Accountant is one of the most common professions to date. All of the features of this work will be described in this article.
Who is an accountant?
An accountant is a person who is engaged in financial accounting, documentation and preparation of reports to the appropriate authorities. This profession is quite complicated. Accountant functions are very difficult. However, all the complexity of work is offset by a decent salary and career opportunities.
Today, work related to accounting is quite in demand in the labor market. Indeed, in almost any company or company requires a specialist who would be engaged in maintaining documentation and financial accounting. In fact, the activities of the company depend on the accountant: the company's budget, employee wages, payment for product deliveries, etc. If the company is small, then only one chief accountant will be enough. Moreover, the functions of the chief accountant are always much wider and more voluminous than usual. If the company is large, then whole bookkeeping will be needed.
What does an accountant do?
It’s worth a little wider to reveal the functions accountant. Responsibilities It is worth saying that the representative of the profession in question is quite a lot. 
And all of them are not as simple as it might seem at first glance.
- The accountant is obliged to exercise constant control over the level of wages of company employees. The responsibilities for the distribution and calculation of salaries are also in his competence.
- The accounting employee must periodically submit reports to the appropriate authorities, usually fiscal.
- The representative of the profession in question is engaged in the optimization of tax deductions.
- The primary documentation, which includes tax invoices, balance sheet, TTN - all this is also under the clear supervision of an accountant.
- If the company carries out export or import operations, the work on their paperwork rests with the accountant.
All the duties and functions of an accountant listed above are far from the only ones. This specialist can be assigned to many other matters. Everything depends mainly on the specifics of the company in which there is accounting.
The necessary education for the profession of accountant
In order to get a job in accounting and become a qualified specialist in your industry, you must, of course, get the appropriate education.
A candidate for a workplace must have a financial and economic higher education. Where they are more willing to take a person who has a special certificate - an auditor or a professional accountant. But getting such a document is not very simple: you have to listen to a special course of lectures and pass exams.
Graduates of famous universities like the Plekhanov Russian Academy of Economics and financial academies will also be highly appreciated. If a person plans to work in an international company, you will have to get a special certificate of IFRS - International Financial Reporting Standards.
A competent specialist should not be limited to the knowledge gained during education at a university. It is very advisable to understand the law, know the principles of working with 1C, Access and Excel. No less important is the experience of working with any company: the length of service should be at least one year.
On the demand for the profession of accountant
The job functions of an accountant are incredibly voluminous.Often, start-up companies can not even ensure the availability of normal accounting. 
This is, of course, connected with the lack of truly competent specialists.
The profession of accountant is really in demand today. But there is one extremely interesting detail. Russian universities graduate a fairly large number of people with the specialty that interests us. However, many enterprises are still unable to secure the staff of accountants. In this regard, graduates should give one recommendation: a diploma of graduation is not enough. It is necessary to constantly work on yourself, to acquire new skills, to improve. Company executives are very fond of competent professionals. The functions of an accountant should not be limited by the requirements. In addition, the representative of the profession in question is one of the few workers with the possibility of real career growth. Only by working on yourself, you can get a good position and high income.
Advantages of the profession
Of course, the popularity of the work of an accountant should be due to many advantages. 
This profession really has advantages, and considerable. These include:
- High profit payment. Despite the prevailing stereotype of an accountant as a "little man" with a small salary, you can still get very good money for your work.
- The demand for the profession in question. Virtually any company needs competent specialists, so finding a job will not be so difficult.
- Extra earnings. Many legal entities, small firms, individual entrepreneurs often need people who are familiar with the functions of an organization’s accountant. Such emergency situations may not take a specialist for permanent work, and occasionally use his services. It is worth noting that such "single" orders can be paid very well.
The advantages, therefore, of the profession of an accountant are really significant.
Disadvantages of the profession
In any work, you can find a number of shortcomings. In the profession in question, they are also enough.
What can be distinguished here?
- The difficulty of assimilating a large amount of information. Of course, you can keep all the data on paper. Another question is whether this will be convenient. Often, an accountant really has to memorize a lot of different materials, and this, of course, is a big drawback. But you can look at this situation positively: memorization will not harm the human consciousness, but on the contrary, will only strengthen it.
- Frequent conflicts with superiors. The thing is that after inspections - both tax and audit - all claims will be made only to the accountant. And do not think that these conflicts can somehow be avoided. Even at an ideally arranged enterprise, accounting is usually “to blame” for everything. This can also be attributed to the evil views of workers who were delayed wages.
- High responsibility. There is no need to explain much. And so it is clear how important the functions of an accountant in an enterprise are.
Career and prospects
Students of financial and economic universities can earn extra money as accountants (or assistant accountants) in senior courses.
Thanks to this, at the time of graduation, graduates have a short experience. This will help get a job at any enterprise. However, it is better to forget about the early career growth. Five years, the accountant will be required to perform a simple routine work. But this does not mean that you do not need to improve yourself. Performing his labor functions as an accountant, a person must constantly replenish the luggage of his knowledge. Only effective work will be able to grow to the chief accountant. But here is not worth stopping: the career ladder provides for even higher positions.
Who is the chief accountant?
The responsibilities of an ordinary accounting employee and chief accountant vary. The level of income, rights, requirements, etc. is also different. How can one characterize the functions of the chief accountant (chief accountant)?
This will be discussed later.
To begin with, it is worth pointing out that the chief accountant manages all accounting. His responsibilities include the implementation of external and internal document management. But the main functions of the chief accountant are as follows:
- Within the scope of his competence, this specialist has the right to resolve various administrative disputes.
- Costs, profits, tax payments, etc. - the chief accountant is also responsible for all this. His responsibilities include reporting.
- The chief accountant monitors compliance with the procedure for registration of primary and accounting papers, necessarily in accordance with the established procedure.
- Compilation of various kinds of plans - both strategic and analytical.
So, we already know who this accountant is and what he does. We thoroughly discussed his responsibilities and functions. The accountant, who is the head of the department, expects even more work. Of course, a specialist who has at least five years of work experience can claim this place. And do not think that the position of chief accountant is the highest stage of career growth. It's not like that at all. Skilled professionals can leave accounting and become financial or CEOs of companies.
