NIA CHARLESTOWN NEVIS (April 15, 2015) — Fifteen persons drawn from businesses on Nevis are attending an eight-day workshop at the University of the West Indies Open Campus Site. The training, entitled “Management Accounting Systems for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises,” is being hosted by the Small Enterprise Development Unit (SEDU) in collaboration with Caribbean Technologies Consultancy Services (CTCS).
During the opening ceremony on April 13, 2015, Head of SEDU Catherine Forbes in her overview of the workshop explained that CTCS is a small business arm within the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) which deals with the development of the private sector, while SEDU is the department within the Nevis Island Administration responsible for providing assistance to improve business practices that can lead to the economic development of Nevis.
In December 2014, Forbes and Alexa Pemberton attended a Trainers of Trainers workshop in Barbados where, along with participants from other islands, they received instruction in the use of Quick Books, the accounting system that would be taught during the ongoing workshop in Nevis.
She noted that the participants would be trained during eight four-hour sessions and will be taught how to use Quick Books to assist them in better record keeping methods.
The workshop takes the form of interactive sessions of a practical nature and in the end the participants should be better able to keep financial records.
Forbes said both CTCS and SEDU recognise that micro, small and medium-sized businesses are the engine of growth within any economy and every year CTCS partners with small enterprise units within the CDB member states to lend assistance—in the form of direct technical assistance, workshops and job attachments which can be local or regional—to business enterprises.
Two years ago CTCS and small enterprise units within the CDB member states collaborated to host a workshop on Financial Management techniques and one of the areas that participants were exposed to was record keeping through the use of Excel.
Out of those discussions at the stakeholder’s meeting in Guyana in 2014, it was decided that it was time for the CTCS and the small enterprise units to assist the micro small and medium enterprises to become knowledgeable in the use of accounting systems that could be used to help become more efficient and successful in managing their businesses.
Meantime, in brief remarks Deputy General Manager at the Nevis Cooperative Credit Union Ken Williams, told the participants that financial management skills were essential to every business owner.
He pointed to the importance of proper documentation which he said was a requirement by lenders for business owners who approached them for funding.
Williams gave his blessing to the management accounting system that would be taught to the participants and noted that in the end, it would help the business owners in maintaining their business records which would increase profitability and ensure continuity.
Remarks were also made by Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance Colin Dore.
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