Assistant chief accountant: appointment, conditions of admission, job descriptions and scope of work performed

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

Any state, budgetary or commercial enterprise carries out its activities within the framework of accounting and reporting by the chief accountant. Not a single business transaction, not a single economic process passes by the chief accountant, who controls all the accounting procedures of the company. But it is quite difficult for one person, and even in a large-scale company, to comprehend the entire range of duties assigned to the chief accountant. Therefore, each head of the accounting department takes a mandatory personnel unit to help him - an assistant to the chief accountant.

The "right hand" of the chief accountant

What is this position? Who is he - assistant chief accountant? Which plan responsibilities are included in his job description?

In fact, the assistant staff for the head of the accounting department is a person who does everything for himtechnical issues and takes responsibility for maintaining all the documentation assigned to him by the head. The assistant chief accountant is his support, an indispensable apprentice, practically considered his "right hand". Initially, a young and promising person, not without ambition and desire to develop in his professional field, is taken to such a position. Often this is a graduate who recently graduated from a university with little work experience in a primary enterprise, to which he was sent by an educational institution. Aspiring to realize himself as a worthy cadre, such an employee tenaciously grabs the chance given to him to prove himself and tries with all his might to prove his importance to his immediate supervisor and provide professional assistance. In the meantime, in the process of this work, the assistant himself gains the necessary experience, acquires new knowledge, learns the way of the enterprise and enters the course of economic processes.

Spectrum of knowledge of assistant chief accountant

However, it is not enough just to be promising and strive to conquer new career heights. The work of the assistant chief accountant is based mainly on the obligatory knowledge of the list of specific points of the functioning of the department of a particular enterprise, namely:

• legislative basis for accounting;
• orders and instructions on the organization of accounting and reporting;
• main points of civil law, tax and financial legislation;
• company structure and strategic prospects for its development;
• P(S)BU;
• IFRS;
• accounting documentation procedure;
• fundamentals of production technology;
• market economic methods;
• labor laws;
• rules and norms of labor protection.

Procedure for appointment

As in the case of any other employee, the procedure for appointing an assistant chief accountant is carried out in accordance with the established current labor legislation. Formally, this is carried out through the order of the director to hire a new staff in the person of the accomplice of the chief accountant. In fact, the chief accountant himself selects a candidate for the position of his assistant, looks through all kinds of resumes, conducts specific interviews, weeds out unsuitable candidates and notes for himself the most significant qualities of potential applicants for the position of his assistant. But, in any case, an employee of the accounting department hired must have a higher professional accounting or economic education, or a specialized secondary education with at least one year of work experience in his educational profile.

Release from office is also carried out in accordance with the procedure established by the current labor legislation through the order of the director upon a preliminary oral statement from the immediate supervisor - the chief accountant himself.

Employment conditions

According to conditionsemployment, the assistant chief accountant reports directly to his supervisor and carries out his instructions as orders of his immediate superiors. In carrying out his work, the assistant chief accountant must be guided by the regulatory framework, the charter of the company, the provisions of accounting in the company, the current job descriptions and internal labor regulations. At the same time, a prerequisite under which this personnel is accepted into the staff is knowledge of not only the specialized regulatory framework, but also the presence of a standard set of computer skills, fluency in software applications, application of accounting programs in practice, including " 1C". Also, an assistant hired must understand that he can be sent on a business trip, and in the case of a business trip of the chief accountant, be his deputy.

Job Descriptions

The scope of duties of the assistant chief accountant is determined by the internal labor schedule of the enterprise, approved by its director, as well as private footnotes of the chief accountant, as the direct supervisor of the hired employee. In order to conduct correct work, when hiring, he is introduced to the list of specific functions required for mandatory implementation. So, the job description of an assistant chief accountant includes:

• execution of orders and orders of your management and company administration;
• performance of work in the assigned area of accounting;
• reflection in the primarydocumentation of relevant business transactions;
• money flow control on bank accounts;
• execution of payment orders and their timely submission to the bank;
• monitoring the timeliness and correctness of crediting and debiting funds;
• preparation of cash and other cash reports;
• making payments to the state budget and the budget at the local level;
• calculations under lease agreements;
• ensure the safety of accounting documentation;
• preparation of documentation for its subsequent transfer to the archive;
• participation in inventory;
• replacing an absent chief or ordinary accountant;
• providing methodological assistance to colleagues and employees of the unit in terms of accounting, controlling, analytical and reporting issues;
• observance of labor and production discipline.

