CPAs and Other Accountants

A Day in the Life

As an accountant, you are responsible for analyzing and managing the finances of your clients, which may include large corporations, small business owners or private individuals. When you work in accounting, you may become a certified pubic accountant (CPA) or may be known simply as an accountant or auditor. You can work for an accounting firm, for a corporation or for yourself. Your basic duties will be the same no matter where you work.

As an accountant at a mid-sized business, you arrive at work when the office opens. You check in with your administrative assistant and learn that the chief financial officer (CFO) of the company has just sent updated monthly financial reports to your office. You will need to analyze these reports and perform calculations so that you can describe the financial standing of the business to your superiors.

You begin reviewing the documents and notice that spending in accounts payable was 15 percent higher than usual during the past month. You call the CFO and let him know that you are going to investigate your concern. After talking with him, you head to the accounts payable department and talk to the manager there. You go over the records with the manager and realize that a simple entry error was made when some payments were put into your company's computerized accounting system. You review the original payment records so that you can adjust this entry.

After fixing the accounts payable discrepancy, you prepare financial projections for the next quarter based on a handful of monthly reports. In your projections, you include information about the company's tax liabilities. It is your responsibility to prepare income tax returns for your company on a yearly basis, so it's important that you help executives plan for the type of tax burden that your business carries.

One of your chief duties is to act as a financial advisor to company executives. You believe that your company is wasting money and that cutting down on waste could increase profitability. In order to identify waste, you've contracted with an auditor to examine your company's books. While you are qualified to act as an auditor, you know that it is often helpful to have a second set of eyes when analyzing financial data.

You meet with the auditor and provide her with the financial documents that she will need in order to complete her analysis. You clean up your office and leave for the day, taking a few profit-and-loss reports with you so that you can examine them before you come in tomorrow.