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| *Ostroff, Fair and Company>>>Financial Services |
What exactly does an accountant do? |
What do you do? How much do you get paid? Is it a good job? Is it a boring job? Do you use a computer? Give me details please?!?! I'm a staff accountant and I reconcile bank statements to the companys book, I prepare property tax returns, issue finacial statements of how the company is doing to management, Calculate depreciation for all of the assets purchased for the company. Prepare a lot of journal entries, do physical inventory of our products twice a year. My pay is 46k yr and I work from 9a.m-6p.m. It becomes very boring half of the time, the only time it really gets busy is at the end of year where we close the books and the auditors are usually at the company driving everyone up the wall. Eventually you want to move from a staff accountant level to becoming a CPA thats where u get the big bucks. The CPA exam is very difficult, it is more difficult than trying to pass the board exam to become a lawyer, so when u do pass it u ar recognized as been very smart and you can demand whatever salary u want. There is a wide variety of different types of accountants such as public accountants who work in the field of anything that is publically traded on the stock market, there are auditors who review your financial statements, there are non for profit accountants. Hope this helps! in my experience: make people nervous around audit time. :P (cause they're so darned good at tracking down financial anomalies...i wasn't trying to insult them) takes invetory of the cereal , yes you use a computer and the pay is slightly higher than min wage they paint houses-----are you freaking kidding me An accountant reviews and audits your financial records and checking/savings accounts. Reviews your books and records in order to make a reputable and honest report on your financial position. They can file your IRS/State taxes, quarterly withholdings, W2s and 1099's. They can prepare a monthly, quarterly and annual business report on the state of your business, and how much was made, spent, invested and lost. They keep you straight with the government and will protect you if the government audits/questions any of your filings. You use a computer a great deal and have to be professionally trained and educated in order to become a professional accountant. If you want to become a CPA you have to pass a battery of tests that are provided by the Certified Public Accountants Standards and Qualifications board. Once you obtain a CPA status you can do all the necessary accounting work for the various govenment agencies, banks and others, such as the stock holders. You can render an opinion of the state of the particular business. Most CEO's of major companies have a back ground in accounting or are CPA's/ (at least trained as one). It is a highly respected profession, and pays extremely well. A good CPA can earn just about as much or more than any other profession. It would seem boring but the rewards are significant and coupled with a MBA can lead to fantastic financial rewards in the corporate structure of most businesses. A CPA, can generally demand about $70,000. if working for an accounting firm to start and as he/she builds their business base, the earning potential is basically unlimited. Some of the partners if major accounting firms earn in the millions per year. Hope this helps you. There are many different kinds of accountants...some of the careers overlap and some don't. Your level of education/experience will determine how much money you make, but the range that I've observed is between $20K to over $250K. FINANCIAL/MANAGERIAL ACCOUNTING Staff accountants are employed in a wide variety of industries and perform a wide variety of tasks. Every business is different and every company needs at least one accountant to keep the books in order. Specializations could include inventory, cash, receivables/payables, payroll, purchasing, credit approval/collections, and the list goes on. Financial accounting focuses on "financial statements" which are required by the SEC, and Managerial accounting focuses on measuring costs. TAX/GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTING More than just processing tax returns for individuals, tax accountants have extensive knowledge about other entities: corporations, partnerships, non-profits, and so on. Many CPAs are assumed to be tax accountants because many small CPA firms do just that for their clientelle, but a CPA can basically have their pick of any accounting career they want. Additionally, the government needs accountants too...and the list of agencies abound. AUDITING For every kind of accountant, it seems like there's an equivalent auditor -- however, auditors have loads more education than lower-level accountants. IRS agents audit taxes, internal auditors audit business costs, external auditors audit financial statements, GAO auditors audit government waste, and so on. To your last question, is it boring? Hard to answer as everyone has their own personal taste. You'll need to be comfortable using a computer, and depending on the type of accountant, there could be travel involved. It totally depends on the direction you pursue. accountants basically calculate the amount of money for rich people. |
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