What qualifications do you need to be an accountant?

 If you want to become an accountant, then most probably your first step will be to understand what are the qualifications you actually need to become an accountant.

Every small to large businesses need an accountant to handle all their financial related works, therefore the job of an accountant will always be in existence.  So if you are planning to become an accountant, then without doubt it is a wise decision, but before you decide it, you should know how you should be prepared for becoming an accountant.

 In order to become an accountant  you really need to be a lover of numbers, because as an accountant you will be dealing with a lot of numbers regularly in your entire career. It doesn’t matter in which industry you are working as an accountant, in spite of any industry you have to deal with the numbers in your day today’s life, so if you do not like the numbers then the accountant job is not for you.

So before you decide to become an account make sure that you are the lover of numbers.  As we talked about the number, the next thing may come to mind that mathematics.  Yes, mathematics is the essential and an integral part of the job accountancy.  So if you want to be a successful accountant you must be good at math especially in calculation. You will not calculate the big numbers manually, obviously you will use different types of software in order to calculate the numbers, but at the end of the day you are going to calculate the numbers. So having strong mathematical knowledge is essential in order to become a successful accountant.

Qualifications you need to be an accountant:

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in economics or Accounting or relevant subjects from an reputed university 
• Practical hands on experience with SAP Systems
• Proficient ability to communicate in English
• Ability to communicate with other languages will be always beneficial
• Must display the approach of  working independently and proactively
• Skill of rapport building or building customer relationships
• Fulfilling the goal of organisation by  maintaining the deadline
• Performing your regular task with proper planning and prioritizing  
• Ability to build partnerships with others and working collaboratively to accomplish shared goal 
• Excellent written communication skills.

• Attention to detail and multitasking skill
• Practical Industry work experience.

• Excellent analytical skill regarding accounting
• Proficiency in accountancy or ERP Software
• Practical knowledge of MS office.

• Professional accounting certification like CPA ,CA, CMA, CGA, CPA Prerequisite Education Program (PREP).
• Strong verbal, nonverbal and written communication skills to deal effectively with others.
• Ability to present recommendations and proposals to management
• Exceptional analytical skill, problem solving ability and decision making skills
• Outstanding capability to plan wisely, organize systematically and manage complex and simple projects
• Leading the team and initiating change for progress
• Ability to Share your knowledge and Idea with others, direct and train in need

• Hands on practical experience within a professional Business environment
• A proactive client advisor and  establishing great communication
• Having experience in cloud accounting platforms and add-ons
• Possessing needful practical technical knowledge

• Experience in billing operations, customer remittance, accounts payable and payroll handling
• Managing the cash and credit services with honesty and sincerity
• Ability to monitor and  analyse the financial report 
• Managing the financial report, revenue and asset 
• Profound practical experience in annual budgeting, long term Financial forecasting and  preparation of tax return 
• Industry standard relationship building  ability with customers
• Excellent fraud and risk management
• Ensures Your each and every financial tasks are compliance with the privacy policy of the organisation and the rule and regulation of the State 
• Knowledge in preparing public quarterly, annual reports, customer billing information and internal Financial and other management reporting
• Protecting all the financial data with complete integrity
• Sound knowledge on business process, integrating business requirement and processing the changes
• Becoming an essential part of developing short and long term project and corporate plans
• Providing support, recommendation,  guidance and direction to the management and others
• Thorough and profound knowledge of the business process and the accountant position

Qualification of an accountant in different categories

If you want to work as a private accountant in an organisation, then you can just complete your bachelor’s or master’s degree in accountancy, Economics  for relevant subjects, along with  acquiring strong software skill and communication ability.

But if you want to work as a public accountant, then you need to go one step ahead, you need to be prepared and face the test of CPA which is a certified public accountant. Once you pass this exam, you will be ready to work as a  public accountant. 

20+ Common Qualifications for every accountant

Becoming an accountant is not all about knowing how to calculate the number you need to gain an overall business concept and must be able to handle the different aspects of  accountancy and Finance.  There are many sub categories in the accountancy job, so in order to become a successful accountant you need to accumulate a long list of qualifications.

Below are some of the common qualifications that are required for almost every  accountancy job.

1. Bachelors or Master’s degree

Most reputed organisations or companies prefer to have their accountant to have at least a bachelor or masters degree in accountancy or the relevant subject. So if your goal is to become an accountant, then you must  acquire the degree from a reputed University. 

2. Ability to use Ms office softwares

MS Office software is the most common software that almost every professional must know to use. Microsoft word is used for creating text documents, Excel is used for preparing documents related to numerical data, Powerpoint software is used for presentation purposes.

