What To Look For When Shopping For An Accountant?

Are you in need of a qualified accountant to manage your business finances? If so, you should know not all accountants are created equal. In fact, every accountant has unique skills, experience, and an employment history like no other.

These are only a few capabilities that must be assessed carefully when hiring an accountant. Remember, your business finances depend on your hiring the most qualified, experienced accountant possible.

Accountants are professionals with a broad range of responsibilities, such as documenting and managing expenses, analyzing financial data, conducting an analysis for a risk evaluation, and preparing income taxes.

To ensure your finances are accurate, in the event your business is audited by the Internal Revenue Service “IRS”, your records must be spot-on. With a qualified accountant by your side, your business will pass its audits with flying colors.

Educational Background

Any job candidate can make education claims, but it does not mean they are factual. This is why it is crucial to validate every qualified job candidate’s claim regarding their education history. To qualify for a Certified Public Accountant “CPA” certification, you must obtain a bachelor’s degree in accounting. To earn the degree, you must complete an accredited program at a college, university, or other educational institution. Qualifying students can enter an accelerated program to obtain their bachelor’s degree in less than 4 years in many cases.

To validate a qualified job candidate’s education history, you will be required to run a background check. Pre-employment “employment” background checks play a major role in the hiring process for many companies. Businesses rely on background check reports to validate the criminal history, education, driver’s license record, employment history, and credit history of only qualified job candidates.

The report will take anywhere between 72 hours and 10 business days to process. In the meantime, you should continue conducting interviews in case another more qualified job candidate comes along.

Accountant Job Duties

When you initially look at an account’s job duties, it is easy to see why numerical errors are so common among these professionals. It is unfortunate, but numerical errors are difficult to avoid, especially among unqualified accountants. This is why it is even more important to only consider job candidates with at least 5 years of experience.

When accountants are fully qualified to handle all their job duties, they are confident, resulting in fewer numerical errors. You must know, even a minor error of a few cents could result in an IRS audit.

It is important to be familiar with these job duties. Be sure to inquire about the job candidate’s job duties during the interview. Like all professional job positions, accountants are not always responsible for every job duty linked to their profession. In this case, you need to only consider candidates with experience related to your business finances.

Great Communication Skills

Accountants spend the majority of their workdays working with numbers. The rest of the day is spent communicating with other professionals, which is where great communication skills come into play. If you believe accountant skills are important, you obviously forgot about communication skills. You must remember, the professional you are considering hiring will be representing your company.

Knowledgeable Of Accounting Terms

The accountant should be able to speak pleasantly, professionally, and respectfully. The professional should also be familiar with the endless accounting terms. Accounts payable, accruals, balance sheet, cash flow, debits, enrolled agent, equity, inventory, journal entry, and gross margin are just a few examples.

The interview is a great opportunity to inquire the job candidate about their knowledge of important account terms. Do not forget the importance of รับจดทะเบียนบริษัท throughout the hiring process.

Positive Personality Traits

You would be surprised by the number of accountants with bad personality traits. Your new accountant should have a strong personality. There are several personality traits to be on the lookout for during the interview with each and every qualified candidate. These personality traits include energetic, ambitious, optimistic, serious, businesslike, qualified, kind, responsive, honest, helpful, sociable, and natural.

Every qualified accountant should possess positive personality traits. The only way to determine if a candidate has these personality traits is to spend some time together, which is where the interview comes into play.

Again, the professional you hire will be representing your company.