Stewardship, Treasurership and Controllership Functions

Stewardship, Treasurership and Controllership Functions

Stewardship Function

Stewardship is simply the responsibility of taking good care, handling, and management of resources. Stewardship function is a traditional approach of accounting that places an obligation on stewards or agents, such as directors, to provide relevant and reliable financial information relating to resources over which they have control but which are owned by others, such as shareholders. Not only are stewards responsible for providing information, but they must also submit to an audit.

Stewardship functions follow proper accounting procedures that satisfy legal and commercial needs but are less rigorous and detailed than the professional practices of management or financial accounting. It is usually applied to small businesses that do not need the more sophisticated techniques. Owing to the popularity and practice of company businesses or corporations, the stewardship function now is almost out of continuation.

Treasurership Function

Treasurer is a financial manager in a staff position that is responsible for managing an organization’s relationships with investors & creditors and maintaining custody of the organization’s cash, investments, and other assets. Management of capital and investment is a distinct area of treasure-ship functions. It consists of major activities like-financial planning, dealing with capital and money markets, investment decisions, cash management, credit management, and so on. Value maximization of the organization is its prime objective.

also, Read this post: Changing Role of Management Accounting in an Organization.

Controllership Function and Responsibility

Controller is the top accountant in an organization. Controllership activities are primarily related to the accounting process. Controllership functions basically focus on the management of revenues and expenditures. It consists of major activities including financial record-keeping and reporting, internal auditing, tax planning, cost accounting, management accounting, profit planning, accounting information systems, and so on. Maintaining financial discipline and profit maximization are the prime objectives of controllership functions.
In a small organization, the same person might be both the treasurer and the controller.
The distinction between controllership functions and the treasurership functions can be drawn as follows:

S.N.	Controllership	S.N.	Treasurership
1.	Recording of financial transactions	1.	Financial planning
2.	Interpreting and reporting the data	2.	Capital procurement
3.	Internal auditing	3.	Investment decisions
4.	Tax planning	4.	Working capital management
5.	Reporting to government	5.	Dividend decisions
6.	Profit planning	6.	Leverage decisions
7.	Managing accounting information	7.	Risk management

The treasurer is responsible for raising capital and safeguarding the organization’s assets. Further, the treasurer is also responsible for the organization’s assets, the management of its investments, its credit policy, insurance policy, cash management, capital expenditure and financial planning.

The controller in most organizations is the chief management and financial accountant. The controller is usually responsible for supervising the personnel in the accounting department and for preparing the information and reports to be used in both management and financial accounting. As the organization’s chief management accountant, the controller often interprets accounting information for line managers and serves as a consultant when decisions and plans are made. Most controllers are involved in planning and decision-making at all levels and across all functional areas of the enterprise.

Both controllership and treasurer-ship functions are carried out under the control of the chief financial officer as reflected by the following organizational chart.

Visit More Related Posts

Click Here!