3. Excellent practical knowledge on Microsoft Excel software

Microsoft Excel software is a popular software which is used for accounting functions such as budgeting, preparing financial statements and balance sheets. In order to derive financial inside and analysing them, crunching the numbers, analysing data, maintaining budget, preparing financial forecasting and to model financial performance the Microsoft Excel is  considered as a powerful tool.

4. Ability to use different accounting related softwares

Currently there are many powerful software available in the market in order to handle the accountancy related works.

 Below are some of the popular accountancy related softwares:

• QuickBooks Online
• Xero
• FreshBooks
• Odoo Accounting
• Wave Accounting
• Zoho Books
• Sage Intacct
• Sage

5. Real world experience within a professional work environment

Almost every industry wants to employ their accountant who has  an experience of working in a professional work environment.  you can easily gather this experience by working as an intern by applying for an Internship program.  you may apply for a 6 month or 1 year internship program and gather real life professional work experience.  There are many companies and organisations  that take internships, so You just need to Google for the internship program for  accountancy. You may be paid very less during this internship period or you may need to work even  without any payment, but still it is beneficial for you as you gather the professional work experience in a real industry environment.

6. Excellent analytical skill

 Analytics is an integral part of every business, because unless you measure your tasks you will never understand that you are progressing or not. This is the reason in order to become a successful accountant you must be excellent in analytical skills.  you need to monitor the data and analyse them in order to derive precious information out of them.

7. Creative thinking

You must learn to think creatively. A problem can be solved easily If you are using your Creative thinking ability. As you will handle a big chunk of data related to numbers which most times represent the money, it is very necessary that you use your Creative Thinking ability in order to make your work effective and Powerful. 

8. Problem solving ability 

Problems can occur in any industry or in any work field,  therefore as you face the problem it is your responsibility to solve them wisely and effectively.  A better problem solver will always become a better accountant.  Keeping yourself cool and understanding the actual root of the problem and solving them is indeed a precious skill to achieve.

9. Decision making skills

Remember as an accountant you are not only going to deal with a lot of financial terms and tasks rather you are actually going to take part in making decisions.  and in the financial area a decision can bring you success or even bring tragedy in the business. Your prepared financial report will help you to take better decisions and guide your authority to take the right step. 

10. Ability to make planning, organizing and managing complex projects

Be sure that you are not going to always face the simple project rather you must be prepared to face some projects that are really Complex and Critical. In that situation how will you handle them, so you must know how to make an effective and proper plan for them, organising your tasks appropriately and managing them in the most efficient manner in order to achieve success in completing that Complex project. 

11. Strong verbal communication skill

Verbal communication skill is all about communicating verbally which means communicating by using some words or language.  and as an accountant you need to communicate with the other colleagues in your office and the authority of your department,  so in order to express your knowledge, idea, emotion in the right way you need to be an expert person in verbal communication.  As you present your data to the  small or large audience your verbal communication skill will play the most important role to deliver your message in the most efficient manner.

12. Nonverbal communication skill

 nonverbal communication skill is simply when you communicate with others without using any words on language rather by using your body language,  eye contact, body movement, facial expression, gesture, posture, tone of voice etc. 

 In order to display yourself as a professional accountant you need to develop your nonverbal communication skill, because your non verbal communication ability will always define how professional you are.

13. Written communication skill

As an accountant you will be preparing a lot of reports and presenting them to your authority.  In order to establish a perfect communication with your colleagues, clients or Boss you need to showcase your excellent written communication skills. 

14. Excellent attention to detail 

Handling finance of an organisation is not a matter of joke, small mistakes can cause severe negative effects on your entire career.  Therefore as you work as an accountant you must develop your attention to detail skills.  so that you do your work  with minimal errors possible.

15. Versatile knowledge and Multitask ability

Being an accountant means a person who is able to handle and look after many different aspects of the finance related work.  you need to have the knowledge of bookkeeping, tax return, auditing etc. 

16. Approach to handle the task Independently and proactively

There will be a time when you need to work with a team in order to work on some project, and there will also be time when you need to  handle it independently with a Proactive enthusiasm to accomplish your goal with maximum positivity.

17. Ability to build excellent customer relationships

Without doubt customers are the backbone of each and every business.  So how you develop your relationship with customers will always make an impact on the customer retention rate as a result it will help in the entire growth of the business.  Therefore  possessing the rapport building skills or customer relationship building ability will always help you to become a successful and professional accountant desired by an employer. 

Let me know your suggestion in the comment section below for adding more life to this article and helping others to grow.

Recent Posts