preamble, United Nations (UN), USA
  4. Arvanitidou, V., Konstantinidou, E., Papadopoulos, D. & Xanthi, C., no year, The role of financial accounting information in strengthening corporate control mechanisms to alleviate corporate corruption, University of Macedonia, Greece
Last updated 11 April 2019

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