Top 15 General Accountant Skills to Stay Top of Your Career

This post presents important general accountant skills and qualities you need to develop to improve your job performance and succeed in your career.

Please, read on:

Presentation of financial reports at the end of the month or any other stipulated time is one of the jobs of a general accountant.

He/she is in charge of general accounting operations in the organization.

Who is a General Accountant?

A general accountant is one hired by an organization to oversee the analysis and preparation of financial documents and reports.

He/she prepares financial reports and documents other financial involvements of the organization.

Top 15 General Accountant Skills to Stay Top of Your Career

Here are important skills and qualities you need to have to improve your effectiveness working as a general accountant:

1. Organization
2. Time management
3. Adaptability
4. Communication skills
5. Honesty
6. Integrity
7. Leadership
8. Self-motivation
9. Personal evaluation
10. Analytical skills
11. Business acumen
12. Interpersonal skills
13. Proficiency in IT
14. Problem solving skills
15. Adept with different methods of job execution.

1. Organization

This has so much to do with coordination. This is the ability of a general accountant to coordinate and organize activities that go on in the accounting department and some other aspects of the organization at large.

Meaning that organization is a sure skill you should possess as a general accountant.

You should be able to manage first your activities before talking about the activities of other people in the organization.

This is very important if you really want to have a smooth day at work.

Not organizing your activities in the workplace can make your job complex at times.

After that, the next you should consider is coordinating the activities of the group or the department.

This is very important as any form of misdoings or mistakes can be taken to be a product of your lack of organizational skill.

So be organized in yourself first and then your team.

2. Time management

This has to do with your ability to work with the time provided for you to execute a particular accounting job in the organization.

This can be during auditing period or any other event in the organization.

It is expected you work with the given timeframe and avoid making excuses.

As a general accountant of the organization, there are financial reports expected by the organization at the end of the month or any other timeframe stipulated by the organization.

You should be able to make your work ready before the given deadline.

So with this in mind, you should be able to establish a working synergy with other members of the accounting department to ensure that the reports needed at the end of the month, quarter or year is ready on or before the stipulated timeframe.

3. Adaptability

Change occurs in all forms of life and as such should not be something new to you.

This can come in the job you do as a general accountant. There are changes you need to adapt to rather than being scared.

When there are changes in the operation of the organization where you work, what you need to do is to reinvent yourself, get more ideas and learn from experts who are ahead of you in the accounting field and know how to adapt to the change.

This change can be what you really need to step up in your career.

Anyway, the motive of most changes in most organizations is to optimize labor for the sake of growth and increase in profit.

So, the change is not there to put you to flight but to help you step up in your job.

4. Communication skills

Working in the capacity of a general accountant demands that communication is a must for you.

Communication is necessary in your job and you should be able to do your best to be an excellent communicator within the organization where you work.

You communicate through your writings in the form of reports and you also communicate orally to lend your ideas and suggestions.

First is the written form of communication which comes in the form of the report that you write at the end of the month or quarterly or even yearly.

Second form of communication is the oral form of communication.

This comes in various forms ranging from the presentations you make during meetings and the normal day to day communication that takes place between you and other people in the department and the organization at large.

5. Honesty

There is no employer that does not appreciate and nurse the desire of having an honest general accountant. It is a relief to whoever owns the organization and it is one of the skills that can endear you to the big wigs of the organization.

Honesty demands that whatever you present to the organization as a financial report for the month, quarter, or year can be verified to be the exact thing you have presented to the hierarchy of the organization.

This is what we mean by honesty.

You just cannot succeed in the long run if honesty is not your thing.

It is not something you should joke with.

It is possible to have the whole skills in the world as an accountant, but once honesty is absence, there is every chance that you may lose your job.

6. Integrity

Integrity works hand in hand with honesty.

It is highly unlikely to find an employee that has integrity that does not believe in honesty.

In fact the two are inseparable.

So, as a general accountant, think of integrity as one quality that has the ability to keep in the job for long.

Integrity entails that you do not change your policy any day any time.

You are known for being honest not just for a day or week but you are known for honesty all the time you are working in that organization.

It is a reputation you build over time.

Just like honesty, integrity has the ability to keep you in this job.

This is because your integrity is what makes people in the organization to trust you.

Without integrity, nobody has any reason to trust you.

So if you want to be trusted, work on your integrity.

Don’t manipulate figures to suit anyone in the organization, no matter the circumstance.

7. Leadership

You shouldn’t be surprised or taken aback with the fact that you are a leader in the financial accounting department.

You are one of the key figures in that department and should act, talk and behave as one.

This means that you should set example for others in the department and organization to follow.

To be a leader in your department is a direct call to being a coach to the less experienced ones in the accounting department.

Even if the young employees under you might have some impressive grades but little experience, there is need for you to ease them into the practical aspects of their jobs.

This entails teaching, coaching, correcting, and monitoring the activities of the less experienced ones in the organization until they come to the point of being able to work with little or no supervision.

This is important because if they are not doing well in their job, it can affect your job too.

8. Self-motivation

The amount of effort you put in your job is always dependent on the level of motivation that is at work in you.

