Accounting
"Backbone of financial data processing which is unavoidable to manage efficiently a business. Often undervalued and badly provided with accurate data, accountancy allows to get a chance to be compliant with legal rules (accountancy laws, tax laws, trade laws), and to input data toward reporting management system by people fundamentally rigorous".
Observations usually made:
> Underestimation of accounting impacts when making decisions that will inevitably be translated in the books sooner or later (i.e. marketing expenses - commitment - billing - budget control to facilitate reporting work).
> Lack of internal communication about the role of accounting teams to ensure they are not only valued at fair value but also involved upstream in the collection processes and thus being provided with data requiring no (or little) investigations or time-consuming in manual processes that could be eliminated or at least improved. Take the case of travelling expenses for instance. Some discipline and effort should not harm anyone.
> Underestimating the quantity of data to process and lack of automation of operations which are found to be processed manually (think about interfaces !).