There is an inherent tension between marketing teams and a company’s accounting department; marketing is an expensive process which is based on creativity, whereas accountants are tasked with saving the company money and making sure all investments are sound and commercially viable.Accounting is a source of financial accountability, whereas marketers attempt to scale up business operations through exciting changes and connecting with a company’s audience.
Despite this tension, accounting and marketing departments can work harmoniously if they put aside their differences and try to achieve financially viable solutions which best benefit the company.There are plenty of ways to do this, and through setting a viable marketing budget and looking at the long-term benefits, marketing and accounting professionals can work constructively to help the business succeed in the long-term.Setting a Marketing BudgetIt is probably the accounting team which has ultimate control over the marketing department’s budget.
This budget will have been set with the company’s overall financial situation in mind, and will include a financially viable amount of money which can be utilized for marketing campaigns.
The accounting team will also be the one to settle on the bank account type – and some of the money marketing so desperately wants may not be readily available.If your marketing budget is a little smaller than you might have hoped, it is probably for a reason; the accounting department are not trying to curb your creativity!
You should work closely with the accounting department in the long-term, so that the marketing budget they set best reflects both the needs of the company and the desires of the marketing department.Produce Marketing ReportsIt can be hard for the accounting department to set a proper budget if you do not provide them with reports.
If the accountants only have data about the firm as a whole to work with, how can they possibly produce a tailored marketing budget which has taken into account marketing data?Marketing reports may include gross sales per campaign or website traffic coming from a particular marketing campaign.