Accounting departments have long suffered from being considered as serving a lower-priority function and playing a subsidiary role to other departments in any business - i.e., a "non-value creating" activity. Many business owners and top managers consider accounting as government mandated and a pretty much useless function. They also view accountants as boring bean counters whose only role is to prepare a few insipid reports a year, and who are known for their constant irritating interventions to "more valuable" departments with unclear (for most personnel) requirements and standards that others have to maintain for reasons unknown. And it wouldn't be surprising if all top managers secretly dreamt of ridding themselves of those annoying accounting people and finally doing whatever they want, without looking back at the "weird" needs of the bookkeeping department. Or at least outsource them as much as possible to minimize their involvement, cut expenses to nearly nothing, and forget about them - all the more so, as information technology allows for performing such outsourcing nowadays.

However, accounting and financial activities, and the people who carry them out, definitely deserve to be better regarded by others.

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