BizEdu January 18, 2017

Main Duties of Accountants within Organizations

Accounting is the systematic and comprehensive recording of financial transactions pertaining to a business, and it also refers to the process of summarizing, analyzing and reporting these transactions to oversight agencies and tax collection entities. Accounting is one of the key functions for almost any business; it may be handled by a bookkeeper and accountant at small firms or by sizable finance departments with dozens of employees at large companies.

Accounting consists of these functions

Recording
Classifying
Summarizing
Reporting and evaluating the financial activities of a business

Before any recording can take place, there must be something to record. In accounting, the something consists of a transaction or event that has affected the business. Evidence of the transaction is called a document.

For example:

A sale is made, evidenced by a sales slip.
A purchase is made, as evidenced by a check and other documents such as an invoice and a purchase order.
Wages are paid to employees with the checks and payroll records as support.
Accountants do not record a conversation or an idea. They must first have a document. In almost any business, these documents are numerous and their recording requires some sort of logical system.

Recording is first carried out in a book of original entry called the journal. A journal is a record, listing transactions in a chronological order. At this point, we have a record of a great volume of data.

How can this data best be used? Aside from writing down what has occurred for later reference, what has been accomplished? The answer is, of course, that the accountant has only started on his task.

When asked, the accountant must turn to these summaries to answer questions like:

What were total sales this month?
What were the total expenses and what were the types and amounts of each expense?
How much cash is on hand?
How much does the business owe?
How much are the accounts receivable?

The next task after recording and classifying is summarizing the data in a significant fashion.

The records kept by the accountant are of little value until the information contained in the records is reported to the owner(s) or manager(s) of the business.

These records are reported to the owners by preparing a wide variety of financial statements. The accountant records, classifies, summarizes, and reports transactions that are mainly financial in nature and affect the business.

The reporting, of course, involves placing his interpretation on the summarized data by the way he arranges his reports. Every business has a unique method of maintaining its accounting books.

However, all accounting systems are similar in the following manner

Business documents representing transactions that have taken place. (A business transaction occurs when goods are sold, a contract is signed, merchandise is purchased, or some similar financial transaction has occurred).
Various journals where the documents are recorded in detail and classified.
Various ledgers where the details recorded in the journals are summarized.
Financial reports where the summarized information is presented Where variations exist, they have to do with the way the business transaction is assembled, processed, and recorded.

BizEducator

BizEdu

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22 Comments

GOPAL
September 14, 2018 - 11:18 am
thankyou for sharing such an inspirational info
Reply
Jacob
April 26, 2020 - 11:04 am
Thanks for the information, we’ll make sure to put this to good use over at.
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Yuri vanetik
June 25, 2020 - 3:09 pm
Your content is really helpful. thanks for sharing.
Reply
Woolloongabba accountant
June 30, 2020 - 12:56 pm
Accountants are a must in business. Some hire their own and some just do outsourcing for this job. You need to have reliable accountants to make sure you can track your business financial status.
Reply
Accountants in London
August 7, 2020 - 3:19 pm
Hey, thanks for such amazing information, I really found it useful after visiting too many blogs.
Reply
Sajjad Haider
September 15, 2020 - 10:14 am
Handling responsibilities among accountants is a real challenge in any organization. Every business owner should read and know these responsibilities first.
Reply
Accotax
September 25, 2020 - 1:55 pm
I have read this article and found it very informative.
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healthycoin
October 13, 2020 - 2:08 pm
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October 13, 2020 - 3:52 pm
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AcoBloom International
October 16, 2020 - 9:37 am
It’s definitely a great post where the author mentioned the real questions and terms of the main duties an accountant faces. Keep it up.
Reply
Accotax
October 19, 2020 - 6:34 pm
Duties of accounting like bookkeeping, tax auditing, managing accounts etc.
Reply
Zoe Campos
December 9, 2020 - 2:44 pm
Thanks for helping me understand how accountants keep track of financial transactions made by an individual or business. This makes me wonder if I’ll be able to record and analyze all the paperwork as you have described. If I were to have my own business, I’ll be sure to hire experts in accounting who can do these tasks better than me.
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Anthony Jeffers
December 11, 2020 - 3:46 pm
Thankyou for sharing the helpful and informative info keep writing this type helpful and informative blogs.
Reply
awais
January 28, 2021 - 6:37 pm
Very informative and quality content.
Reply
Sumatra
March 20, 2021 - 9:55 am
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AM ACCOUNTANTS
March 23, 2021 - 2:56 pm
Such Good content sharing with us,
You are right, Accounting is the most important of every business.
Reply
Am Accountants
April 30, 2021 - 11:12 am
Accountants are the pillar of every business, Thanks for sharing this amazing content.
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Jhon Eric
September 15, 2021 - 2:17 pm
Accotax help with their traditional accounting solutions for all small businesses, startups, contractors, and landlords.
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vramaratnam
November 24, 2021 - 12:43 pm
Your content is really helpful. thanks for sharing.
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Good autodeals
December 13, 2021 - 7:40 pm
Thanks for shar good content
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richard jorden
May 30, 2022 - 11:12 am
These days summarizing and paraphrasing is not a tough job.
There are many summarizing tools in the market to accommodate you.
Thanks for sharing such informative blog.
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Karuna
March 19, 2023 - 11:43 am
If you are good at spending money and keeping records you can grow faster than others. It is a key
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