Top 15 Accounts Assistant Skills to be Effective on the Job

This post provides the major skills and qualities you will need as an accounts assistant to be effective in your job and career.

The world of accounting is vast and will always demand more hands, especially when putting into context how big the organization under consideration is.

So, this is one of the reasons we have entry-level accounting professionals who are employed to help do some basic accounting jobs.

Who is an Accounts Assistant?

An accounts assistant is an entry level accountant who provides administrative support, undertakes clerical tasks, and performs basic accounting duties.

Top 15 Accounts Assistant Skills to be Effective on the Job

1. Accounting Skills

As an entry-level accountant, one of the basic skills you should have is accounting skills.

At all levels of accounting, be it entry-level or advanced level, a lot of emphasis is laid on the need for an excellent accounting knowledge.

This is a skill you cannot do without at any point in your job.

So, if you have interest in the accounts assistant role, bear it in mind that accounting skill is the ideal skillset to have.

This is the basics of your job and most tasks you will be engaged in will revolve round accounting principles.

It is a skill that once you have it, every other skill will be easy to have.

So, this skill serves as a foundation that you can build on as an accounts assistant.

2. Concentration

When you are working as an accounts assistant, one of the things required of you is your ability to concentrate on the work at hand.

You must ensure that you do your work in your right state of mind to avoid making mistakes that could implicate you.

Distraction is the direct opposite of concentration and will have an adverse effect on your job if you are not able to handle it.

It is important to know that whatever kind of distraction you might face; you can always find a way out of it.

Distraction really affects your job negatively and without conscious effort to deal with it, you may struggle to make out something meaningful from your job.

3. Willingness to Learn

As an accounts assistant, if you want to do great in your job, then you must be ready to learn.

No organization harbors a staff or employee who is averse to learning new things.

You must be ready and willing to learn whatever it is that can help you become a better accounts assistant.

Don’t always assume that the idea or knowledge you have is all you need at all times in your job.

You need to learn better ways of handling your job and ensure that you are ever willing to improve yourself, thereby increasing your chances of succeeding in your job.

One of the persons in the organization you are expected to learn from is the accounts officer/manager.

This is the person that is in a perfect position to teach you what you need to know in your job.

You should see them as your role models who have accomplished what you desire.

4. Prioritization

As an accounts assistant, you have several jobs that will require your attention.

You have a lot to do almost on a daily basis, and since you are only an assistant, you might not be able to delegate someone else to handle some of your jobs.

So, since you may not have that privilege, one thing you should learn to do is to prioritize your activities.

Start handling your jobs from the most important and most pressing or urgent to the less urgent or important.

Prioritizing your job will help you know when and how to channel your energy to the different tasks you have without wearing yourself out.

This is important as your physical energy is one of the most important things that can determine how far you can go in this job.

5. Goal Driven

To be goal driven as an accounts assistant is to have a purpose in mind before coming to work every morning.

Don’t come to a point where you come to work just for the pay.

You need something that fires you up to do better in your work, such as setting targets for yourself and working hard to meet up with expectations.

When you set goals for yourself in your role as an accounts assistant, it will show in your input and output.

It also helps you stay motivated even in the face of difficulties associated with the job.

When you have goals, you tend to improve yourself at any given instant.

6. Accountability

As someone working in the capacity of an accounts assistant, one thing that you should learn to do always is to give a proper account of your job.

This is what we mean by accountability. You should be able to give an accurate report of the state of your job.

This could come in the form of daily, weekly, or monthly report of your job.

Whichever timeframe you have to work with, the important thing is for you to be able to give an accurate report of how you are faring in your job.

You need to understand that it is through your report that you will be able to list out or highlight some of the challenges you are facing in your job.

This gives your employer a well detailed account of what you expect them to do to keep the department running smoothly.

7. Communication Skills

Staying in touch with your employer is the most important aspect of communication and accountability.

Giving accountability of your job is not really possible if you are not a good communicator.

Of course you know that your employer really needs to know what’s going on with you on the job.

So, apart from your employer and probably your boss in the department, the next set of people that will need communication from you are your colleagues in the workplace.

Communication can come in different forms, which are the written and oral communication.

Written communication is important in official matters, especially when passing information through reports.

On the other hand, oral communication could be used for day to day transmission of information round the organization.

8. Organizational Skills

Your job could be so complicated that you will need organizational skills to help you make it a bit easier.

As the jobs come in thick and fast, you need to have your way of making it easier through excellent organizational skills.

