Considering a career in accounting? Well, it’s a great choice. Accounting is a broad field with a strong job outlook, that has possibilities of drawing in fat pay-checks. While a degree in accounts or finance is enough to get you started as an accountant, it takes more than just strong accounting knowledge to truly succeed in the field.
Here are top skills that you need to succeed as an accountant:
1. Numeracy skills: To begin with that which is most obvious, accountants need to have strong numerical skills. You don’t really need to be a brilliant mathematician as such, but must be comfortable crunching numbers. This means you should be efficient in common calculations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication etc. and working out percentages and decimals.
2. Analytical skills: In the current work scenario, the roles of accountants are expanding. It’s not just about calculating numbers and drawing up balance sheets. Employers want their accountants to be able to analyse financial situations and come up with suggestions and ideas to improve those situations. This requires you to have a general business knowledge, i.e. a basic wholesome understanding of how businesses run, and be able to provide financial ideas to help the company meet its goals.\
3. Organisation and time management skills: Accountants are often faced with a multitude of tasks at once, and organisation and time management skills are essential to being a good accountant. You will need to organise your tasks in terms of priorities and deadlines and also multitask on numerous tasks at once. Lack of organisation in an accountant often results in confusions, frustrations, and low quality of work. Similarly, bad time-management will also result in poor performance in fulfilling your roles.
4. Technology skills: While bundles of files of paperwork with financial reports can still be seen in certain offices, nobody really likes them! More and more companies are switching to technological means of doing accounting work, and an increasing number of accounting functions that were earlier served by paper are now carried out on a computer. Hence, if you don’t want to fall behind on your career, it is important that you are up to date with the latest accounting software’s such as ERP, Hyperion accounting etc., and also be fluent with excel and Microsoft office.
5. Communication Skills: Accounting isn’t just about spending long hours working alone at your desk. As an accountant you will be required to communicate with a number of clients or personnel within different departments in your organisation. You might also have to explain numbers and financial concepts to those who aren’t familiar with accounting, and you should be able to explain these things in terms they will understand. Hence, be sure to work on your communication skills.
6. Keenness: In order to truly prosper as an accountant, you need to have an eagerness to know more. Accounting is a field that is related to numerous other fields such as economics, law, management, statistics etc. You should be particularly interested in financial law and economics as meeting essential legal regulations in your work, and understanding the economy is crucial to producing legitimate work and effective ideas. Being aware of technological changes is also important as mentioned before.
Have what it takes to be an accountant? You can find a list of numerous accounting job vacancies all around Nepal on merojob. Simply follow the link below: https://merojob.com/search/?q=accountant
