What Kind of Work does an Accountant Do?

Most people don't associate accountants with glamour, but this is a very important career. Many who work as accountants enjoy a rewarding work life. Accountants regularly act as the financial backbone of a business, assisting the people at the top in drafting goals and planning out how best to achieve them in a financially sound manner.

If you enjoy that type of problem-solving and have a knack for numbers and a love for dealing with high amounts of money, then a career in accounting could just be in your future. Let’s look at what to expect as an accountant, including the type of work environment and skills necessary to succeed in this field.

The General Work Responsibilities & Work Environment of Most Accountants

Most all accountants will work in some type of office environment with a bustling schedule, with at least 40 hours of work per week during the off season and upwards of 80 hours per week during tax season or during other deadline periods (such as at the end of each quarter in a corporate office).

This demanding career requires long hours. However, most find themselves well recompensed for such hours with the Bureau of Labor Statistics listing $68,150 as the median pay for Accountants and Auditors.

Several common types or fields of accounting include:

• Private accounting. This encompasses accountants who are employed by a single firm and receive a salary via an employer-employee set-up.
• National income accounting. Some accountants use their knowledge and skill to provide the public and government entities with estimates of a country's annual purchasing power.
• Fiduciary accounting. Here, the accountant acts also as a trustee, administrator, executor, similar position of trust as they keep records, control, and prepare reports related to property subject of a trust or estate.
• Fund or governmental accounting. Outside of the national income accounting, there are a myriad of ways an accountant might provide their services for the general good. Non-profits and local units of government are also in need of accountants to perform what is called special funds accounting where profit is not used as a measure of entity efficiency.
• Forensic accounting. Forensic accounting is a unique specialty type of accounting that deals explicitly with issues arising from legal disputes and litigation, with 'forensic' pertaining to anything related to use in a court of law. Forensic accountants or auditors will frequently either have to give testimony or provide expert evidence during trials.
• Investment accounting. This is an arena of big and fast cash flow as this style of accounting deals with investment portfolios such as in securities, commodities, and hedge funds.

Key Skills Every Aspiring Accountant Should Have and Hone

You might think being handy with a calculator is all you need to be a great accountant. While you do need math skills, you also need a lot of other traits and skills. Here are just some of the factors that make a great accountant.

• Detail oriented. Accounting is a career for people who are meticulous. Something as seemingly as innocuous as two flipped numbers or a misplaced decimal point can have severe financial consequences for your clients. Another part of being detail-oriented is being proactive as great accountants are adept at quickly spotting errors and discrepancies and even anticipating when and where issues may potentially come up.
• Adaptability and flexibility. Accountants are often required to juggle a number of deadlines and clients and so it is important to be adaptable and able to switch up your schedule with whatever is coming up next.
• Love for numbers. This should be a no-brainer, but a love for math and problem-solving is a must for accountants. That said, you don't have to be a mathematical genius to be a great accountant. This is a skill and talent you can hone and thanks to cutting-edge software, one that you will have plenty of computing help with.
• Computer skills. This is likely a necessary skill for anyone looking to enter the 21st-century workforce, but given the highly sophisticated accounting software currently available, it is one that is particularly important for aspiring accountants to have.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills. Accountants have to deal with a ton of numbers and figures and understand how those amounts relate to a larger picture. They do so because their clients are don't have that same technical know-how yet those same clients still need to know what's going on. A great accountant will understand how to communicate their work, answer any questions the client has, and be able to clearly convey their best financial recommendations and explanations on those recommendations.

Are you Ready to Step into the World of Accounting?

Interested in the accounting field? If you want to earn a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration with a Concentration in Accounting, ECPI University offers this degree at an accelerated pace. For more information, connect with a helpful admissions advisor today.

It could be the Best Decision You Ever Make!

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Gainful Employment Information – Accounting - Bachelor’s

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