ruba dub dub, accounting in a tub

true, so let's delineate the pecking order amongst these groups of people:

1) production/sales = top dogs, if no product, you have no business 2) management = visionaries and leadership differentiate winners from losers 3) marketing = a good marketing gimmick drives up sales and profits. bad marketing loses sales and kills off a business 4) banking = raising money is important; if stock price drops, key programmers will quit

And lowest on the pecking order are: secretary, photo copy boy, accountants, and the undocumented worker who empties the garbage cans late a night

you don't have a choice; the nice nurse gives it for you and you never find out the price until you get the bill from the hospital's ACCOUNTANT 3 months later!

"mrs. eliza humperdink" wrote

And the billings, accounts receivable, deposits, etc are all accounted for by, if not performed by-----TA DA !!!!!!!

Manangement makes many of their decisions based on reports of prior revenues and expenses (known as finaicial statements) and possibly from proforma (forward looking) financial statements, and budgets prepared by-----TA DA !!!!

How does management know what what their break even point is? How does manangement know what their fixed and variable costs are? Oh wait - they ask the accountant.

And the marketing budget, their actual expenditures, the accounts payable to marketing vendors, etc is managed by and reported on by -------TA DA !!!!!!

Besides, you can drive up sales and lose money. That is, if you don't know your break even price point.

And how would they know if not for the reporting of the revenues and expenses by ------- TA DA !!!!!

None of which happen without the financial reports prepared by and audited by-----TA DA !!!!!!

Accounting, and the accounting department, often times staffed with gosh - accountants - plays a crucial role in the business on a daily basis.

Oh yeah, all those people you mentioned above, the production and sales people, management people, marketing people, etc and so on......they want to get - like - paid and stuff. That is another function of the accounting department, performed by - accountants. No payroll - no happy employees.

if you have to rely on highly dubious ad hoc cost allocation rules to determine whether you are "break even" or not (and whether your aspirin tablet is costing $2500 or not!), let me tell you something

-- your accounting-based calculation aint worth the paper it's written on.

yeah, and what happens when you myopically fixate on your numbers? every few quarters, you wind up like citicorp and take a $17 BILLION dollar writeoff. bwahaaahahaha! I guess all those "break even" calculations their accountants so carefully worked out down to the last penny wasn't quite as accurate as they thought!!! bwaaaahaahhaaa!

and with your complicated, ad hoc appreciation and amortization and cost allocation rules, your calcuation aint worth anything either. At least I won't be hookwinked into believing a bogus set of senseless accounting numbers -- like those poor fellas at citibank, enron, worldcom, tyco, etcetera etcetara!

"mrs. eliza humperdink" wrote

And how do you propose to place a dollar amount on that? Hmmmmm?

You don't even know the cost of that paper.

That's not the accountant's call. That was management's call.

M A N A G E M E N T is responsible for the financial reports.

M A N A G E M E N T determines what their accounting policy will be.

So we are in agreement! Accountants are drones that carry out management's orders. Accountants are the tools of management to serve the interest of owners and shareholders. Accountants carry out managements order even if they hurt workers and the little guy. Accountants are foot soilders in green eyeshade who do as they're told.

"mrs. eliza humperdink" wrote

Accountants advise management.