In the United States, the Bureau of Labor-Statistics has revealed that accountant’s jobs would see a growth of 13.1% by the year 2022. Thus, if you love figures this would be good news for you.
Accounting can be defined as the language of any business. Accounting deals with facts and figures which tell you if your business is running in profit or loss. What is the difference between bookkeeping and accounting?
A person from a non-financial background would feel that bookkeeping and accounting are the same pods in a single pea. But on a closer introspection both are different. Bookkeeping is the art of maintaining records. Here the data is stored chronologically and this could be day to day business transactions and so on. Thus bookkeeping is a part of the information system which is maintained in accounting.
What is the nature of the work of an accountant?
When analyzing accounting job description, you have to understand the nature of his work. An accountant can be best described as a person who conducts various financial procedures in a company and records various facts and figures. The nature of work of an accountant would depend on where he is working.
Small-Business Units: In a small business unit, the accountant is responsible for the entire end to end accounting system of the company. There would be around two people in the accountant department. The accounting system would record the various financial transactions made on a daily basis and classify the data accordingly.
Medium to Large Business: The Accounting Job Description could be quite complicated in a medium to large business. Take for example a large lending firm that offers personal loans for bad credit. Here the person would need to handle the various components like vendor management, loan tracking, manage internal financial records and also the financial transactions in each department of the company.
Exploring the main duties of an accountant
The accounting job description would contain the following duties which are:
- Financial facts and figures have to be entered accurately into the various books of accounts like documents which have confidential business transactions in them and the general ledger.
- Daily undertake the journal entries.
- Analyze the various daily banking transactions.
- Check the inventory details in the sub ledger accounts.
- Undertake reconciliation of payroll.
- Create the monthly sales report which would be used for business forecasting.
- Study various contract and vendor orders.
- Check whether procedures and guidelines are being maintained as per procedures maintained in the company manuals.
- Correct and review errors and undertake various audits in this regard,
- Help the company to run smoothly and offer assistance and advice when needed.
- Trim off the extra costs of the company.
- Get trained to do other duties in administration as well.
What is the environment of work?
Most accountants have their own firms and handle clients independently. Some of them free lance and travel extensively to meet the needs of their clients
What is the educational criterion?
To become an accountant you would need to undertake a bachelor program in accounting. Becoming a Certified Public Accountant would add value to your job.