Accounting Best Practices, Fifth Edition

12–21. Train the Staff in Closing Procedures

One of the biggest problems with a new accounting staff, or one in which the responsibilities for producing financial statements have changed recently, is that they do not know what they are supposed to do. This results in a general level of confusion regarding responsibilities, as well as the slow completion of deliverables and their probable inaccuracy even when they are done. This is a nightmare situation for a controller, who must review everyone’s work in great detail and check on everyone’s progress to ensure that they will complete their assigned tasks on time. This scenario is almost guaranteed to result in the late production of financial statements, and probably ones with errors, as well.

A key factor that will reduce the level of confusion is proper training of the accounting staff. By doing so, error rates will decline, while the time needed to complete assigned tasks will drop dramatically. To achieve this end result, one must first have an adequate set of procedures from which to conduct training (see the “Document the Process” section earlier in this chapter). Once these procedures are written, use them to conduct personalized training of every person who is involved in the creation of financial statements. It is important to conduct training prior to the end of the reporting period so that the training can be done in a leisurely manner, giving everyone time to ruminate over the information and to have their questions ...