Reporting Practices and Ethics
Kara Moore
HCS/405
August 1, 2011
Barbara Archer

Reporting Practices and Ethics
Financial reporting practices and ethics have manifested an ocean of literature. This has mainly come from organization theorists that address accounting practices. These theorists and professionals have given fresh accountability measures. Their ideals give this industry the tools needed to survive, grow and prosper. The way an organization prepares and reports its financial information and handles its daily operations is in essence financial practices, and in the way it accomplishes this reveals their ethical standards to which they adhere to. This paper will discuss the financial practices, ethical standards, and financial management in health care.

Financial management in simple terms is a management of finances for an organization. The goal of financial management is to achieve financial objectives, and can be broken down into four phases. The four elements of financial management are: planning, controlling, organizing and directing, and decision making (Baker & Baker, 2009). In the planning phase financials managers need to pinpoint the organizations objectives and the necessary steps to achieve those (Baker & Baker, 2009). In the controlling phase it is all about ensuring that each department is following the guidelines set forth in the planning stage. This can be accomplished by comparing quarterly reports to see if the departmental goals are being followed. When in the organizing and directing phase it is important for managers to use the organizations resources and to work on a daily basis to make sure the organization is running smooth and according to plan. In the last phase decision making in fact coincides with all the other three phases (Baker & Baker, 2009). Decisions will always need to be put into action during all