I view accounting and finance as 2 separate disciplines. Accounting focuses on the monitoring of performance and stewardship of the organization whereas finance is more expansive what with decisions such as raising capital and the choice of financing vehicle, the selection of the method to distribute returns to owners, analysis of risk and return of investments, et cetera. Given that organizations, including government entities, will make suboptimal decisions when they merge these 2 functions together.
ACCOUNTING recording and reporting transactuons with financial consequences to the organization. FINANCE analyzing reports made from accounting records for ourposes of decision making. These two functikns are separate and must stay separate.