INVESTMENT AND BUSINESS ACCOUNTANTS

Accountants have many roles to play in the development of every economy. The growth and development of every economy hinges on how resources are judiciously managed and multiplied. Accounting is all about cost savings and this I am sure is the back bone of economic development and growth. Some of the roles of accountants in economic development are listed below:

INVESTMENT APPRAISAL FUNCTION: without investments, the economy will not develop and grow. Investment appraisal is the process of evaluating an investment opportunity in the face of both financial and other non-financial factors in order to determine the worthwhile-ness of the investment opportunity. Accountants are among the few professionals that can effectively perform this function with minimal resources being expended.

PREPARATION OF FINANCIAL STATEMENTS: investors and business owners no longer have to be present in their businesses for it to strive. This is made possible by the entity concept in accounting wish allows business be different from its owners. The only way that owners of business can monitor what is happening in their business is to have a representation of activities through the financial statements of the company. This financial statement is only prepared by the accountants (though the law says it is the duty of the managers to prepare the financial statements, but they make accountants of the company do it for them). This again gave rise to another role of the accountants; the accounts need to be audited in order for the piece of information has some credibility. Hence, auditing is another role of accountants in the economic development of the economy.

COST SAVINGS: there is an old adage that one does not get rich by earning and throwing away. Same goes to economic development. Costs must be minimized for the economy to grow and develop. It is the main role of accountants to lead the park of cost savers. Knowledge acquired from cost and management accounting is the most powerful tool that accountants need to give management the best advice on cost saving.

FRAUD FIGHTING: the world economy has lost so much from the activities of fraudsters. If the activities of fraudsters are not put under check, economic development will be stalled as no meaningful economic development will take place in an environment where misappropriations and embezzlement is all we hear in the news on a daily basis. Accountants are trained to be at the front seat in the fight against fraud in our time. This however will not be an easy task as the mix of accounting, law, and IT skills are required for accountants to be well positioned to effectively fight fraud. Accountants should be happy with the requirements of establishing and implementing functional internal controls in every organization they find themselves. Accountants also have to embrace IT as many fraudsters now perpetrate their evil deeds through the aid of computers and other information technology infrastructures.

RENDERING OF FINANCIAL SERVICES: it is a well known fact that economic development and growth will not be achieved if finances are not well managed. Accountants render financial services to business owners and the community at large. This role of accountants is more important now that the world is trying to recover from the shock of the financial meltdown that just rocked the global economy at large.

Since businesses are the main stimulant of every economy and accounting is the language of businesses, accountants have a major role to play in ensuring that the language of business is understood by all and sundry. Imagine the level of confusion that we all will be experiencing if we remove communication in our day to day activities.

Permit me at this point to say that accountants are the most important professionals as far as economic development are concerned. I don’t mean to upset you in any way if you are not an accountant but, that is the simple truth. You can always join the accounting profession.