ad // As a younger person trying to figure out what you want to do with your life in terms of job or career, it can be an absolute minefield. And it’s not just younger people this effects, there are plenty of people in their 30’s, 40’s and 50’s who are considering a career change.
Most people have the general skills they need to get a job without and additional training. Whether that’s from school, parents or peers, you can learn how to approach people, how to manage your time effectively and how to use a computer, considering everything is online these days.
But of course, a lot of jobs do require an additional specific set of skills that you’ll need to be hired and be good at your job, without any additional struggle.
Becoming an accountant is a career path that you might need to start forging early on. Studying accounting qualifications and getting an accountancy apprenticeship to start your career and just two of the things you might need to do to start your career in an accountancy firm.
Accountants manage financial records across a vast variety of sectors and businesses. They can do the following:
- Management of businesses and their accounts to help financial health of the business
- Overseeing payroll and taxes of businesses financial accounts
- Tax accounting for self-employment or businesses to help with tax returns
And of course, there are many, many tasks that an accountant would do within each of these categories to help the individual or business’s accounts run smoothly. And a lot of people – like you and me – will need an accountant at some point in their life, for a variety of different needs, like those listed on tolley library.
Accountancy can be a great career path, with a decent wage attached to it. But of course, for a job that requires you to look into so much detail into people’s businesses and finances, there are definitely some skills that you’ll need to have to become an accountant.
Numeracy skills
Having a good knowledge and skill in math and numbers is pretty crucial if you want to be an accountant, as you’ll spend most of your job looking into numerical data. Not only will you need to know the basis; addition, subtraction, multiplying etc., but you’ll also need a good knowledge of budgeting, trends and analysis.
Computer literate
Like most jobs, you’ll need to be computer literate to become an accountant because almost all of businesses accounts are online. Accountants work on spreadsheets and accounting software almost every day and whilst these programs are something that can be learnt, a good knowledge of computers is a bonus.
Organization
Accountants deal with many businesses, multiple accounts and many tasks every single day, so they need to be organized and practice good organizational skills, due to the important nature of their work. They can’t make a silly mistake due to being disorganized as there can be penalties for untimely reporting.
Time management skills
Which ties on to time management skills as I do believe organization and time management can go hand in hand. With a pile of different tasks and accounts, you need to know how to manage your time effectively so you can get everything done, within the timeframe you have.
Attention to detail
An attention to detail – the fine details – is really important for an accountant, especially as they spend a lot of time looking at numbers and the finer details of accounts. Nothing can be missed, so attention to detail is really important, especially as they can deal with legal documents.
Data analysis
The ability to withdraw very specific pieces of data from things like financial reports is something accountants will have to do often, so if data analysis isn’t something you’re comfortable with, then you might want to re-consider. Because there will be a lot of in in accounting!
If you’re thinking about starting a career as an accountant, I hope this has helped give you some basic insights into what sort of skills you’ll need as a baseline for your career! Of course, accountancy goes much deeper than what is mentioned here, so if you are interested in starting a career as an accountant, then definitely do more research into it!
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You’re very right, all of these skills are needed to be a good accountant. Too bad we’re not math people.
I’m not an accountant, but I work at an investment company. So, a lot of these skills overlap into what I do.