Financial Accounting

Financial Accounting

Financial accounting or ‘book-keeping’ is the process of recording

financial transactions from the day-to-day operation of a business.

The sale of goods to a customer and the subsequent settlement of the

debt are two examples of financial transactions.

Sales Accounting

When credit sales are made to customers, a record needs to be kept of

amounts owing and paid. Payment is normally requested with an invoice.

An invoice usually gives details of goods supplied, quantities, prices

and VAT. Credit sales are usually made on weekly a basis, which means

that the customer has to pay within that period to obtain the

discounts, if any offered. Overdue payments need to be chased, so

sales accounting systems normally produce reports analysing the

indebtedness of different customers. Debt control is vital to business

profitability and computerised systems can produce prompt and

up-to-date reports as a by-product of the main application.

Human Resources

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The human resources (personnel) function is responsible for the

selection (usually by interview), recruitment, training and

development of staff. Personnel records on employees will store all

the information needed by Salaries and Wages to make the correct

payments to employees; this will include details of, for example,

gross salary, tax code, statutory sick pay and holiday entitlement.

Depending on the size of the organisation, information may also be

held concerning: qualifications, courses attended; and career

development plans.

Design

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The design function is present where an organisation develops its own

products and services; a trader who simply buys and sells goods has no

need of a design team unless designing logo’s etc which maybe carried

out by another firm. Design is part of the research and development

(R&D) function, which is vital to organisations wishing to radically

develop their product range. The nature of design teams depends on the

product or service being designed. The skills and talents of a car

design team are clearly very different from those of a team designing

a cover for a magazine.

Production

Markets for a business’s products should ideally, drive the production

function. In other words, it should be geared to produce the necessary

mix and quantities of products required by customers. If goods ar...

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...ons need specialist staff to

develop, introduce, maintain and update the various systems that make

use of information technology. The responsibilities of ICT Services

are much broader than those traditional held by wholly centralised

computer services or data processing departments because communication

is a larger part of IT with the introduction of the internet and

E-mail amongst other things.. The development of cheaper and more

powerful microcomputer systems has resulted in computer facilities

being distributed more widely. For this reason, ICT Services needs to

provide a much more flexible service and support user systems at the

point of use. For example, uses of network workstations need support

when equipment, such as a shared printer, breaks down or they may

require help in the use of software on the network. This contrasts

with a centralised department, which holds all the computer equipment,

carries out all computer processing and restricts user access to

specialised applications, run through dedicated terminals. ICT

Services may be known variously as Computer Services, Management

Information Services or less commonly now, the Data Processing

Department.