What Is The Function Of Accounting Department?

The function of an accounting department is to look after the finances of a company. This can be anything from paying bills to making sure that the employees that work for the company get paid.

The main accounting department functions are;

• Making payments.

Making sure that all bills are paid by the company, on time and also at the least cost possible. If there is a discount for paying quickly, the accounts department will usually pay the bills as soon as possible so that the company spends as little money as they possibly can. They are responsible for all outgoing payments and making sure that what they are paying is correct.

• Payroll

The accounts department have to ensure that the employees are all paid correctly and on time. They also have to make sure that all of the employees are paying the right amount of tax and that they have not made any mistakes with tax brackets and government payments on behalf of the employees.

• Receiving payments.

The accounting department must also receive payments and make sure that these are all processed correctly. These will all be payments for the services or products the company has provided and they must ensure that they have paid all relevant tax. There will also be an element of chasing up payments and making sure that all of the payments are received when they should be.

• Budgets.

They are also responsible for giving budgets and estimates of what they feel the company should be spending. These may be split by department or function and they must also predict budget figures for years to come so that the company knows what it should be spending and more importantly, charging to customers.

Preparing salaries
preparing invoices
recording sales in the sales journal
controlling the petty cash flow
controling the petty cash book
making payments to creditors
following up with the debtors

Accounting departments typically handle a variety of important tasks. Such tasks often include invoicing customers, accounts receivable monitoring and collections, account reconciliations, payables processing, consolidation of multiple entities under common ownership, budgeting, periodic financial reporting as well as financial analysis. Also common are setting up adequate internal controls for all business processes (to prevent theft/misappropriation of assets), handling external audits and dealing with banks in order to obtain financing. Taxes are sometime handled by accounting departments in house, but this work is often contracted to outside tax accountants.