BUILDING FINANCIAL FOUNDATIONS FOR SUSTAINABLE GROWTH: ANACCOUNTING PERSPECTIVE ON A COMMUNITY SERVCIE TRAINING FOR AWOMEN-LED SMALL MEDIUM ENTERPRISES

Abstract

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are widely recognized as engines of inclusive economic growth, yet many continue to operate without basic management accounting practices, which limits their capacity to price products accurately, control costs, and sustain long-term growth. This paper reports on a community service training conducted on 15 July 2026 at Aruna Resort, Lombok, for 70 participants, centered on Nutsafir Cookies, a women-led food SME, as the focal case within a broader business sustainability program. Prior to the training, the SME lacked a systematic pricing formula and did not record cost per unit, conditions common among Indonesian micro-enterprises. The training intervention, delivered by a multidisciplinary team, addressed pricing strategy, cost control, and introductory financial reporting, while also incorporating green practice themes consistent with the conference's sustainability agenda, namely production waste management, sustainable ingredient sourcing, and environmentally friendly packaging. Adopting a qualitative, practice-based community service approach, this study does not report quantitative performance outcomes, as none were collected and no post-intervention effects have yet been observed. Instead, the discussion focuses on the accounting-based relevance of the intervention and its potential contribution to the SME's financial sustainability, scalability, and readiness for broader, including international, market participation. The paper also situates the case within the discourse on women's entrepreneurship, arguing that closing basic accounting capability gaps is a precondition for women-led SMEs to translate entrepreneurial effort into durable business growth.