Assessment of Bookkeeping Practices and its relevance to SMEs in New Juaben Municipality in the Eastern Region of Ghana

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Date
2011
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Abstract
Ghana’s economy is characterized by a relatively small large firm segment, a very large number of micro enterprises, and in between lie small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The unique feature of most SMEs is that, they can be easily established since their requirement in terms of capital, technology; management and even utilities are not as demanding as it is the case of large enterprises. Consequently, small enterprise sector is one of the leading employers (next only to peasant agriculture) in Ghana and has been recognized as significant sector in employment creation, income generation, poverty alleviation and a base for industrial development. It is estimated that there are over two million enterprises in the sector employing between 5 to 6 million people. Despite the enormous potential of the private sector, poor record keeping is identified as a constraint hampering its growth in Ghana. Businesses are unable to keep track of daily activities and banks are unwilling to lend to SMEs all due to lack of financial information. Hence, this study seeks to investigate whether SMEs practice bookkeeping or not, and the contributions of bookkeeping to the growth of SMEs in the New Juaben Municipality in the Eastern Region of Ghana. The study considered a total population of 450 comprising SMEs, 15 Banks as well as NBSSI office in the Municipality. Out of this figure, a simple random sampling technique was used to select a sample size of 136 for the study. From the findings of the study, it was revealed that, 80.8% SMEs were practicing bookkeeping and the manual system was predominantly used. The recommendations however were that, NBSSI must be strengthen and well resourced by government to offer support services in the area of organizing effective training programmes for SMEs operators. There must also be an intensive publicity in the local dialect through the mass media to sensitize SME operators on the need to maintain proper books of records.
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A Thesis submitted to the Institute of Distance Learning, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in partial Fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Commonwealth Executive Masters in Business Administration,
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