Marketers often want to make the case that accounting does not treat marketing well. I have good news for marketers, there is a major group of accountants who (should) agree with you. There are accountants who feel that financial accounting standards have subverted their discipline. Managerial accountants, whose job it is to deal with internal…
Search Results for: accounting
Marketing Implications Of Financial Accounting
A book chapter I wrote with Jonathan Knowles and Moeen Butt has recently come out in the Review of Marketing Research (vol 18). In our chapter, we sought to give marketers a better understanding of accounting, specifically financial accounting. What then are the marketing implications of financial accounting? Keeping Score Marketers are trying to work…
Customer Accounting, Thanks But
It is great that accountants are looking at the idea of valuing a firm through its customers. I very much welcome this. That said, I do worry that people bringing ideas from outside their field often bring back bad habits with them. (To be clear I am sure I do this when looking at non-marketing…
Management Accounting and Customer Recording
At least one area of marketing metrics makes me positive. The future is bright. The area is what we might call management accounting and customer recording. This tends to work best where there are contractual relationships. With contracts or, at least, stable long term connections, we can go a long way to understanding the value…
The Destiny of Accounting Measures of Customer Assets
In an optimistic piece Keiningham, Aksoy, and Bejou outline what they think the future of customer asset management is. What should we expect for accounting measures of customer assets? How should we expect such assets to be treated in the future? Why Are Accounting Measures Of Customer Assets So Bad? They note three big problems….
The Politics of Accounting
Tony Tollington’s book on Brand Assets is fascinating. (Accounting rules have changed a bit since he wrote it. The acronyms and rule numbers aren’t what are used nowadays but the ideas are similar). He makes fascinating notes on the politics of accounting. The Politics Of Accounting For Intangible Assets Tollington notes the problems with the…
Catch 22 And Accounting For Employees
A theme of mine is the challenge that marketers have with financial accounting. Essentially most marketing spending is accounted for as an expense. This is even if it has the explicit intention to be an investment. This makes financial reports pretty poor for understanding the marketing of a firm. What about Human Resources (HR). We…
The Marketing-Accounting Interface
There is a lot of work linking marketing and finance. Unfortunately, at least from my perspective, nearly all of this has focused on linking marketing to financial markets. Such work is useful but I would like more looking at more diverse linkages between marketing and accounting. Sidhu and Robert’s article is an exception. They look…
Faulty Sums and Accounting
I enjoy a good polemic and Keron Bhattacharya’s book on Accountancy is certainly that. A generation old now but many of the points remain. (Although the acronyms for the UK accounting standards and accounting bodies have all changed). As an accountant himself (member of CIMA) he isn’t very happy with the way accountants were doing…
More On Accounting’s Failure To Deal With Intangibles
Accounting’s failure to deal with intangibles is a major problem in business. Marketers, and others, need to engage with financial accountants to find a better way. Problems in accounting statements Feng Gu and Baruch Lev give more details on the problems with financial accounting in their recent piece for the Financial Analysts Journal. They argue…