Can an accountant adjunct to be a cashier?
Since cash is the most liquid of all assets, a business cannot survive and prosper if it does not have adequate control over its cash. Cash is the asset that has the greatest chance of “going missing” and this is why we must ensure that we have strong internal controls build around the cash process. Therefore, it is important to separate cashier and accountant duty into two in charge person.
Although these positions may seem completely different from one another, the roles of cashier and accountant actually require many of the same core skills. Strong communication skills, math skills, attention to detail, and organizational skills are all essential to the daily duties performed by individuals in these positions. While accountants are required to be diligent in examining financial records and documents, cashiers must be diligent in keeping their cash register balanced at all times. Both two seemingly different position are thus closely linked and bound up with SMEs’ accounting.
After reading the commonality, cashier and accountant still have different degrees of difference. There are no formal education requirements to work as a cashier, and all training is handled on-the-job. In a given day, cashiers are responsible for process exchanges, as well as returns. At the end of the working day, cashier has to calculate the funds in their cash drawer. On the other hand, in general, accountants work with financial documents to ensure their accuracy. Whether working for the government, a major corporation, or a small business, individuals in this role are essential to the lawful reporting and maintenance of various kinds of financial records. To work in this career, one must obtain a relevant bachelor’s degree (often in accounting), and earn a The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) certification. Apart from this, accountant also has to handle budgeting for SMEs and decide strategies for improving profits.
In an idealistically properly designed system, a procurement and sales department should initiate the transaction, it might involve accounts receivable and accounts payable depending on facts and circumstances. In most of the SME there is an appointed cashier who is responsible for disbursement of cash, which means cashier is the person who handles cash and executes the transaction and nothing more. Accountant on other hand is responsible for the books of accounts and ultimately the financial reports, whom records the transaction of business.
If SMEs appointed accountant adjunct cashier in order to economize manpower, one person doing both could potentially use the company to launder money by issuing fake invoices and fake bills. From a different perspective, organizations could have cashier and accountant, which is two person cross-checking each other (one does the input, the other does the execution). It is most important, however, that get 2-deep on transactions. In the event of SME don’t have the staff for it, then the owner should be reviewing transactions, but if using ERP system, it can help classified financial process into separate modules, this would reduce SME’s management burden.
Enterprise Resource Planning or ERP software can aid in the control of many business activities, like sales, delivery, billing, production and inventory management. Through implement ERP system, as for financial procedure the system can separate and help monitoring different module, such as account receivables, account payables, treasure management, general ledger and financial reports. Cashier can use ERP system to record transactions amount and accountant can do double checking and output statements in order to complete financial reports in the same system.
In a nutshell, ERP systems typically handle the manufacturing, logistics, distribution, inventory, shipping, invoicing, and accounting for a company. If employees are dishonest, they can usually figure out a way to steal from a company, thus circumventing even the most effective internal control structure. SMEs’ internal control can be strengthening in least cost is by using ERP system, it is important to remember the cost of an internal control should not outweigh the benefit to the company.
