Being a corporate bean counter for going on 17 years now I have always been aware that the accounting department is viewed by most departments as pure overhead, non revenue producing, and generally an anchor dragging down profits. Early in my career, I was an Assistant Controller with a software company, and during a particularly tough time where we were making some tough decisions on where to cut staff in order to adjust to a downturn in business, I was told the accounting department was being spared in the cutting because we were a two person department running lean and that we were a “necessary evil”. Even though we didn’t bring any revenue in to the company we were important enough that we couldn’t be removed entirely. I wasn’t sure exactly how to take that when it was said, but since then I have moved on to other companies and led accounting departments with several different companies in different industries. That has always stuck with me and I have always tried to make my “Necessary Evil” group a department that CAN add value to a company.
By leveraging technology and maximizing information systems we have always been able to continually do more with less and really work to squeeze the most out of investments in software, hardware and people. By continually improving your processes you can significantly impact the bottom-line. If you are not afraid to make changes and adapt there are real dollars and cents that can be saved. A small example here at HRU we looked at the weekly pay stubs we were mailing out to hundreds of employees every week. Meanwhile, we had a system that was integrated with our website that allowed people to see their paystubs online as soon as payroll was posted. We transitioned to paperless pay stubs and began saving a few hundred dollars a week in postage, multiply that out for a year and you are looking at a fair amount of money. Nothing earth shattering, but a simple change in thinking and leveraging a software tool we had already paid for and the bottom line just got better. There are a lot of Necessary Evil groups out there today that are afraid to make waves or change what is comfortable and miss out on real opportunities to prove their real value to the organization.
Justin Himebaugh leads the accounting department at HRU, (or The Necessary Evil Group as he calls it). A Graduate of the Haworth school of business at Western Michigan University, Justin has specialized in systems implementations and streamlining the accounting function for the companies he has worked with. Besides having a well rounded skill set when it comes to accounting he can still hold his own in the pool if a game of water polo breaks out. You can follow him on Twitter, @necssryevil.
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Posted by: kfz versicherung kuendigen nach unfall | 10/12/2011 at 04:00 AM