Paper Sample on Professionals Who Keep Corporations Running: Accountants

Introduction

Accountants are significant professionals who are involved in running a corporation as they help to maintain records and track the expenditure of the company. Accounting professionals can monitor the company's income and expenses to ascertain that the organization complied with the statutory requirements. These professionals incorporate an inquiring mind to their tasks based on their knowledge of the financial information of the firm. Additionally, these professionals use their skills and professional understanding of the organization as well as the environment in which the company operates in to ask challenging questions. Furthermore, their training enables accountants to adopt an objective and pragmatic approach to solving issues in the company. Therefore, accountants become a valuable asset to the management as they assist with, provision of advice, developing corporate strategy, and at the same time help the company to reduce unnecessary costs and risks.

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Role of Accountants in a Business

Accountants are essential assets as they represent the interests of the stakeholders of the company. They have significant roles that range from governing the corporation through the approval of annual budgets to determining the compensation of the management team.

Protectors of Public Interest

Accountants, as professionals, have a vital duty to the stakeholders. As a professional, an accountant is expected to promote the public interest by maintaining high standards as well as maintain the ethical standards of the company. According to Calgio and Carmen (2017), the credibility and status that are ascribed to the accounting profession are connected to the technical expertise as well as the accountant's ability to create a public image as that of an ethical expert. Accountants need to be trusted to provide value to the stakeholders. Nevertheless, accountants will lose their legal status as protectors of public interest if there is no public interest. Additionally, accountants must act ethically and create a general perception that they are ethical.

Competing Demands

Accountants are often conflicted between maintaining values that are primary to their profession and the demands of the real world. As a professional, an accountant is expected to balance these competing demands as compared to simply performing a task or having a job. Professional accountants are expected to utilize professional judgment when playing their roles so that when they are faced with challenges, they will not take steps that will result in losing the stakeholders' trust as protectors of their interests. The global ethical code for professional accountants compels them to confidently uphold values such as objectivity, integrity, due care as well as professional competence while maintaining their professional behavior. Nevertheless, competing pressures can put accountants in tough situations as they revolve around ethics, regulations as well as commercial demands.

Some of these tough situations may necessitate outcomes that require risk that compromises compliance with financial reporting and accounting rules. As such, it is up to the accountants to provide advice on the most appropriate strategy that can be applied to achieve the required financial outcome. Moreover, accountants can demonstrate their business acumen and expertise for the management to rely on them for business advice (Blackburn et al., 2018).

Evolving Role of Accountants in an Evolving Environment

Accountants as professionals are valuable when they can provide the company with healthy as well as ethical recommendations that give the company a competitive edge (Gerstein & Friedman, 2016). Similar to the other professions, professional accountants also face the challenge of demonstrating their importance in the capital market. Additionally, they are challenged to demonstrate their ability to evolve and face new issues. Moreover, public expectations are high for accountants. As such, the value of professional accountants is measured by the degree to which they are alleged to be accountable to both their organizations and to the stakeholders. Professional accountants are a vital pillar in organizations as they help to create and maintain growth and value. Furthermore, their ability to continue to fulfill these responsibilities while facing continuous environmental adjustments is crucial to their constant importance. Professional accountants in an organization are also fore-runners in regards to upholding the quality of financial reporting as well as the provision of reliable financial information to the general public.

Professional accountants are essential vital mass in regards to the global accountancy profession. Public education concerning the diverse roles of professional accountants in organizations or businesses needs to be improved to increase the relevance of the functions of accountants. Moreover, professional accounting bodies also need to focus on their members in regards to businesses and provide the accountants with the necessary support they need to succeed in performing their roles.

Importance of Accountants

Accountants are important as they provide essential services to the organization. Some of these services include organizing and recording financial data, tax compliance, and other reportorial requirements as well as save money for the organization.

Organized Record of Financial Data

The majority of corporations need to focus on operations that will help to develop and expand their businesses. According to Sidorova et al. (2018), the authority of a corporation can be interrupted, corroded, or destroyed if the records, figures, and files are made mutable, immobilized, less combinable, less readable or unclear when presented. As such, it is necessary to have accountants that will help to ensure that all financial records are maintained and organized. Furthermore, accountants will ensure that financial documents for the organization are not mixed up with other personal materials. This step is essential as having unorganized financial records is stressful to the management as they will not be able to know if they are making a profit or loss. Accountants will ensure that day to day financial records are kept in an organized format by practicing bookkeeping. An organized and systemized record of organizational transactions will save the management time as they will be aware of whether they are making profits or losses.

Tax Compliance and Other Reportorial Requirements

All income earners, including corporations, are required to pay taxes. As such, accountants are essential as they possess the necessary knowledge regarding taxation laws. As such, accountants can be able to compute the tax returns for the organization and, ease the burden of worrying over tax compliance for the organization. In addition, the accountant can provide significant advice on the effective management of tax. Although companies may be tempted to avoid paying taxes to increase their incomes, accountants can offer alternative financial strategies that will help the company to increase profits while at the same time complying with the tax requirements. West (2016) noted that for an accountant to be identified as an expert and a good accountant, he or she should be able to recognize substance over form when recording the company's transactions including the intra-company transactions in preference to the pressures to increase status or wealth either for himself or herself or for the company.

Save Time and Money for the Corporation

Accountants are responsible for keeping track of financial data, filing, and recording financial information, which can be hectic and time consuming for the management team who do not have the necessary expertise. Employing accountants will save time as the management will be able to focus on identifying strategies that will help to develop the business. Additionally, accountants will help the company to identify financial strategies that will result in increased profits as well as the reduction of unnecessary costs and risks. Accountants also help to reduce unnecessary penalties as they can identify and correct accounting books as well as file tax returns on time. Additionally, accounting technologies may be essential as they may help to improve the decision-making process of the management by recognizing the economic and environmental irrationality of a corporation's management practices (Egan, 2018).

Conclusion

Accountants are also essential as they provide the management with strategies, reviews as well as financial reports that will help them to make crucial organizational decisions. Additionally, accountants can help the management to construct plans that will help to promote growth or expansion of the organization. The accountant can also help the management to assess the viability of the procedures to identify areas that can be adjusted to reduce risks or unnecessary costs. Moreover, an accountant can help the management team to gain access to other industries that are related to the business. This identification will provide the organization with greater opportunities for meeting new people who will be included in the organization's network circle. In turn, the new networks may help the organization by supporting specific aspects of the organization's operations.

References

Blackburn, R., Carey, P., & Tanewski, G. (2018). Business advise by accountants to SMEs:Relationships and trust. Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, 15(3), 358-384. doi:10.1108/QRAM-04-2017-0022

Caglio, A., & Cameran, M. (2017). Is it shameful to be an accountant? GenMe perception(s) of accountants’; ethics. Abacus, 53(1), 1-27. doi:10.1111/abac.12098

Egan, M. (2018). Utilizing accounting and accountants in the management of water efficiency. Australian Accounting Review, 28(3), 356-373. doi:10.1111/auar.121917

Gerstein, M., & Friedman, H. H. (2016). The necessity for a new kind of accounting: Conscious accounting. Journal of Accounting and Finance, 16(1), 61.

Sidorova, M., Nazarov, D., & Vakhrushina, M. (2019). The enlightenment as a determinant of accounting change: The case of royal estate bookkeeping during the reign of Catherine II. Accounting History, 24(2), 185-211. doi:10.1177/1032373218814269

West, A. (2018). Multinational tax avoidance: Virtue ethics and the role of accountants. Journal of Business Ethics, 153(4), 1143-1156. doi:10.1007/s10551-016-3428-8