Accountant Job Description Information

What is an accountant?

An accountant is a person who is responsible for keeping track of the business transactions of any organization that he works for, makes a report of the performance of the company and presents it to the management, and also is responsible for issuing financial statements.

For most of the people, the most dreaded time of the year is tax season. It can only come to pas if you have an accountant in hand, who will help you solve this puzzle of taxes.

The accountant’s job is a lot more than just crunching heavy numbers in exchange for a heavy fee. The process of accounting is the backbone of every businesses’ financial system. Such financial systems involve recording in a systematic manner, summarizing, analyzing, and at last, reporting the transactions.

The curriculum that the business schools offer in the course of accountancy include topics such as types of accounts, how to treat different kinds of accounts, bookkeeping systems, balance sheet and trial balance, creating different statement like profit and loss accounts, computation of financial value of assets, outstanding credits and debits, and calculating capital gains.

An accountant must master all these before going into the area that interests him.

Education Requirement

Anyone who has graduated in masters, covering major subjects of accounting like financial accounting, cost accounting, tax accounting, and management accounting can qualify for being an accountant.

One more thing that will help an accountant land a job is additional certified courses in income tax, auditing, and accounting, that are offered by private, recognized institutions can be pursued.

 Skill Requirement

• Experience in accounting, typically 5+ years
• Good knowledge of US GAAP
• Must know QuickBooks
• Good skills in MS Office, databases and accounting software
• Good problem solving, organizational, communication and management skills
• Experience in working with SaaS companies
• Experience with international and Audit accounting
• CPA certification

 Duties of Accountant

Here are the transactions that an accountant is most likely to be involved in:

• An accountant can issue an invoice to the customer, and for that, he has to record a sale and an account receivable.
• Accountants will receive invoices from suppliers, which will involve the recording of an asset, expense, or an account payable.
• The accountant is supposed to issue wage or salary payment to employees, which will involve recording an expense and cash outflow.
• The accountant also accounts for the reconciling bank statements, which will likely lead to an adjustment in the cash account.

An accountant also has to produce numerous reports, in addition to recording the transactions.

Here are some of them:

• Accountants issue financial statements to the operators or the owners of a business. They will also provide financial statements for creditors and lenders. Balance sheets, income statement, and statement of cash flows make up these financial statements.
• Accountants issue management reports to the management. These reports are customized according to the needs of the authorities it concerns. These reports cover the following topics: cost variances investigations, product lines sales, overtime incurred analysis, and cost variances.
• Accountants issue tax reports to some government entities. There are details regarding the amounts that are being paid for property taxes, income taxes, use taxes, sale taxes, and so on.

An accountant is also supposed to create many processes in a business, that includes some controls for the sake of assuring that the assets are managed in a proper manner. For example:

• Costumer cash receipts
• Supplier receipts
• Shipments for costumers

Apart from all this, there are a number of sub fields that an accountant can specialize in too. Like there are cost accountants, tax accountants, inventory accountants, payroll checks, general ledger accountants, billing clerks, and collection clerks.

Scope for This Position in Current Market Trends

Every organization, company, or business ever exist, needs to have an accountant to manage the financial records.

These jobs are available in public and the private sectors alike. Being an accountant with the right set of skills and expertise, you can pursue a job in insurance companies, accountancy firms, banks, and a lot more.

Especially ever since the arrival of strict regulations regarding taxes, the demands for accountants has increased in businesses of every size, whether it be small, medium, or highly successful.

What Career Paths Can Accounting Make For Me?

Here is a list (with description) of careers in accounting that you should not wait to explore:

• Corporate or management accountant: the management or corporate accounts are responsible for handling many tasks concerning the management and financial security of financial matters.
• Analyst or financial accountant: those people who have a deep acumen in current business trends, industry, and competition, all besides accounting are going to be called analysts or financial accountants of a company.
• Chartered accountant: the filing, documentation, and interpretation of the tax reports and financial documents is the job of a chartered accountant.