Moreover, the account manager develops bookkeeping methods that allow the company to keep track of current assets and liabilities. He also establishes methods that enable the company to keep track of the change in the assets and liabilities over a period of years. Account management careers may be required to establish a system that breaks down spending into areas of expenditure or periods of expenditure. It's a vital system will depend on the role of the business and the needs of management.
Another major area of responsibility within account management jobs is in the area of budgeting. Account head uses past and current financial records to forecast what a company can afford to spend in any one area. This plays a vital role when company executives decide how financial resources should be allocated. Because each company has such specific needs, most companies, especially larger firms prefer that a accountant manager to work for them exclusively. There are also large companies with different accounting divisions for each of the areas of financing and accounting. A full-time accountant, private accountant, or industrial accountant.
Smaller businesses may hire a permanent accounting assistant as part of the staff, or they may hire one who will work with them on a free-lance basis. Some small companies may hire a specific accountant to work with them on a particular project, especially if that accountant is known for having an expertise on the jobs in account management.
In setting up and maintaining an accounting system for a business of individual, the needs of the account manager are assessed before designing the accounting methods. The account managers job to be set up will depend on the business needs. Particularly with large businesses, more than one accounting system head may be needed to keep an accurate track of the company's transactions.
A balance sheet system provides assets and liabilities, as well as other financial data. This gives stockholders and company officials some sense of the well-being of the business on regular basis. The account manager will also take charge of the company's income statement which provides an account of the costs of the operations and the intake of cash, so the overall cost doing business can be appraised regularly.
The account manager who takes charge of the accounting system provides records of earnings paid to stockholders and earnings that are reinvested in the company. A flow of funds can be organized that helps determine where and when company funds are paid out. If there are periods where a large amount of cash leaves the company, then arrangements may be requested to reschedule payments to remove high and low points in the cash flow. This task is part of the whole account management careers.
For a larger company, account head and his staff will divide the responsibilities of the business accounting task. For firms requiring a temporarily large number of accountants, the services of an accounting firm are available. During the last part of the 1980s, several small accounting firms merged to make larger corporations. The trend for accounting firms in the last part of the decade was to move into larger, more condensed groups to cover a broader range of territory, physically and professionally.
Large accounting firms have become one of the fastest growing areas of employment for accountants and auditors. These corporations hire staff accountants who work on the books of several outside companies for an over-all account management employment. The businesses take on a number of clients for whom they will do the accounting and auditing. The accounting firm is able to increase the number of clients handled because one accountant may be able to handle more than one firm, and a group of accountants can handle a large client account. One of the largest employers for accountants is the United States government. Government accountants are responsible for maintaining the enormous quantity of financial records of government agencies. They also have the same responsibilities as the private accountants but, for some agencies, the budgets are immensely larger than private corporations.
In the government itself, say in the defense department, the annual expenditures are in billions and thousands of the accountants to handle account management jobs, including auditors work in the said department, including the whole country's budgeting needs.
In addition to the accountants and auditors who provide financial and bookkeeping services, other accountants work as teachers or administrators at business and professional schools. Some work part time as accountants or financial consultants.
As in many industries, computers are increasingly being used in accounting. Computer programs are available, for example, to summarize financial transactions or put financial data into special formats, This trend toward automation will continue in the future which makes jobs in account management more efficient.