It is through your organizational skills that you will apply the principle of prioritization where you arrange your job for the day in respect to the timeframe needed to accomplish each and their relative significance.

Everything is just down to your organizational ability.

9. Administrative Skills

Apart from the basic accounting duties you are employed to do, there are also some administrative tasks attached to your main job.

The administrative duties could be in-service to your boss in the department or your own activities.

Some of the administrative duties that you can be assigned include arranging files in your office and ensuring that all appointments and duty roasters are adhered to.

When you have jobs like this to handle, you will need some good administrative skills to carry them out without much glitches.

10. Time Management

One way to measure employee competence in any organization in today’s world is the ability to meet up with time.

Time is an indispensable factor in the business world.

By this, we are not just referring to literal markets; we mean any point of contact where you exchange your expertise for money.

It is not enough to give your mental ability in your job.

Time management is one of the things whoever you are working for will look out for in your resume.

Your employer is interested in knowing how much you can deliver within the shortest possible time.

11. Willingness to Work

Attitude means a lot to your boss. They want to see from you the desire to work.

When you give out some negative attitude that shows you are not willing to work, it means you have lost motivation and may be difficult to work with in the future.

The truth is that, it is your willingness to work that will lead you into getting better in your job.

When you are willing to work, you will find yourself exploring every possible opportunity to make yourself and your work better.

This is when your boss will nurse the desire to give you greater responsibilities.

Unwillingness to work even when you want the job is one of the greatest disfavors you can do to yourself in your career.

It is not only unethical but always a sign of incompetence and lack of professionalism.

Even if you have a genuine reason not to work, it is better to make it official to your boss and let there be agreement in place in that regard.

12. Passion for the Job

To succeed in your accounts assistant job, you must love it.

There is no argument about that. Love for your job is the passion this point is referring to.

You must be happy to do the job and not the other way round, even when no one is there to supervise what you are doing.

Your passion for your accounts assistant job remains the biggest source of motivation in your job.

If you don’t love your job, then you will hardly find a reason to stay motivated in it, and when you lack motivation it will begin to reflect in your performance.

Though you might face a whole lot of challenges in your job, yet it is very important for you to ensure that your passion for it is not lost.

As stated above, if your passion for the job is lost, then it could result to a whole lot of things, like inefficiency and time mismanagement.

13. Good Work Ethics

Good work ethics is a necessary prerequisite for success in the work of an accounts assistant.

Good work ethics is relative in the sense that what is acceptable in one organization may not be tolerated in another organization.

So, find out what works in your organization and how it plays out in your job.

This will help you avoid making some decisions that could be catastrophic in the organization.

However, there are behaviors that are generally accepted in every organization, such as punctuality.

14. Openness

There is no doubt that as someone at an entry-level in an organization, you need a lot of time to adapt to the workings of the organization, starting from knowing your way round the organization and having to work with a new set of people you have not met in your life prior to that time.

Openness allows you to take in criticism and adjust where necessary.

The essence of criticism is to highlight your mistakes and probably help you make the necessary corrections.

This entails having a teachable character and not assuming that you are always right in your actions.

15. Ability to Work Alone as Well as in a Team

The ability to work effectively alone and also in a team setting are two different dimensions of competence.

It is a great thing if you are able to work effectively alone and also in a team environment.

Most employees are deficient either in the first or in the second, and to some extent some are deficient in the two.

First is your ability to work in a team.

This is important to every employer because you will need the strength and knowledge of others in the workplace to really do well in your own role as an accounts assistant.

It is an important skill that must be clearly spelt out in your resume.

In addition to working in a team, you should also know the importance of working alone if need be.

By this we mean your ability to do your job regardless of whether anyone is monitoring you or not.

You should be able to do what is required of you without been supervised by anyone.

Accounts Assistant Skills for Resume

If you are making a new resume or CV for the accounts assistant position, then you can highlight the skills shared above in the Skills or Competence section of your resume.

However, you need to have developed these skills before stating them in your resume, otherwise that would be deception, which is not a good thing to do.

Having the above skills and qualities in your resume is a proof to the employer that you have the ability to be effective in the role of an accounts assistant, which can increase your chances of being selected for an interview or hired for the accounts assistant position.  

Conclusion

In conclusion, as more organizations are expanding their territories and horizons, more job opportunities are made available and one of such opportunities is that of an accounts assistant, which is meant for entry level accounts.

As much as this position is available in some of the biggest organizations you can think of, however, you need to have the right skills and qualities to be hired

This post has provided some of the important skills and qualities you need to develop as an accounts assistant so that you can be effective in your work.  

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