Cost Control

Think: crowd control. A protest gets rowdy, or a sports celebration goes from good, clean fun to tipping over mailboxes and lighting cars on fire (or, you know, another Thursday night in Detroit). Police in riot gear, dispersing people through the use of clubs, body-length shields, and tear gas.

Now imagine the accounting equivalent. But instead of busting up hooligans, we're talking expenses. The bean counters put on their figurative face shields and metaphoric bulletproof vests and wade into the numbers, allegorical batons flying.

The goal of cost control is to seek out unnecessary expenses and get rid of them. It also involves not letting costs get out of control in the first place. It's about making budgets and sticking to them. It's also why people tend to end up muttering angrily to themselves after receiving an email from the accounting department.

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