The more enthusiastic you are to be an excellent general accountant, the more effort you put into it to make it happen.

This is to say that your level of productivity is directly proportional to the level of motivation you are working with.

Motivation can come from different sources but the most potent and important form or source of motivation is self-motivation.

Every other form or source of motivation might really fail with time but self-motivation has the ability to outlast every other form or source of motivation.

This is simple; self-motivation is not dependent on anyone but rather your desire to succeed in your job.

9. Personal evaluation

At every point in time there is the need for you to carry out personal evaluation or personal appraisal.

This is a way of measuring your success with your output.

With your level of output, there is a minimum level of success you should be expecting.

If your success is less than expected, it means that somehow some way something is wrong somewhere.

It could mean that your method of doing your job might be problematic.

If that is the case, you should find a better way of doing your job.

In cases like this, some tend to resign but I wouldn’t advise that you consider that yet, just do what was suggested above and know where you go from there.

This is important because the evaluation the organization gives you might not be a true reflection of your efforts.

10. Analytical skills

In the organization where you work, there are a lot of things to analyze or evaluate.

First is the problems that are always brought to your table to be solved, this is quite understandable.

The second is likely to the system operational in the organization that might be problematic.

In analyzing the problems that are brought to your table, you should know that most of them are daily and light issues that just need your attention.

It may not really take much of your time if you can analyze them well and know what to do about them.

Then for the analysis of the system operational in the organization, it may not be easy to make rapid changes to the system if need be.

However, that does not mean that you should not do a proper analysis of the system and know what to suggest to other executives of the organization.

11. Business acumen

Money resides in the marketplace and not the banks.

There is a well-established link between the marketplace and the organization or company where you work.

Remember that your organization exists to make profits and profits are mostly in monetary terms.

So knowing this fact should make you know that business acumen should be one of the necessary skills you should have.

You should not look at yourself and think that you don’t need to burden yourself with the workings of business and trends of the marketplace.

So be deliberate in your pursuit of business knowledge.

It will help be more complete in your job.

Sticking to the knowledge of accounting without corresponding business knowledge can make you a half-baked employee in the organization.

12. Interpersonal skills

When you work in an organization as large as where you are working, one of the things that should be in your mind is to relate well in the organization in the form of teamwork.

This is important as this can help you have a more successful career as a general accountant.

For you to really work effectively with other people, you should be able to work on yourself.

This means your ability to cut off some unprofessional excesses that might pose to be problems in the long run while working in that organization.

Then you can proceed to becoming teachable in your job. Being teachable in your job means that you are open to new ideas from different people as long as the knowledge acquired will be useful to you in the long run.

13. Proficiency in IT

There is no need to stress this so much. At least anyone who is current with the way the world is moving should know that the world has gone digital and anyone who does not embrace the digital change is bound to be left behind in no time.

To you a general accountant of your company/organization, one of the ways you can make your job easier is if you embrace Information Technology.

This involves the use of IT to carry out your job on daily basis.

This involves having the necessary digital gadgets that can help you carry out your job easily.

Also, there are some applications or software tools specially designed for accounting jobs.

Get them and work with them. You must not wait for the organization to do that for you.

14. Problem solving skills

I guess problems should not be something entirely new to you in this job.

Challenges abound in businesses begging to be given due attention and the best of expertise. This is where you can prove your expertise beyond reasonable doubt.

To be a good problem solver in the organization where you work, you must always learn to anticipate challenges while preparing yourself ahead of time to meet the challenges that may arise in the course of carrying out your job.

It is not to say that you pray for challenges, but understanding that they are bound to come will make you get ready before hand to deal with them.

When you want to be good at solving problems, you should be able to learn from similar situations in the past and how they can be compared with the ones you are facing now.

This can help give you tips on how to solve your problems in the organization.

15. Adept with different methods of job execution

There is no law anywhere that restricts you from trying out new methods of solving problems in the organization unless it is prohibited for some reasons in your organization.

But if there is no prohibition of any method, then you should consider using any method that suits you and helps you achieve greater succeed.

This is what you can do by yourself.

It is not something that the organization will do for you.

You should be able to gather more knowledge about different ways you can solve problems in the organization.

It is quite good and makes you a wanted commodity in the accounting field.

Apart from the boredom that comes with doing the same thing over and over again using the same method, it also shows that you are not really improving in your job and field.

This might be a serious red flag for your employer, forcing them to look for better solution out there.

General Accountant Skills for Resume

If you are writing a resume/CV for the general accountant position, you can create a very impressive Skills section by utilizing the general accountant skills and qualities discussed above.

By highlighting some of the skills and qualities above (if you have them) in your resume/CV, you are sure to be able to convince the recruiter/employer that you have the right skills and qualities to be effective on the general accountant job.

This can increase your chances of being hired for the general accountant position that you are seeking.

Conclusion

The job of a general accountant is well defined and does not need too much clarification.

It is a job that is concerned with the preparation of financial documents and reports.

However, succeeding as a general accountant is largely dependent of how you are able to make the most of the skills and qualities shared on this page.