The Accountant Job Description

The Accountant analyzes financial information and prepares financial reports to determine or maintain record of assets, liabilities, profit and loss, tax liability, or other financial activities within an organization.

Tasks for Accountants

• The Accountant prepares, examines, or analyzes accounting records, financial statements, or other financial reports to assess accuracy, completeness, and conformance to reporting and procedural standards.

• The Accountant reports to management regarding the finances of the establishment.

• The Accountant develops implements, modifies and documents recordkeeping and accounting systems, making use of current computer technology.

• The Accountant establishes tables of accounts and assigns entries to proper accounts.

• The Accountant computes taxes owed and prepares tax returns, ensuring compliance with payment, reporting or other tax requirements.

• The Accountant maintains or examines the records of government agencies.

• The Accountant advises clients in areas such as compensation, employee health care benefits, the design of accounting or data processing systems, or long-range tax or estate plans.

• The Accountant develops, maintains, and analyzes budgets, preparing periodic reports that compare budgets, preparing periodic reports that compare budgeted costs to actual costs.

• The Accountant provides internal and external auditing services for businesses or individuals.

• The Accountant analyzes business operations, trends, costs, revenues, financial commitments, and obligations, to project future revenues and expenses or to provide advice.

Knowledge needed for Accountants

The Accountant needs knowledge of economic and accounting principles and practices, the financial markets, banking and the analysis and reporting of financial data. The Accountant needs knowledge of mathematics such as algebra, geometry, calculus, statistics, and their applications. The Accountant needs knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar. The Accountant needs knowledge of administrative and clerical procedures and systems such as word processing, managing files and records, stenography and transcription, designing forms, and other office procedures and terminology. The Accountant needs knowledge of circuit boards, processors, chips, electronic equipment, and computer hardware and software, including applications and programming. The Accountant needs knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership techniques, production methods, and coordination of people and resources. The Accountant needs knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs, assessments, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction. The Accountant needs knowledge of laws, legal codes, court procedures, precedents, government regulations, executive orders, agency rules, and the democratic political process.

Skill requirement for Accountants

• The Accountant needs skills in mathematics in order to solve problems related to the job function.

• The Accountant gives full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.

• The Accountant uses logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems.

• The Accountant monitors performance of their fellow workers as well as their own job performance.

• The Accountant considers the relative costs and benefits of potential actions to choose the most appropriate one.

• The Accountant understands the implications of new information for both current and problem solving and decision making.

• The Accountant must understand written sentences and paragraphs in work related documents.

• The Accountant determines how a system should work and how changes in conditions, operations, and the environment will affect outcomes.

• The Accountant identifies measures or indicators of system performance and the actions needed to improve or correct performance, relative to the goals of the system.

• The Accountant must adjust actions in relation to others’ actions.

Abilities requirements for Accountant

• The Accountant needs the ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.

• The Accountant needs the ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.

• The Accountant needs the ability to read and understood information and ideas presented in writing.

• The Accountant needs the ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.

• The Accountant needs the ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.