Accountants are employed by organisations or private clients to audit accounts, provide financial advice and undertake accounts administration.
Accountants go through a rigorous recruitment and qualification process, and this is reflected in their high professional status.
Who is an Accountant?
An accountant is a practitioner of accounting or accountancy. Accountants who have demonstrated competency through their professional associations' certification exams are certified to use titles such as Chartered Accountant, Chartered Certified Accountant or Certified Public Accountant. Such professionals are granted certain responsibilities by statute, such as the ability to certify an organization's financial statements, and may be held liable for professional misconduct. Non-qualified accountants may be employed by a qualified accountant, or may work independently without statutory privileges and obligations.
What Does an Accountant Do?
Accountants provide financial advice to clients that range from multinational organisations and governmental bodies to small independent businesses and individuals. Accountants often specialize in areas of practice, including audit, management consultancy, recovery, forensic accountancy, taxation, assurance and corporate finance.
Key Areas of Responsibilities
These are outlined in the following main categories:
A) Book Keeping and Accounting
- Prepare, examine, and analyze accounting records, financial statements, and other financial reports to assess accuracy, completeness, and conformance to reporting and procedural standards and policies.
- Compute and account for taxes owed, prepare and file tax returns, ensuring compliance with tax laws, deadlines and statutory legislation.
- Fixed Assets management and control including preparation of the Fixed Assets Movement Schedule and accounting for the Depreciation thereon.
B) Cash and Treasury Management
- Providing oversight on cash and cheque collections from customers and ensuring such receipts are recorded in the Accounting system and deposits made of the same within 24 hours.
- Manage all requisitions for payments.
- Prepare all supplier payments after due reconciliation of all Supplier accounts and ensure the same are fully approved by the respective managers and Bank Signatories.
- Collaborate effectively with the Sales and Operations departments and be the lead in Credit Control to ensure the customer accounts are well reconciled and discrepancies are resolved in a timely manner to avoid delay in customer payments.
- Reviewing Monthly Statements sent to Customers and ensuring follow-up for the collections are done.
C) Financial Analyses, Control and Reporting
- Analyze business operations, trends, costs, revenues, financial commitments, and obligations, to project future revenues and expenses or to provide advice.
- Reviewing daily reports for Sales, Collections, and Bank Deposits; weekly Stock Reconciliations, aging of Receivables; and Monthly Sales Analyses.
- Develop, maintain, and analyze budgets, preparing periodic reports that compare budgeted costs to actual costs.
- Advise management about issues such as resource utilization, tax strategies, and the assumptions underlying budget forecasts. (Make best-practices recommendations to management).
- Liaison with internal and external auditors for the smooth audits and implementation of the Management Letter items highlighted thereof.
D) Procurement and Suppliers Management
- Supervise and Direct the management of requisitions from the user departments and reconcile the summary thereof to the Purchase Orders that need to be raised.
- Ensure all Purchase Orders are appropriately approved and authorised.
- Ensure that Supplier Reconciliations are done on a monthly basis and the same reconciliation forms the basis of payments.
Key Skills of an Accountant
📊 Financial Accounting & Treasury Skilled in handling general accounting procedures such as bank reconciliations, petty cash management, balancing of accounts and general ledgers.
📈 Financial Reporting Substantial knowledge on finance reporting, monitoring expenditures, budget forecasts, and cost management.
🔍 Analytical Skills Ability to analyse, assess and calculate risks and find solutions using logical reasoning.
⚖️ Statutory Compliance Proven track record ensuring compliance with rules and regulations set by governing bodies.
🤝 Relationship Builder Strong ability to create and maintain relationships for company brand.
📝 Detail Oriented Keen attention to details ensuring all valuable data is captured during report preparation.
💡 Analytical & Problem Solving Ability to visualize and solve complicated problems effectively.
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