Design and Implementation of Administrative Controls

Fertakis here offers a comprehensive discussion of administrative controls as they apply to major organizations, with particular emphasis on the interrelationship between accounting and administrative controls. As Fertakis notes at the outset, control in organizations is often poorly understood and inadequately implemented. His clear, practically oriented discussion of the design, purpose, and effective implementation of an administrative control system is intended to enable the reader to obtain a working familiarity with both the methods and problems involved and the benefits to be derived from establishing such a system.

Fertakis' extensive coverage of the subject encompasses such critical aspects as the structure of operations controls, the relationship between organizational goals and the control environment, the measurement of performance, and the characteristics of a good business plan. He explains the operations controls process, taking the reader through the manufacturing, marketing, service, and project stages. Separate chapters are devoted in turn to financial, audit-related, budgetary, asset, and system-related controls. Finally, three chapters address special administrative control applications including controls in the legal environment, in the international organization, and in various nontraditional types of organization. Financial executives will find this volume a useful and frequently consulted resource.

JOHN P. FERTAKIS is Professor of Accounting and Business Law at Washington State University, Pullman, Washington. A Certified Cost Analyst, he wrote The Corporate Director's Financial Handbook (Quorum, 1988), and has written for publications such as The Journal of Accounting Research, The Accounting Review, Management Services, The Journal of Accountancy, and Management Accounting.