Accountant
Career information and advice on being a Accountant

An Accountant is responsible for all the financial aspects of a clients’ or company’s account. This ranges from daily ledger entries, financial forecasting, salary, Tax and accounts preparation, as well as investments and sound financial planning.

As an Accountant you could work for a large company as their accountant, or as part of a team of accountants.

If you worked in practice you would provide accountancy services for fee-paying clients. You would be responsible for the clients’ tax, debtors and creditors, Audits, Payroll functions, as well as advise clients on how to improve the financial status of the business.

An Accountant’s clients could include wealthy private individuals, small businesses that do not employ in-house accountants or you could consult to large companies, possibly overseeing their Bookkeepers.

An Accountant can specialise in one particular area of accounting, such as Corporate Tax or Mergers and Acquisitions.

As an Accountant, you could choose to work as a Public Finance or Public Sector Accountant, where it would be your job to ensure public money is spent properly.

An Accountant may work for government departments, local authorities, housing associations, for charities, the NHS or for universities. In these areas you would monitor spending, to ensure money was used for the correct purpose.

If you were to become a Management Accountant your job would be to look after your company’s finances and find ways to increase profitability. In this role you would be working for a single company, not as a private practice accountant earning fees from many clients.

Another specialist area is that of a Tax Advisor. It would be your job to ensure that clients pay the correct tax (Compliance). You could advise clients on the best way to structure their finances to avoid paying too much tax (Consultancy).

Accountant functions include

As an Accountant you could work within a team, manage a team or work on your own providing specialist services such as Corporate Tax.

You could be asked to draw up financial statements such as profit and loss statements, balance sheets and payrolls. You could also be expected to estimate the costs of new projects and review budgets and investments.

An Accountant also monitors spending and company cash flow and allocates money to projects and departments.

As a senior Accountant you could be trusted with the job of analysing the effectiveness of service and managing the company’s financial systems. With this would come the added task of running internal audits and presenting the information to the company board or its shareholders.

Another function could include meeting with clients and collecting information from them in order to prepare their books. You would be expected to audit their tax records and check and complete the client tax returns.

A major area of work would be keeping abreast of the latest tax law to ensure you maximise profit and reduce tax costs to the company.

As an Accountant you might also oversee the company payroll, the credit control and bookkeeping systems.