An Underestimated Profession
Often, people outside the business world may wonder about the difference between the president of a company and the chief executive officer. What is a comptroller, they ask, and what is a vice-president of communication? There is one position, however, that everyone in or out of the business world recognizes: an accountant. This is not to say that the ordinary person—or even the chief executive officer—really understands what a company’s accountants do. Basically, an accountant takes care of a firm’s books. Most people recognize this means overseeing invoices and depositing receipts, paying bills, handling payroll, dealing with taxes, balancing all the books and making regular reports to executives, stockholders and regulatory agencies. Just this oversimplified version of a business accountant’s responsibilities expressed this way makes it clear the sort of a person it takes to be an accountant and to what degree accountants and bookkeepers are underestimated.
In actuality, a rudimentary explanation of what an account does is not an adequate description of what it takes to become an accountant in the first place. It requires a whole lot more than being intelligent and good with numbers:
In the undergraduate part of an accountant’s training, the honduras phone number student must have 15 credits in tax law and an equal number of credits in auditing. This is the minimum requirement for those wishing to be Registered Public Accountants.
In the graduate part of training, the candidate for the position of State Authorized Public Accountant must successfully complete a master’s degree in accounting and auditing.
Beyond these credentials, candidates must take and pass an aptitude test.
As with other advanced professions, those who achieve these basic certifications frequently go forward to achieve specialization in various forms of accounting.
Accountants Save the Day
The notion that the executives running a business do not fully understand the work of the bookkeepers and accountants who oversee the firm’s finances is not that far-fetched. A recent article in Forbes claims that often the top business execs who make the most important decisions dislike accounting—not because they hate numbers and bookkeeping, but because they do not understand them. This emphasizes the importance of the accountant, who has studied financial systems, tax law and balance sheets for years. Moreover, a dedicated, experienced accountant has the ability to examine the bookkeeping records of a company and rapidly make the observations and recommendations necessary to give the executive officers the correct information they need to make the most important decisions. This is critically important and helps identify why it is so key to find the right accountant.
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