Accounting Best Practices, Fifth Edition

Implementation Issues for Filing Best Practices

This section discusses the relative ease or difficulty of implementation of the best practices to be covered later in this chapter. Each best practice is noted in Exhibit 10.1. For each best practice, there are columns noting the cost and duration of implementation. These are relative measures and will vary considerably depending on the circumstances in each company. In general, the overall level of implementation is considered to be easiest if they are entirely within the control of the accounting department, such as for adopting a document-destruction policy. However, if they involve the cooperation of another department, or if they require special computer programming to implement, which is the case for many of the best practices related to storing data on a computer, then the implementation is assumed to be much more difficult to complete.

Exhibit 10.1. Summary of Filing Best Practices

	Best Practice	Cost	Install Time
Mailroom Improvements
10–1	Open envelopes with a belt sander
10–2	Improve the mailroom interface
Computer-Related Filing ...