Abstract:
There are many different kinds of cremation welfare services these days which are increasingly popular. Its main mission is to take care of members in case of death and funeral ceremony which is considered Thailands well-known tradition and culture. The purposes of this research were to study present conditions and problems of bookkeeping management and to investigate guidelines leading to appropriate ways of bookkeeping and more potential in operating the welfare fund for financially assisting the funeral ceremony of the Elderly Club in Makham Sub-district, Makham District, Chanthaburi Province. The 32 key informants who participated in the interview and opinion sharing forum are consisted of a chairman and committees of Funeral Welfare Fund in the Elderly Club and community developers or community developing assistants from Makham Mueang Mai Sub-district Municipality, Makham District, Chanthaburi Province. The research findings are as follows: 1) No finance and accounting operation based on the Cremation Welfare Act B.E. 2545 has been done before. The welfare fund chairman is the person who manually does the bookkeeping in cash received and cash payment journal with receipts issued when the cash is received. Money will be paid to a legal heir according to regulations. There is an opened saving account at Bangkok Bank Public Company Limited, Makham Branch on the behalf of the Elderly Clubs Funeral Cremation Welfare Fund. Member registration books are also used to record each members information. The welfare funds problems were found out that accounting officers dont have enough accounting knowledge and experience to do the bookkeeping, and they lack technology skills. Moreover, there are not enough devices and staff to do the bookkeeping because too little working time has been spent on the accounting job. Besides, permanent accounting officers can not be hired due to high wages. 2) The followings are guidelines for the appropriate bookkeeping operation which are created in the research study. The cash received and cash payment journal, new members name list report, and deceased person summary report were designed in this study. The Microsoft Excel will be used as a tool to do accounting records, member registration and information, member identification book, accounting ledger journal, and overall operation summary in order to make the bookkeeping job convenient, correct, updated, and reliable. The improvement of accounting knowledge according to Cremation Welfare Act B.E. 2545 should also be created.