Page 295 - Accounting Best Practices

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• Diversity General Best Practices
• E-commerce
• Financial planning and analysis
• Global finance
• Management accounting
• Mergers and acquisitions
• Six sigma
• Supply-chain management
• Taxation
• Revenue-chain management

All of these reasons sum up strongly in favor of a detailed and prolonged
training program for the entire accounting department covering such areas as
software, processes, new pronouncements by the Financial Accounting Standards
Board (FASB), industry-specific issues, and general management training.
The best way to set up a training program is to make a list of all positions in the
accounting department and determine the training strengths and weaknesses of
every person occupying those positions. Then a master list of all possible training
must be assembled, with the required training for each person noted on the master
list. An example of such a list is shown in Exhibit 13.8, which lists the training pro-
gram for a variety of software modules in an accounting software package. It is also
useful to maintain a list of credit hours for continuing professional education, in
case employees want to pursue or maintain professional accreditation.
The main problem with training programs is that employees usually must be
forced to complete their scheduled training, since they find that there is not
enough time in the midst of their other activities to fit it in. To avoid this issue, the
controller should schedule a monthly review of completed training to ensure that
all employees are meeting their training goals. Also, one should incorporate train-
ing goals into the targets that employees must meet each year in order to be given
pay raises or bonuses. Further, the internal audit staff may also schedule an occa-
sional review of all training records to ensure that employees are indeed complet-
ing their training work and not falsely reporting training hours that never hap-
pened. When combined, all of these measures will ensure a thorough and
comprehensive training program that will improve employee knowledge, espe-
cially in regard to improving and managing systems, while also reducing the risk
of employee turnover.
Cost: Installation time: