First-line managers and company owners, in order to successfully achieve goals and make economically viable decisions, need to be guided by accounting statements that record and demonstrate the current financial position and results of the company. Documentary financial accounting of an enterprise should be based on five "pillars": reliability, timeliness, continuity, structuredness and legality.
Organization accounting business entities should be handled by managers. However, the lack of knowledge among the management of the majority of the company about the maintenance and storage of financial documents and the inability to ensure control of the accounting department often leads to serious problems:
- insurmountable disagreements with contractors;
- increased attention from tax authorities;
- fraud with current accounts and cash register;
- incorrect reflection of data in tax reporting;
- financially motivated sanctions or criminal prosecution of a manager.
All of this can be avoided by knowing the weaknesses of accounting and trying to prevent violations.
Where to look for weaknesses in accounting?
Errors and violations, intentional or accidental, can occur at any stage of accounting - at the stage of collection, registration, analysis of financial data and other property obligations of the company. At the same time, one can identify the main vulnerable segments of accounting, where problems can be found for most companies.
Primary Documentation
All business activities of the company can be tracked by primary documents, which reflect the main movements of income and expenses. Primary documentation directly affects the final summary of the company's financial indicators and the formation of the tax base when calculating mandatory payments to the budget. Incorrectly drafted, documented primary documents can distort real indicators in accounting and tax accounting. When collecting and processing primary documents, the following errors are often encountered:
- Late submission of PD - primary documents must be drawn up and provided at the time of the transaction, and if it is impossible to provide, such documents must be submitted the next day.
- PD forms were not approved by the order of the first head - samples of primary documents, after approval by the management, should be entered into the accounting policy of the organization.
- PD do not contain a signature, as well as information about the powers, position of the signatory, the date of the business transaction - when drawing up the primary document by the representative of the counterparty, a power of attorney is required in the name of the signer. In this case, the presence of a "wet" print on the PD is not required.
In addition to the indicated violations, the primary documentation may contain internal errors, for example, the absence of bills of lading, cash register receipts, etc.
Checkout
Working with cash always involves certain risks. The main threat is incorrect reflection in the cash book of the amounts currently in the cash register of the company. If the receipt of cash is carried out in violation, then the surplus revealed during the check can be withdrawn and transferred to the state revenue. In addition, the person in charge and the head of the company are subject to administrative and tax liability.
Incorrect wiring
The main requirement for keeping records of business transactions, liabilities and property of the company is double entry in interconnected accounting accounts. The following errors are often encountered when making transactions:
- accounts not covered by the new chart of accounts of the balance sheet are used;
- the required accounts provided by the Chart of Accounts of transactions are not used;
- assignment of an operation to wrong accounts.
For example: an accountant ignores account 62 "Settlements with buyers and customers" in order to "save" transactions and time. The operation on the receipt of funds from the sale of goods is referred by the accountant to debit accounts 50, 51 directly to the credit part of account 90-1. However, this is fundamentally wrong - such a transaction does not take into account advance payments, prepayment of goods or services. In addition, such a direct posting is not provided for in the instructions for using the Chart of Accounts. This operation should be carried out according to the following algorithm:
→ Debit 50, 51 → Credit 62 - receipt of funds from the buyer.
→ Credit 62 → Debit 91-1 - sale of goods.
Incorrect postings lead to data distortions in analytical, synthetic accounting. As a result of such violations, information in the
