Document flow in accounting is the preparation or receipt of primary accounting documents, their orderly movement by divisions, acceptance for accounting, mandatory processing and subsequent transfer to the archive. In organizations, the movement of documents is determined by the document flow schedule.
For all primary documents in accounting, there are several stages of workflow. The first and main one is the preparation of an accounting document immediately at the time of a business transaction or immediately after its completion. The recording of the operation of economic activity is carried out in accordance with the established requirements. All officials who created and signed the primary documents are responsible for the accuracy of the information contained in these documents.
The second stage is the transfer of completed primary accounting documents to the accounting department. The accountant is obliged to check their content, completeness and correctness of drawing up, and then perform an arithmetic check. Further, the primary accounting documents are processed. At the same time, natural indicators are converted into monetary measures. This process is called taxation, or pricing.
Then the documents are selected according to their economic content (for example, payroll, receipts and expenditures of finished products, etc.) and pass the account assignment. At this stage, they indicate the correspondence of accounting accounts for this business transaction. Further, the primary accounting document and the information contained in it about the business transaction is entered into the accounting register. Then the documents must be sent to the archive for storage.
It is the responsibility of the chief accountant to draw up schedules and workflow schemes based on the specifics of the organization's economic activities. The schedule must be approved by the head of the organization. There is no unified form for such a document. However, there are the main points that must be taken into account when compiling it: the workflow schedule should reflect the optimal number of departments for passing each primary document and determine the minimum of its presence in each department.
This local normative act is drawn up in the form of a diagram or a list of primary accounting documents that must be submitted by divisions. It is imperative to indicate the performers; reflect what documents the divisions should exchange and in what time frame. An efficiently organized workflow ensures the timely execution of financial statements.
Employees of the organization are required to comply with the established deadlines for document flow. The chief accountant monitors compliance with the schedule.
