The Importance Of Accounting Essay, Research Paper

The Importance Of Accounting In Our Modern Society

Accounting is a very important term to our modern society. It is the career for men and women who at the start have their eyes set on top positions in industry, management, government, and general business. Accounting is a basic need of every businessmen, from the operator of a filling station to the government of the United States. It s so important to our society. None of the business organization can operate without is. They are there-somewhere-in every business. In small business, people use pen, ink and skill keep teh records. In large business, modern accounting machines are used to operate. Men and women are directing these machines in the accounting process. Wise businessmen enter business must have some accounting knowledge.

Accounting is a vital element of business. It records the way a business has grown and, after analyzing figures, suggests the way it should go in the future. Furtunes are gambled on the advice of accountants.

If your friend has ever operated a business and you saw him placing figures in ledgers, then you saw him doing bookkeeping. If you have worked at a service station or supermarket and have seen books with large sheets lined in green and red lying on the manager s table or desk, you saw books of accounting.

Accounting is one of the fastest growing fields in the United States It expands each time a new store, a factory, a filling station, or a school goes up, whether in a large city or a small town. In today s society, the demand for good accountants for exceeds the supply. As our country has expanded, business and industry have become more and more complex, so control here is very important. And control depends on a great deal of the bookkeepers and accountants who can analyze figues and advise management on what should be done. They are using more scientific ways changing money, figuring change, and collecting sales taxes. Moreover, department stores and other companies now have plants and offices widely scattered throughout the country. A new set of bookkeepers and accountants, is needed at each branch. I know there are many managements supervisory, and junior or senior executive positions are bing filled by people who started as accountants because accountants have the knowledge of methods and finance and comprehension of the fundamentals of business, and accounting is the foundation of sound business.

The two kinds of accountants, public accountants and private accountants serve different important functions in business organization. Business enterprises, government agencies, and nonprofit institutions, such as universities and churches more are more likely use public accountant. They offer their services to the general public on a fee basis in much the same way as do lawyers, doctors, and dentists. In addition, the larger firms have professional accountants on their staff who work for a salary, but are also considered public accountants. The two important areas, auditing and tax services are also the job for public accountants.

In a single business enterprise or nonprofit organization, the main job for private accounts in to handle the finanacial records. Manufacturing or other concerns are also need accountants, in that situation, they are often called industrial accountants. In addition, accountants are employeed by all branches of federal state, and local government, including government-owned corporations. Accountants in private and government work customarily specialize in the performance of a single type of accounting service, they may do any of the types of accounting service just described above. They also tend to become specialists in a narrow field of employment such as a particular branch of manufacturing, public utilities, or transportation.

Except public accountants and private accountants, there are some other general category of accountants who are taking important parts in business organizations. They are managerial accountants, controller, cost accountant, government accountant, internal accountant and teaching accountant. Each of the accountant serves different function in business organization.

A company needs well-organized management. Managerial accountant is a kind of person hired by a company and trained to be a manager one day. The managerial accountant, needs to learn all aspects of the company people, products, plants, and equipments. They should know how to handle management responsibility, and administrative skills.

A company needs somebody to record its financial operating datas, and measure performance, and it needs somebody to interpret results of operations, and to plan and make recommendations for actions. Controller is this kind person of the company and is responsible for the records of the company s operation. His or her job is not only deal with finances, but also deal with people, products, equipments and material. In addition, he or she also needs to concern about sales and profit of the company. Like the president or vicepresident, controller has opportunities to exercise imagination and judgement and to make rewarding contribution to the company.

A corporation may exist many different items in managactures, and those items go hundreds of various sized and priced componenets. The sales office will have to know the production cost of each item in order ot arrive at a sales price that will contain a profit for the company. A cost accountant works on it. He studies the items one by one, figures the cost of every parts of the products, and then arrives at the production cost of each item.

Organizations of federal, state, or municipal government also need accountants to help their business. Government accountants come to do a variety of financial management work. They may deal with auditing, designing and maintaining. They may do budgeting and administrative duties requiring the use of accounting information.

A modern business organization needs internal accountant to see whether the assets of a business are properly protected and accounted for, that current trasactions are completely recorded, or the company s waste and loss whether to be saved or not.

High schools, colleges or universities are also need accounting professors to teach students accounting techniques. Teaching accountants, who know a great deal about accounting and has had some practical experience in dealing with persons and businesses, ready to pass along their knowledge and experiences to students and future accountants. In small schools, teachers have other duties besides their work in the classrooms. They serve as school secretaries, bookkeepers, statistical clerks, and managers in lunchrooms. In addition to the accounts mentioned above, you may also find tax accountant, a systems and control accountant, a budget accountant, or an auditor.

Working people need to pay taxes. Tax is so important to our society. It s a main financial imcome of the government. People have to pay different kinds of tax according to their imcome. For example, they need to pay imcome tax, social security tax, state unemployment tax, federal excise tax, state and local sales and miscellantous taxes, property taxes, and federal and state taxes on corportation imcomes. As an accountant, one of the job he needs to do is to hepl people to pay taxes. Taxes and accounting are intervined. In dividual tax liabilities are arrived at by an accounting process. Large corporations that pay taxes in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, hire many accountants. Thus, accountant is tightly related to the tax adminatration.

Accountants use skills in tax matters to help prepare people yearly report. According to the statistics, In California, individual CPA practitioners report that around 21 percent of their business is tax work. Public accountant practitioners, who are closer to the small income earners, report that 25 percent of their business is tax work. Especially public accountants, their large percentage of income is come from tax work. Because of the development of the modern society and increasement of peoples income, more and more accountants are needed for tax work.

Sound business needs good record, so control accountants are needed for this. They can help and advice managers to well develop their business.

