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Wednesday 1 October 2014

ACCOUNTANT JOBS

The Field Of Accounting
Accounting frequently offers the qualified person an opportunity to move ahead quickly in today’s business world. Indeed, many of the heads of large corporations throughout the world have advanced to their positions from the accounting department. In industry, management, government, and business, accountants generally start near the top rather than near the bottom of the organization chart. Management relies on the expert knowledge and experience of accountants to cope with the increasingly complex problems of taxes and cash flow.
Accounting is a basic and vital element in every modern business. It records the past growth or decline of the business. Careful analysis of these results and trends may suggest the ways in which the business may grow in the future. Expansion or reorganization should not be planned without the proper analysis of the accounting information; and new products and the campaignsto advertise and sell them should not be launched without the help of accounting expertise.
Accounting is one of the fastest-growing fields in the modern business world. Every new store, school, restaurant, or filling station-indeed, any new enterprise of any kind-increases the demand for accountants. Consequently, the demand for competent accountants is generally much greater the the supply. Government officials often have a legal backround; similarly, the men and women in management often have a background accounting. They are usually familiar with the methodology of finance and the fundamentals of fiscal and business administration.
Earlier accounting procedures were simple in comparison with modern methods. The simple bookkeeping procedures of a hundred years ago have been replaced in many cases by the data-processing computer. The control of the fiscal affairs of an organization must be as scientific as possible in order to be effective.
In the past, a bookkeeper kept the books of accounts for an organization; the present-day accountant’s job developed from the bookkeeper’s job. Today, a sharp distinction is made between the relatively unchanged work performed by a bookkeeper and the more sophisticated duties of the accountant. The bookkeeper simply enters data in financial record books; the accountant must understand the entire system of record so that he or she can analyze and interpret business transactions. To explain the difference briefly, the accountant sets up a bookkeeping system and interprets the data in it, where as the bookkeeper performs the routine work of recording figures in the books. Because interpretation of the figures is such an important part of the accountant’s function, accounting has often been described as an art.
The field of accounting is divided into three broad divisions; public, private, and governmental. A certified public accountant, or CPA, as the term is usually abbreviated, must pass a seies of examinations, after which he or she receives a certificate. In the United States, the certification examinations are prepared and admin-istered by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. The various states or other major governmental jurisdictions set additional qualifications for residence, and so on. The British equivalent of a CPA is called a chartered accountant.
CPAs can offer their services to the public on an individual consultant basis for which they receive a fee. In this repect and many others, they are similar to doctors or lawyers. Like them, CPAs may be self-employed or partners in a firm; or they may be employed by an accounting firm. Some CPAs perform work for corporations or government offices and receive a salary like other members of management. Nevertheless, they are still considered to be accountants. It is not necessary to have a certificate in order to practice accounting. Junior employess in large firms, for example, are often acquiring sufficient experience to take the examinations.
Public accounting consicts largely of auditing and tax services. An audit is a review of the financial records of an organization. It is usually performed at fixed intervals of time-perhaps quarterly, semiannually, or annually. And as the tax laws have grown in creasingly complex, not only corporations but also individuals have had to utilize the services of accountants in preparing their tax forms and calculating their tax liability. Business enterprises, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations all employ public accountants either regularly or on a part-time basis.
Many accountants work in government offices or for nonprofit organizations. These two areas are often joined together under the term governmental and institutional accounting. The two are similarbecause of legal restrictions in the way in which they receive and spend funds. Therefore, a legal background is sometimes necessary for this type of accounting practice.
All branches of government employ accountants. In the United States, this includes federal, state, and local governments. In addition, government-owned corporations in the United States and in many other countries have accountants on their staffs. All of these accountants, like those in private industry, work on salary basis. They tend to become specialists in limited fields like transportation or public utilities.
Nonprofit organizations are of course in business for some purpose other than making money. They include cultureal organizations, religious groups, or corporate-owned research organizations. Although  they are limited in the manner in which they can raise and spend their funds, they usually benefit from special provisions in the tax laws.

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