You are an accountant in a fairly young retail company. The financial statements of several competitor companies have just been published and they seem to be performing well. Your company’s senior management is concerned about this as it is looking like your company’s financial results will not be as good as your competitors’. The senior management team is also anxious over environmental problems in a subsidiary, and there seems to be a general dissatisfaction with the information available to managers when making operational and strategic decisions.

Senior management has decided to create a new team that will concentrate on coordinating the use of data within the company, both in relation to managing internal, and operational issues and with respect to facing external accountabilities.

The person nominated to be the head of the unit has no formal training in accounting and is known to be rather belittling of accountants. He is of the belief that accounting is just simple calculations that have not changed much for a century, and that the expertise of accountants (who he disparagingly calls ‘bean counters’) lies mainly in bookkeeping and ensuring compliance with financial reporting requirements. Therefore, the head of the new unit is not keen to have any accountants in a position of influence on this new team and believes accountants and auditors should simply focus on implementing current IFRS standards in the preparation of financial statements.

You, as someone educated in accounting at WBS, would like a place on the team as you know that accounting is neither as straightforward nor as narrowly relevant as the new unit head believes.

Required:

Write a 2000 words essay, on how you would counter the claim that accounting is a simple matter of pulling numbers together but, rather, offers professional expertise that is of more general, operational and strategic relevance to the firm.

Support the claim:

First paragraph

- Accounting is not a simple matter of pulling numbers together

- Why an accountant is required to be part of the team

- Case Study: Head Unit is wrong (not simple calculations, not just compliance with financial reporting requirements).

Second paragraph

- Doesn't offer professional expertise that is of more general, operational and strategic relevance to the firm

- Social and environmental problems also need to be examined

- Case study: Anxious over environmental problems in the subsidiary.

Counter the claim

First Paragraph:

-Accounting is a simple matter of pulling numbers together

Second paragraph

- Does offer professional expertise that is of more general, operational, and strategic relevance to the firm

Conclusion - What is your overall viewpoint