Over the years my interaction with business owners and founders has revealed a startling fact about how they perceive the accounts department.  For most business owners, accounting is administrative costs to handle tax and year-end book closures. The humble accountant is mostly perceived as a data entry operator who has to enter all bills, make cheques, keep the books in balance, file GST returns and interact with the CA. What they are forgetting is that the accountant if given proper training can be the first line of defence against inefficiencies in a company or even against fraud. For this the founders and business owners should allow the accountant to ask questions from other departments eg. the purchase department, the stores  and operations. Such interactions can help the accountant to understand the bills coming to accounts department and even question them in case something looks not regular. All this adds up in creating a control environment in the company and makes the accountant also a part of the organisation rather than a data entry operator!