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Role of professional accountants vital to run companies with compliance: Bashir Khan


Published : 09 Nov 2019 09:05 PM | Updated : 07 Sep 2020 03:00 AM

The role of a professional accountant is much significant for any company to run it with compliance and following all the legal issues perfectly, said Md. Abul Bashir Khan FCMA, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of SMC EL in an interview with daily Bangladesh Post.
He said Bangladesh is developing faster, industrialization is taking place but comparing to that the supply of professional accountants is so less.
Mr. Khan replied to a set of questions that covered the whole area of accounting profession, its demand, problems and potentials.
The excerpts of his interview is produced for the valued readers of Bangladesh Post.
Bangladesh Post: How would you evaluate the qualitative standard of the Accounting methodology and practices in our country?
Bashir Khan: Accounting profession in Bangladesh has now advanced a lot. Two professional institutes ICMAB and ICAB have been working intensely since after liberation of the country for the professional development of accounting field. Other academic institutes also have accounting discipline and curriculum to provide sound accounting knowledge to the students. International accounting bodies as like International federation of Accountants (IFAC) South Asian federation of Accountants (SAFA), our local organisations ICAB, ICMAB and some other professional bodies are there in the relevant field and all of them have been contributing in developing the professional excellence of accountancy in the country.
Bangladesh Post: Well, do you think that we have come to be able to touch the world class standard in our corporate accounting system?
Bashir Khan: You know that two institutes ICMAB and ICAB are the members of all the related global bodies like IFAC, SAFA or CAPA so quite normally we have maintain the standards of them mandatorily, so our practices is always updated with the development of international bodies. ICAB is the sole body, responsible to implement and adopt all the latest development and standards in the field of accountancy, on the other hand ICMAB is engaged in setting cost accounting standards which is another relevant field, and this is available in India as well. In Bangladesh ICMAB has already set good number of standards, we can also adopt the standards of relevant international bodies in our country.
Bangladesh Post: What is your assessment about the capacity of our public and private sector to absorb the highly qualified professional accountants?
Bashir Khan: Well, if we go only for professional accountants, I must say that professional accountants are utmost needed not only for big Organisation or corporate bodies, at the same time an accountant is necessary even in a small size organization as well. Some of the Universities or colleges including National University or Private University, their standard is not upto that level so far. That’s why the level of standards of the common accountants is yet to reach upto the mark, so it needs to bring development in the curriculum of accountancy discipline in the academic institutes. Teachers have to lay special efforts, students have to study better for attaining expected skill. In this regard I think that more and more CPD has to be done, training is needed so all these needs to take place so frequently.
Bangladesh Post: What loss or harm a company may face if it is not run through professional accounting methodology?
Bashir Khan: Well, it is definitely a good question. If we see plainly it is observed that when a company appoint a qualified and professional accountant it has to pay an attractive amount of salary for him, it involves a good sum of cost of the company, but in fact it reduces the cost, because the knowledge level of professional accountants, their experiences about Tax/VAT, issues related to the rules of SEC, RJSC is so rich that’s why they can maintain the compliance of the company so efficiently, that ultimately cause to save a lot for the company. They can also keep strong role in legal issues for the company which is not possible at all by a nonprofessional accountant. So the role of a professional accountant is clear and much significant for any company to run it with compliance and maintaining all the legal issues.
Bangladesh Post: The number of skilled accountants produced in the country every year; do you think that they have enough opportunity employment in the country?
Bashir Khan: Yes, If I say that the professionally trained accountants produced every year from the recognized institutes like ICAB and ICMAB, the rate of unemployment for them is so negligible. They sometimes or somewhere may be underemployed at the initial stage but I think none of them are unemployed after few time. On the other hand what I will say the way Bangladesh is developing, industrialization is taking place, comparing to that the supply of professional accountants is so less. So employment opportunity of the skilled and efficient accountants will see further rise and there will be no scope of remaining unemployed for the professional accountants. The demand of them is always there in the market.
Bangladesh Post: What about the level of remuneration of the professional accountants in the corporate sector in our country:
Bashir Khan: I will rather say the remuneration of accountants in Bangladesh is good, comparing to other countries it is better than the other trend of profession. You know the professional accountants in developed countries are practicing basically, as consultant they charge a very high sum of remuneration, but that culture is yet to develop in our country, most of the accountants are servicing as employees here. Some little number of accountants, passing out from ICAB are engaged in practicing and the culture of practicing is also getting popular in our country also day by day. The remuneration of a consultant/accountant normally becomes a bit higher. But this level is also less than that of the developed countries.
Bangladesh Post: Would you tell us about how or whether we are adopting the latest development or up gradation in the field of accounting in our country:
Bashir Khan: Well, you know now the technology has developed a lot, besides, many modern software has been there used as tool of modern learning. Also there have accounting software which contributes to ease the accounting works, there have some software that require a little human intervention to operate, sometime the works of accounting is possible through outsourcing, so all these have been so technology based. In future we will see more and more development in technology, artificial intelligence is there, blockchain accounting is available now, so all these will act to reduce the volume of works. There will be no paper works at all, even the volume of electronically run works will also reduce significantly.
Bangladesh Post: What are objectives to observe the ‘Accounting Day?
Bashir Khan: Well, for the last couple of years, we observe the day in a befitting manner. Specially the professional institutes do it, but it creates a little interest or impact for the general people. But we feel to take the issue to that stage because the general people also need to understand the importance of the accounting. The academic institutes or other related bodies also should develop the culture to observe the day.