Responsibility accounting, a case study on newspaper industry: The Daily Star

Abstract

Newspaper organizations are generally more focused on the creative side, but having an accounting department is mandatory for every organization which generates money or where any kind of transaction occurs. The Daily Star is one of the leading newspapers of Bangladesh. It is actually the highest circulated English newspaper in Bangladesh. It is a subsidiary of the Media world Ltd, which is an associate of the Transcom Group Bangladesh Ltd. It is also the sister concern of the The Daily Prothom Alo. The Media world Ltd is consisting of Anandadhara and The Daily Star. The Daily Star has a few subsidiaries of its own like Daily Star Center, Daily Star Books & Daily Star Café. Accounts of these as well as the accounts of Anandadhara are under the responsibility of the accounts department of the Daily Star. The main income source of both the Anandadhara and The Daily Star is mainly advertisement incomes. The advertisement income can be classified in three parts, Private Advertisement, Government Advertisement and Online Advertisement. Apart from the advertisements there are circulation income as well though which is very little in compared to advertisement income. Other than these incomes The Daily Star also has income from the venues in The Daily Star Center, DS Books and DS Café. This report is mainly focusing on the receivables of The Daily Star as well as the accounts of its subsidiaries and Anandadhara as these were my responsibilities. The Daily Star uses accounting software called SatNews and Anandadhara uses the Microsoft Money software for the accounting purpose. The collection team collects the dues through cheques and the receivables unit than complete the necessary entries and deposit the cheques in the bank. There are some drawbacks in the whole procedure which can be overcome easily by taking a few necessary steps.