What is the job of an accountant?

The Primary job of an accountant professional is maintaining the financial record of an organisation like revenue and expenses, profit and loss etc., monitoring  and analysing them in order to interpret the necessary financial  report. 

We can say in other words the job of an accountant is basically dealing with a lot of numerical data, this numerical data represents the actual money. Taking care of  every  financial transaction made by physical and electronic mediums on a regular basis using some specialized software for accountancy, keeping proper and systematic record of them  and their backup for the future need are some of the common jobs of an accountant. But the job of an accountant is not limited to these tasks. Rather as an accountant you are required to have a strong overall comprehensive knowledge on business and it’s different aspects, as an accountant also assists in taking financial decisions for the revenue increase and an entire growth of the business. 

Who is an Accountant and what is their job?

The jobs of the accountant are mainly finance related work, it can be for an individual person, small business or startups, large or established business, charity organization, banks etc.

There are many other terms often used within the job title accountant. Some of them are Bookkeepers, Tax professionals, Auditors etc.

As a Bookkeeper you will be an integral part of  the accounting department to be responsible for the payroll with the salaries and the other benefits of the workers.

Tax professionals prepare the tax returns for individuals, small businesses or startups and large businesses. You will take the responsibilities of handling sales tax, income tax, property tax etc. You will be busy with tax planning and consulting etc. Being a tax professional you need to know all the changes taking place either in the policies of the organization or the rule and regulation of the state or federal. Tax related rules change sometimes, so you must be up-to-date with all those changes. Sometimes even your organization may provide you free training to let you know all the changes. 

If you are working as an Auditor with the audit department, then you most probably need to travel to different places to audit the financial records of the business.  The businesses depend on the audited report in order to make the decision regarding the financial deal with others. 

Private accountant job

After you complete your bachelor degree in accountancy or related subjects, you can join an organisation or company as a private accountant.  As a private accountant you will be handling all the finance related works of the organisation. You will be basically doing a 9 to 5 job just like other employees. So you will go to the office everyday, complete the financial related work and go back to your home.

You may get some extra work pressure during the financial year closing time, other than that you will be enjoying a regular and comfortable job pattern. 

you’ll be able to enjoy a good work life balance, as you are working for a specific time and you’ll have a lot of time to spend with the family. 

Public accountant job

If you want to work as a Public accountant, you need to study and get prepared for the Uniform Public Accounting test after your Bachelor’s degree in accountancy or related subject and when you pass the Public accounting test,  you become a certified public accountant (CPA).

Becoming a certified public accountant means now you got the licence for becoming a public accountant. 

As a public accountant you will be joining an accounting farm, Where you will be required to travel a lot  to the business place of different clients in order to complete all the financial related works for them.

Working as a public accountant, You will be able to get a better salary than a  private accountant, but you should remember that you’ll have a tremendous workload  as a result you may experience stress and mental pressure which will  seriously affect your work life balance. 

Examples of the job of an accountant

Sample – 1 of the job of an accountant

1. Responsible for the journal entries and making sure to record all the regular financial transactions taken place in the business. 
2. You will be incharge of handling monthly, quarterly and annual closings. 
3. Preparing and Rechecking the Financial data and make it sure that the data is accurate
4. Responsible of maintaining general ledger in regular basis
5. Handling all the timely Bank payments
6. Calculate the taxes and prepare the tax return for the organisation
7. Being an integral part of producing cash flow forecast
8. Preparing the profit and loss statement, managing and presenting the Balance sheets
9. You will be responsible of taking care of the the fixed asset register and maintain it correctly
10. Recording each and every accounting entries or transactions in compliance with the privacy policy of the organisation and each and every legal provision.
11. Creating a monthly accounting statement for presenting report and the balance of the account
12. Regularly looking after profit and loss account and balance sheet 
13. Taking the responsibility of the accounting data and maintaining the privacy 

Sample – 2 of the job of an accountant

As the project accountant you will be leading all the finance related initiatives.  you will also be responsible for creating customer invoicing, account receivable, looking after each and every area of the financial data and managing the progress.

Your Job Responsibilities as an accountant include:

• Being responsible of invoice entry and check preparation
• Handling the bank reconciliation
• Responsible of monthly inventory spreadsheet management
• Associating with the project manager and the sales team in order to to detect the problems and bringing resolution 

Sample – 3 of the job of an accountant

Duties and responsibilities of the accountant

• Taking care of monthly financial statements
• Responsible of processing weekly/ monthly payroll
• Preparing the payroll tax returns, Quarterly and Year End tax returns
• Preparing the monthly sales tax returns 
• Preparing personal tax returns
• Preparing or assisting in preparing the bank reconciliations

Sample – 4 of the job of an accountant

• Monthly asset accounting records
• Preparing the annual financial statements
• Responsible of company tax calculations
• In charge of external and internal invoices
• Responsible of accounting for the reserves, accruals of costs / revenues of the organization
• Handling company payments and bank consolidation
• Responsible for inventory of allocated accounts and internal controls
• Establishing good communication with internal team and external customers 
• Preparation of statistical reports, monthly and annual financial statements

Main takeaways from what is the job of an accountant

Accountants need to go beyond the simple recording of transactions to a person who is a trusted advisor and possesses a lot of business knowledge.

You should know that people will rely on you for advice for taking the financial related decisions.

Therefore, you can understand that the job of accountancy is not all about the numerical data, books of account or finance, rather you are expected to have a comprehensive sound knowledge of the entire business.

As the law and regulation is changing and becoming more complex, the role of accountant is also being complicated.

Some of the common job of an accountant are:

• Maintaining the accuracy of financial documents.
• Your financial tasks must compliance with relevant laws and regulations
• Monitoring and analysing the financial operations and recommending the best-practices.
• Preparing, presenting and handling the important financial reports 
• Assisting in risk analysis assessments
• Handling the tax returns and being responsible of taxes are paid properly and on time
• Assisting the organizations to run efficiently towards progress 
• Detecting the problems or issues and providing the best solutions
• Advising on cost reduction for revenue enhancement and maximization of the profit
• Assisting in financial forecasting

Here are some of the requirements for the job of an accountant:

•  As an accountant you are expected to be an honest and trustworthy person, who can be reliable to be handed over a lot of precious and valuable data related to finance.
• You must be a person who knows how to use the softwares related to accountancy.
• Excellent verbal and nonverbal communication skills which is always demanded from an accountant.
• Must be comfortable and possess advanced level of knowledge in Microsoft Excel software. 
• Experience in accounting at least 1 year
• Bachelor’s or master’s degree in accountancy or relevant subjects
• Being proficient in English language is a must
• Strong knowledge of accounting and tax laws 
• Excellent capability to precisely prescribe the procedures and rules
• Strong attention to details
• Must be a team player
• A responsible person 

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