Field Experience - Essay Example

(“Tennessee Internal School Uniform Accounting Policy Manual”, 2011, p.12) This kind of training is essential for them to take up the responsibility and have smooth and effective results. Role of Principal for training the new school bookkeeper and presenting a refresher course for the system’s personnel It would be ideal to give them training before the academic year commences as it help them to have a clear understanding and execute the work from the beginning. The training shall begin with the basic concepts of bookkeeping like the accounting, Inventory, Payroll, and Cash that provides the basic foundation and help them to understand how this is related with the school accounting. (“Bean Counter's Free Accounting & Bookkeeping Tutorial Site”, n.d.) It is good to have the knowledge of computer usage prior and have the access ready as once the training starts they can look for the data and work as per the requirement. They need to understand that there two kinds of funds available to schools. One would be the Budget funds which is also called County or District funds which are allocated by the State or Federal government. It can be the textbooks supplies, project supplies, administrative supplies and so forth. This money has to be spent first. And the second would be the internal accounts and these funds are in the form of donations, fund raising and cash received. It is also the funds that are collected from the students in the form of fees. It is important to set up folder for each budget account so that when annual audit of the books occurs it would be easier to comprehend. (“School Bookkeeper’s Handbook”, 2008) The training has to be stressed upon the disbursements and the school expenditures. The trainees have to get familiarized with the ‘payment request form’ that contains the information such as date, Originator’s signature, and payable to, estimated amount of purchase, brief explanation and the account name and the Principal’s signature so that upon determining these factors, the school personnel can sanction the funds after verifying the details. (“Receipting”, 2008)The bookkeeper has to keep this form and tally with the exact expenditure once the original receipt comes. If it is less than the approved amount, then it can be changed and fewer amounts can be mentioned. If it is more, then it has to be approved by the Principal .Then they can do the changes accordingly. There are potential errors that may happen in times of paychecks and they need to maintain the records of the attendance record, time sheets signed by the employees, so that the payroll clerk can compute payroll without any errors. This has to be updated in the journal accordingly. There are other expenses that can be in the form of library, stationery and so forth that are checked and they need to be updated. (“School Bookkeeper’s Handbook”, 2008) Once they are proficient with the data collection and how to keep track of the expenses and income they can update it on a regular basis in the ledger account. The main stage is the bank reconciliation process .They need to know how to balance bank statements every month and submit Quarterly reports to the Finance department. (Muchira, n.d.) There are posting interest to account which is the most common reason for deposit balance errors and this has to be rectified once Read More