Personal qualities and job skills

In addition to fulfilling the range of specific duties, the position of assistant chief accountant provides for the employee's possession of a number of personal qualities that contribute to his high-quality functioning as a staff unit. Here it is quite important to have endurance, attentiveness, perseverance, since the work is not easy, requiring constant concentration on the tasks performed. Such qualities as prudence and moderation will not interfere, because the work must be done not only quantitatively, but alsoqualitatively. Logical and analytical thinking, as an obligatory aspect of the professionalism of an assistant chief accountant, will become an indispensable trump card of an employee in helping his manager. A rather important role is played by constant memory training, especially visual, as well as commitment to one's duty and one's work, because the coefficient of useful activity in the work done depends on this.

Rights

Not only a separate group of duties and skills should be owned by the assistant chief accountant of the enterprise. In any case, he has certain rights that guide him in the performance of a specific range of tasks assigned to him by the chief accountant. What are these rights?

Firstly, he can at any time request or demand the necessary materials and documents that relate directly to the issues of the accountant's activities. No one has the right to refuse the assistant chief accountant in his requests of a financial and accounting nature or questions regarding the economic activities of the enterprise.

Secondly, he can voice his conclusions to the administration of the enterprise, which will help improve the work related to the functional apparatus of the accounting department and sections of the entire enterprise as a whole. The assistant does not have the right to challenge or object to the orders of the chief accountant, but he can make his own proposals that will really be rational.

Responsibility

Regarding responsibility,which the assistant chief accountant bears, then it is limited to the following aspects, upon identification of which he may incur an administrative pen alty in the form of a reprimand or deprecation:

• complete or partial failure to comply with the items of job descriptions;
• providing false information to higher management about the fulfillment of tasks, instructions, orders received from him, as well as violation of the time period allotted for the implementation of these tasks;
• refusal to carry out orders, directives and instructions of the director of the company;
• decomposition of discipline and violation of internal regulations;
• damage to company property, including goods and other material assets;
• disclosure of information that constitutes official or commercial secrets.

Working conditions

Regarding the mode of operation: the assistant chief accountant, by order of the director, undertakes to comply with the schedule of exits, which was announced to him as the internal labor regulations, as well as adhere to official punctuality in visiting the workplace and the agreed discipline with the obligatory adherence to the dress code of the company. If a production need arises, by order of the management with the consent of the immediate superiors of the assistant chief accountant, the latter can be sent on a business trip.

Unspoken duties

Speaking about the secret duties of an assistant, we can assume that there are possible requirements of the chief accountant for his assistant, which are not officially recorded on paper, but take placeto be. For example, make coffee every day for the arrival of the authorities at work or water the flowers during his absence from the workplace. Duties of this kind are not included in the list of job descriptions, but in order to maintain a normal friendly microclimate in relations between the boss and the subordinate, it is better for the assistant to follow these simple unspoken rules.

Practical significance of the frame

Assistant chief accountant at a factory, at a trade enterprise, in a budgetary institution is equally important for his manager and the company as a whole. This is the same frame that ensures the smooth operation of the management apparatus of the accounting department. Thanks to him, the direct activities of the chief accountant are organized and technical problems are eliminated in the well-established system of the accounting department as a whole. Therefore, it is a mistake to believe that the assistant to the chief accountant is just a "pawn" in his hands. With the right selection of personnel from the mass of worthy applicants, the assistant to the head of the accounting department can really become a valuable employee and an indispensable personnel unit in the business of the enterprise.