ACCOUNTING, AUDIT, AND DIRECTIONS FOR IMPROVING THE MARKETING POLICY OF A FOOD-INDUSTRY ENTERPRISE: THE CASE OF NESTLÉ UKRAINE LLC

The article substantiates methodological approaches to organizing the accounting and internal audit of marketing expenses of a food-industry enterprise using the example of Nestlé Ukraine LLC. It reveals the composition of marketing expenses recorded as selling expenses, including advertising and marketing communications, advertising agency services, promotion in social media and digital channels, exhibitions and promotional campaigns, trade marketing, merchandising, and logistics support for product distribution. The need for detailed analytical accounting of these expenses by the company's brand portfolio (Svitoch, Torchyn, Mivina, NESCAFÉ, KitKat) is substantiated, since their generalized reflection limits management's ability to assess the return on specific marketing investments. Problematic aspects of the current accounting system are identified: insufficient brand-level detail, difficulty in separating advertising, logistics, and trade-marketing expenses, and a weak link between accounting data and marketing analytics. It is established that over the period under study selling expenses grew significantly, reflecting substantial investment in marketing activity, yet despite rising net sales revenue the company continued to incur a net loss. A plan and program for the internal audit of marketing activity are developed, covering verification of advertising and key-brand promotion costs, digital-marketing accounting, evaluation of trade-marketing effectiveness, and analysis of marketing budget execution. A set of organizational and economic measures for improving the marketing policy is proposed, including detailed brand-level analytical accounting, introduction of the ROMI indicator, strengthened internal audit, improved management reporting, consumer-preference research, a digital advertising campaign, expanded trade-marketing programs, and staff upskilling. A cost estimate for implementing these measures is prepared, and it is shown that their implementation will increase net revenue and gross profit and reduce the net loss.