This week the federal government announced a plan to raise standards of the Accounting industry by establishing a board that will set and monitor minimum requirements for graduates.
Currently almost 30% of accounting graduates study in a non-university environment, so understandably there are some variances in the quality and scope of tutorage. However, with the establishment of a new Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Authority, learning outcomes will have a greater chance of being assured.
All of this is good news for SMEs.
With quality control on the body of knowledge accountants are expected to possess, SMEs can expect a more consistent experience and hopefully more reliable advice. (If only I had a dollar for every time someone has asked me if I know of a ‘good’ accountant.)
The government’s new commitment to tighten up accounting standards is also great for SMEs because it means that the more scrupulously accounting is looked at as a profession, the more it will become glaringly obvious just how much some accountants are doing to improve the situation of their clients and how reactive (or worse – inactive) many others are being.
It would certainly be in the best interests of the economy (and therefore the government) to educate accountants about the need for them to help businesses with actually affecting the numbers on their profit and loss and balance sheets, rather than just reporting on them.
I’ve seen firsthand how powerful it can be for an accountant to combine their financial know-how with real world strategies on how to boost cash flow, reduce expenses, increase sales and ultimately grow a business.
What SMEs DON’T need are graduates who can only put figures into a spreadsheet and report on their business. They need graduates who understand that they have a duty of care to provide MORE to their clients, in the form of business advice and strategies that will help them to stay strong, even during difficult times.
Encouraging this type of ‘proactive’ accounting isn’t on the government’s radar at the moment, but I hope that over the next few years, the profession as a whole will start taking more progressive steps towards helping their clients, rather than sitting back and letting the disgraceful statistic of 80% of businesses failing in the first three years of operation, to continue.
