Accounting Specialist Job Description
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, accounting specialists held 2.1 million jobs in a wide variety of industries in 2008. Accounting specialists help businesses track their income and assets. These professionals perform a variety of financial duties such as preparing and recording business transactions, reconciling accounts, offering strategies for mergers and acquisitions, tax strategy, and benefits management.
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Accounting Tasks
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Accounting specialists are essentially record-keepers. They monitor and update accounting records, and they calculate expenditures, receipts, accounts payable and receivable, profit and loss.
Accounting specialists might also manage business general ledgers. They carefully track and record all transactions. They can be in charge of producing financial statements, reports and summaries for management. Some specialists handle specialized tasks such as payroll, preparation of invoices and tracking of overdue accounts.
Accounting Careers
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Accounting specialists come with many career titles. Bookkeepers, auditors, accounting clerks, accounts-payable and accounts-receivable clerks are all accounting professionals in specialized fields.
Bookkeepers and bookkeeping clerks are responsible for handling general ledgers. They also make and receive payments in the form of cash, checks and other payment methods.
Accounting clerks usually go by the title of accounts-payable clerk or accounts-receivable clerk, depending on their duties. They perform duties such as monitoring loans and accounts keeping the information up to date. They might also handle totaling, balancing and reconciling billing vouchers, and they might make sure all account data is accurate and complete.
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Work Environment
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Most accounting specialists work at a desk in professional, office environments, for up to 40 hours a week. They might spend hours at a time sitting at a computer, analyzing and recording data. The hours can be long, especially during tax season. They also might work longer hours during the end of the fiscal year and during monthly or annual audits. Accounting specialists working in hotel, restaurant or retail companies might log longer hours during the holiday season.
Education and Training
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Most accounting specialists are required to have at least a high school diploma. Associate and bachelor's degrees are not always required, but candidates with college degrees are becoming more and more attractive to employers.
Most accounting specialists receive on-the-job training under the guidance of a senior accounting professional or supervisor, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In some cases certification is necessary. For example, the Certified Bookkeeper designation which demonstrates that the holder has all of the knowledge and skills necessary for specific financial and accounting duties.
Career Outlook
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According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual earnings for accounting specialists in May 2008 were $32,510. Those in the top 10 percent of the industry were paid more than $49,260. Those in the bottom 10 percent received less than $20,950.
As the economy continues to grow, more businesses will need accounting specialists to handle financial transactions and record-keeping. The Bureau pf Labor Statistics projects a 10 percent growth from 2008 to 2018.
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References
- Photo Credit Accounting image by Guitar75 from Fotolia.com
