Accounting Best Practices, Fifth Edition

13–28. Implement Cross-Training for Mission-Critical Activities

There are a number of crucial accounting activities that will cause a significant amount of disturbance within a company if they are not completed on time, every time. Examples of these activities are payroll, since employees will refuse to work unless they are paid, and accounts payable, for suppliers will refuse to provide additional goods and services unless they are paid. In these cases and others, the greatest risk is that only one person knows how to process transactions. If that person leaves the company or is incapacitated for any reason, there can be a serious system failure that will quickly bring the entire company to a grinding halt.

The best way to avoid this dependency on a single person is to implement cross-training, using other accounting employees. By doing so, there is far less risk that mission-critical activities will not be performed in a reliable manner, which greatly reduces the chance that any key activity will not be completed on time. To do so, there should be a schedule of key activities for which there is a listing of required training elements. The controller should identify those personnel who are most qualified to act as back-ups, put them through the training regimen, and ensure that they receive continual retraining, so they can easily step into the needed jobs. A small pay hike for those employees receiving cross-training will ensure their enthusiastic participation in this system. ...