Some government firms and other organizations such as banks, stores, schools, churches, need auditors to operate the business. The auditor s report will be of particular value to stockholders and creditors, since it shows an impartial opinion of the company is financial condition. For the management of the company, the auditor can often make very valuable suggestions for cutting costs, minmizing tax liabilities, and finding new ways to increase profits.

Let s look some accounting jobs in government. There are two million federal employees are working for the government , dealing with problems of population, education, transportation, national security, welfare and others. Accountants, auditors, system analysts, and budget administrators are helping to maintain the stability in modern governmental operations. United Stated is teh largest enterprise in the world today, we can imagine how complexity of the business got to be, so accountants take important parts in the operation of these business. They work for department of Agriculture, department of Commerce, department of Defense, department of Health, Edaucaiton, and Welfare, post offic edepartment and department of teh Treasury.

Department of Agriculture deal with agricultural production, chemistry, economics, engineering, marketing, conservation, price support, and production adjustment problems. The department nees accountants to help its programs. The main job for accountant in this agency is to develop and maintain financial management systems, prepare and analyze budgetary and program lost statements, check costs of commercial food processors and producers, audit various operations in the office and in the field, and check records of commercial, cooperative, and state and municipal organizations participating in agricultural programs.

Department of Commerce performs a wide range of operations. It gathers information about domestic and foreign industries and trade, publishes technical information for the government, and handles allocations of materials necessary to military and atomic energy programs. It s also a place which needs accountants. Accountants here maintain regulatory and cost accounting systems, and audit steamship, railroad, and utility companies.

Department of defense is an department which includes departments of the Army, Navy, and Air Force. This department has established an ideal career program to help recruit auditors and accountants. The department needs a well-qualified accountants and auditors. Those accountants are needed to handle cost accounting, property and inventory accounting, inernal and external auditing, and budgeting.

Under the department of Health, Education, and Welfare, there are Public Health Servide, the Food and Drug Administration, the Office of Education, the Social Security Administration, and the Office of Vacational Rehabilitation. Those offices are located every where in the United States, so countless accountants are needed to operate in these organizations. The work mostly involves cost accounting, hospital accounting budgeting, auditing, and financial mangement.

Post Office Deartmetn is another place which needs accountants assistants. This large department employs more than 560,000 persons and operates over 35,000 post offices. Besides that, it provides money-order and postal-saving services. All this naturally involves large sums of money and huge volumes of transactions. To handle it all, The depatment has set up within its organization a Bureau of Finance, which looks after the the accounting, budgeting, cost accounting, keeping statistics and financial data,

and financial management work.

Department of the Treasury serves as the government s banker, bookkeeper, disburser, collector, trustee, investor, lender, printer of the currency, coiner of money, supervisor of national banks, and financial advisor to the President and Congress. It s not hard to see that each of these duties involves accounting. The Treasure Department needs men and women educated and trained in accounting, auditiing, budgeting, and financial management. Here accountants may be systems accountants, general accountants, cost accountants, internal auditors, revenue agents, bank examiners, budget and fiscal officers, management analysts, tax analysts, and public debt analysts. There are also a nember of independent agencies with which an accountant may find interesting and challenging work. There are the Atomi Energy Commission, the Farm Credit Administration, the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission and other important commissions, an accountant can find an easy way upward to general administrative and managerial positions.

There is a overseeing department is called the United States Greneral Accounting Office. Just as a company president is the top man over many men and departments below him. The department generally oversees all the other agencies of the government. This vital department is headed by the comptroller General of the United States. As the President is called the Chief Executive of the nation, you could call the comptroller General the Chief Accountant of the nation. His office, an independent agency in the legislative branch, has the vitally important job of making audits of the programs, activities, and financial responsibilities of federal departments and agencies. It even checks government contracts.

Since women s position has been improved in the U.S, accounting also opened its door to women. It can be the world of achievement for the women who is looking for a higher ststus than what is offered by ledgers and journals. Accountants in today s society is expected to know a great deal about management, business practice and theory, taxes, cost accounting, auditing, and systems and controls. To the woman who can train these and other subjects gose the opportunity to work at the management level with executives and leaders of business. Women also have opportunities for specialization and self-employment in an accounting firm. That s why I say accounting is the door which widely open to women, and more and more women are stepping into it. According to the statistics By 1910, there were about 190,000 women engaged in the occapation. From 1940-1950 the increase in female bookkeepers was 37,395. An estimate, based on the 1950 census, showed 556,229 women bookkeepers compared to only 164,748 men in the same employment. The figures show women occupy a large percentage in accounting field.

Accounting is every where. Non eof the business or nonbusiness organization can stay longer without it. There is no doubt that all the business require some people who have some experience or knowledge in bookkeeping and accounting. More and more employers prefer employees with some knowledge of bookkeeping and accounting. There are other some examples of accounting job are required in different business:

Office Manager accountant, excellent salary, may advance to plany controller.

Typist bookkeeper

Stenegrapher bookkeeper

Statistical Clerk bookkeeper

Typist some bookkeeping preferable

Church Secretary bookkeeping experience essential

Secretary typist, general bookkeeper

Salesman experienced in bookkeeping

Accounting is so important in our modern society. It serves a variety range of place in our society. It serves a variety range of place in our soceity, from school to hospital, from business firm to government agencies. It s also the main force in regulation of taxation and industrial activity. It serves a great aspects on the development of mass-production systems, any way, it s a very important term in our modern soceity.

Bibliography

1. Backer, M., Handbook of Modern Accounting Therory.

2. Abbott, Lawrence, Economics and The Modern World.

3. J.K. Lasser Tax Institute, How to start and Build a successful business.

4. Don E. Garner The Nature and purpose of accounting.