Financehome The accountant's job is to play the part of coordinator; it is he who must bring together all the budgets into a Profit and Loss Statement; it is he who has the final responsibility for the production of speedy and intelligible returns. On the other hand, management must be continuously on guard against the multiplication of statements and returns for'tReir own sake or for the glorification of the accountant producing them. Figures breed figures and their impact is rapidly diminished as they multiply; it is the accountant's task to produce to management no more statistics than are required to take effective action. The financial controls thus evolved by the accountants in management can only be produced if there is maximum cooperation from everyone within the business enterprise. Engineers, realizing the need of figures to show them the cost of waste and losses as well as the cost savings that arise from improvements in technical processes and methods, must be prepared at all times to give the accountants the facts they need. Marketing men have to coordinate their efforts in a manufacturing industry with the factory and are increasingly conscious of the need for a joint salesproduction programme which can only be valid if it has a sound financial basis. Efficient management of the finance available to a business can be achieved by the introduction of many tried and proved techniques some of which will be described in greater detail later in this chapter. Production and material control, standard costing, monthly operating statements, sales budgeting, budgetary controls leading to financial planning these procedures, varying in scope and complexity in relation to the kind of business to which they may be applied, are a sample of what management in these enlightened days realizes is essential to a proper grasp of where a business is financially heading. Of more general interest is the wider problem of the control of financial resources, and this essential control needs to be described in greater detail in this section. Briefly it can be said that the control of capital resources is as important as the control of income and expenditure and has a direct effect on profitability. There are two reasons for this : first, that an expanding firm may well show a good profit and yet go bankrupt through lack of resources or failure to plan for its needs and, second, that unless capital resources are controlled and planned to ensure their optimum use, sales and output and therefore profits will be restricted. Capital resources and their control are reported annually to the ovmers of a company in its balance sheet. The method of presenting this report to the public and any accompanying remarks by the directors have a material effect on the relationship which exists between public companies and the world at large. This relationship may prove vital to an expanding company as it will be from the general community that the company will seek to raise additional funds. Financehome