What do accountants do all day?

Question

What do accountants do all day?

Answer 1

I graduated from College this past year with a BA in Accounting and am currently working at a public accounting firm working as a Staff Audit Accountant - basically I don't have to do anything with taxes, which is what I wanted, and I get to go to the client's office all the time to perform the fieldwork for the audits. A lot of planning goes in to auditing and then you get in the fun part (or I like to call fun!) - the fieldwork. This is when you look through the client's accounts and do testwork to see that account balances appear reasonable to what the client has on the trial balance. My line of work is auditing the captive insurance field - An alternative form of insurance (in short - company's create their own insurance company to insure them, for instance it may not be possible or may be too expensive to purchase insurance in the "regular" marketplace). Hope this helps! People often forget how interesting accounting can be - auditing is great for those who are curious and willing to learn new things every day!

Answer 2

Well, depends on what your function is, they bill customers, pay bills, reconcile bank accounts, reconcile all other balance sheet accounts, they code & post invoices, they can run analysis reports on budget to actual results.



Or they can sit around on YA! all day answering questions like me. :)

Answer 3

Depends on the time of year. Since I work for a public accounting firm, we handle every kind of client. During tax season, I prepare a lot of taxes. After that, I start on my audits. First are the employee benefit plans- I do testing and write up analytic reviews of internal controls to explain why I think a company's system is good enough or not good enough to catch any problems or fraud. If it's not good enough, then I have to test the likelihood of an error or fraud... etc etc.



Once most of my audits are done in autumn, I start on a lot of odds and ends year-end stuff. I help small business and individuals plan for the next business year, budgets, and taxes. I also do some reports (crop share, budgets, depreciation) for farms (there are a lot of farms around here.)



Essentially, it changes depending on the season.

Answer 4

my dad's an accountant

he basicly sits at a desk on a computer using a microsoft program to manage people's taxes and how much money they owe to the irs

and every couple hours he talks to one of his clients on the phone, sometimes he goes to one of his clients places of bussiness to take inventory and stuff

pretty boring if you ask me

and from january to april 15th he basiclly lives at his office for "tax-season" =(

Answer 5

They account for things.

Answer 6

They keep track of money. Keep records, and prepare reports concerning whomever's monies are being kept track of.



Here is some more info:



Public accountants work for public accounting companies. They do accounting, auditing, tax, and consulting work. Some have their own businesses. They do many different kinds of accounting for people outside the company.



Management accountants keep track of the money spent and made by the companies for which they work.



Internal auditors make sure that a company's accounting records are right. They check the records to see that no one in the company is stealing. They also check to see that no one in the company is wasting the company's money.



Government accountants and auditors make sure that government accounting records are right. They also check the records of people doing business with the government.