Effective Administration of Accounts - A solution to get rid of Economic Crimes

Effective Administration of Accounts - A solution to get rid of Economic Crimes

By Dr. Lalit Kumar Setia |  @drlalitsetia  |  drlalitsetia@gmail.com  |  March 4, 2018 1:26 a.m. PST

The administration of accounts is a great job in itself. The Accounts Administrators bear the responsibilities of supervising the accounting functions at their work-space including keeping accounts through proper book-keeping method, deduction of taxes, invoicing, and management of inventory. In public sector organizations, the role of Accounts Administrators becomes more tedious with the intervention of bureaucrats and dealing public in addition to supervising the accounting operations. They trust upon the accounting staff and assign duties to the staff members. Around the world, there is huge demand of Accounts Administrators and the category includes the Accounts officers and Auditors. Even in India, most of the students are opting engineering and science streams after matriculation, and the area of finance, accounts is becoming more lucrative now-a-days. Due to globalization and growing Indian economy, it is must to have an exposure to the various applications relating to accounts administration.

The Faculty of Financial Administration, Gurugram (Delhi-NCR), India (Asia) designed a module to sharpen the accounting and financial skills of executives working in the public sector organizations of Haryana state in order to reduce the number of scams, embezzlement, and financial irregularities by spreading awareness on tips to effective accounts administration and investigation of economic crimes at the work-space. The duties and responsibilities with regard to effective accounts administration covers:

(i) Monitoring bills, receipts, and expenditures: 

The Accounts Administrators are responsible for receiving and verifying billing (e-billing) and requisitions (invoices) for goods and services. They ensure that accounts receivable and payable are taken care of in a timely manner and they contact clients (citizens) and vendors (sellers) to achieve and accomplish the desired operations.

(ii) Analyzing data and extracting information

It is required to ensure the compliance of financial rules, policies, and procedures in financial transactions. In order to ensure compliance, it is required to analyze the transactions keeping in view the required information. The Accounts Administrators use the analyzed information as basis of financial decisions.

(iii) Keeping Organized Financial Records

It is duty of the Accounts Administrator to keep the financial records as per accounting standards. In public sector organizations, the standards are formulated by Government Accounting Standards Advisory Board (GASAB), working under Comptroller and Auditor General of India.

(iv) Invoicing and Tracking of Vouchers

The Government of India is transforming the manual vouchers into digital vouchers and the e-sign implementation is also under progress. Proper invoicing, coding and processing of vouchers is must for ensuring the accuracy of accounting entries. Tracking invoices, digitalizing vouchers and detecting financial irregularities is major duty of an Accounts Administrator.

(v) Supporting Accounting Staff and inculcating team-spirit

The Accounts Administrator requires leadership skills to inculcate team-spirit among the accounting staff working under his/her control. The accounting staff requires support to work independently for ensuring fair accounting principles to be followed in recording financial transactions.

Skills to be imparted in Accounts Administrators: The Accounts Administrators should be equipped with following skills to perform their duties effectively:

(i) Payroll Administration(ii) Monitoring of Expenses as per allocated funds or cash budget(iii) Consistent watch over maintenance of Cash Book(iv) Proficiency in Accounting Software(v) Managerial Skills including Supervision, Negotiation, and Leadership(vi) Auditing(vii) Public Speaking(viii) Information Technology (IT) Skills(ix) Spreadsheet Modeling(x) Quality and Financial Control

Challenges in front of Accounts Administrators:  

The Accounts Administrators require playing various roles for the success of organization. From purchase procedures to enforcement of financial control mechanisms, they require to stay firm in controlling cost of operations. The first challenges is to ensure fair purchases at the workspace, the pooling and malpractices by the contractors and vendors with involving senior officers or staff or ministers or other influential people make their job hard. Secondly, they require keeping accuracy in the vouchers as well as in entries of vouchers in financial books, the unusual expenses if required to be adjusted by management, their role to keep the vouchers and entry safe, becomes tedious. A single mistake can lead to bursting of whole scam in light like in case of Punjab National Bank scam, 'Rotomac' Scam, Coal Scam and Scam in Common Wealth Games. In today’s age of governance through Citizen Charter, C.M. Window, Right to Information Act etc; further made their role tough and difficult.

The course on “Accounts Administration and Investigation of Economic Crimes” covers a lot and includes 20 sessions to be covered by the trainees at Haryana Institute of Public Administration. At the end of the course, there are difficult and practical group interactions to further enrich the knowledge and skills of Accounts Administrators through discussions on practical problems at workspace. The Canberra Institute of Technology provides a certificate course entitled, “Certificate III in Accounts Administration FNS30315 [i]” used to provide knowledge and skills to work effectively as Accounts Administrator. The Cost of the certificate of Canberra Institute of Technology takes from the participation is $880 for one semester (20-hours) face-to-face classes per week plus up to 15 hours per week of online study and independent learning. While, this course designed by Faculty of Financial Management of Haryana Institute of Public Administration (HIPA) only charges training fees of Rs. 3000 (Three Thousands only) equivalent to $60 for 20-hours face-to-face classes per week. However, the course is meant for only Government officers/officials of Haryana Government Offices.

*Copyright © 2018 Dr. Lalit Kumar. All rights reserved. Dr. Lalit Kumar is a free-lance writer with publication of research papers in various esteemed and reputed journals. Presently he is working as Course Director (Faculty of Financial Management), HIPA, Gurugram (Delhi-NCR), India (Asia). 

You might also be interested in reading the following:

1. Duties of a Clerk in Government Departments or Public Sector Entities  2. Social Responsibilities of Business  3. Effective Administration of Accounts - A solution to get rid of Economic Crimes  4. Untold story of IL&FS  5. Purchase Procedures including Government e-Marketplace and Combating Corruption 6. Government Accounting and Audit Mechanisms