Must the Accounting Department/Chief Financial Officer have Procedures?

Does the Accounting Department/Chief Financial Officer have any responsibilities/procedures that have to be documented for ISO requirements? Our CFO feels left out because I told him that Accounting does not affect product quality therefore his participation in our ISO effort was purely voluntary. (We enjoy this kind of banter.) Now, I'm doubting what I told him. Do I eat crow? What say you all?

[Jim Biz]

My 2 cents - leave him out if you are comfortable with it... we use ours for internal auditing - because he has no "direct control or influence any other ISO matter".

If not there are things he may be valuable for - Use him for internal scrap - return items data - ontime or late delivery data, and internal and external cost report tracking.

The CFO can be a valuable resource as the clearing house and reporter of quality cost and trend information. He can be the "report generator" and create the graphs/charts/comparisons that the rest of the team uses in making appropriate decisions.

Gad...when there's a manager who WANTS to be on board, create something!

[David Mullins]

The purchasing side usually runs back to them, so bean counters should have some involvement there. Make an approved suppliers list without them and you can throw it in the bin.

The processes associated with invoicing and payment is crucial to keeping the business afloat - which certainly gets the CEO/MDs attention.

Because they have all the customer contact details, this area is very useful when it comes to customer surveys.

In good conscience you should have a reasonable induction/familiarisation program, which includes capturing payroll, etc, information, and the bean counters usually oversee this area.

Yes, the bean counter, and the financial system/package that the business uses is crucial to capturing quality costs and measuring real results in terms of the benefits of the QMS.

Besides, most of them really aren't that dull, and I've met a lot of quality folk who are!


------------------

Dan,

Never said better!

If you have a willing resource use it. Cost of (bad) quality is required and growingly important as a corporate cost center.

If you want to open up a CEO's eyes show them a good quality cost report!

ASD...

I always advise my clients to show the financial areas in their processes, even in the 1994 version. This is a part of the Strategic Process, where the business planning, market targeting, sales forecasting generally stems from. Without the financial aspect there is no direct link to the company resources.

For many companies the accounting area is part of human resource or administration.

For some clients their CFO is in charge of the supplier evaluation/approval process.

Showing financial or accounting as part of the process configuration,does not mean it is open for an external audit. The books are considered confidential.

awk