What should senior management know about financial statements? This may seem a simple question that many of us may look at it as an issue that is not of a great importance. However, I believe that our economies and businesses suffer daily due to many decision makers' misconceptions of this issue.
I believe that a corporate decision maker should have the minimum required knowledge that enable him understands the mechanism of the financial statements contents and dynamics. Yet, they should have the adequate skills to appreciate the prospective impact of their daily decisions on their corporate financial health. The latest innovations in the relevant information technology have a lot to help in this direction.
Can you really ignore this fact any longer?
In 1993, I became almost professional in applying the excel functions to my then daily auditing activities. I was a semi senior auditor (public accountant) in Qatar. However my audit manager( partner), who was hesitant (afraid) to learn excel or even face the PC screen, has never ever reviewed any of my audit working papers that has any relationship with excel files (soft or hard). In a retrospective assessment of my experience in that environment, I cannot imagine how gross negligent my audit manager was.
I hope that your current manager is not similar to my then one. Otherwise, you have two alternatives: change your manager or change your job! I hope you will not change both.
