Question

What does it mean tobe a professional Accountant?

What are the characteristics of a professional Accountant?

What distinguishes a professional Accountant from someone who simply works in accounting (e.g.,bookkeepers, data entry, accounts payable clerks, etc.)?

What role does a professional Accountant play in our economy, society, democracy, etc.(think broadly)?

Does a professional Accountant have responsibilities not shared by other professions(i.e., finance professionals, sales and marketing professionals, technology professionals, etc.-all may work alongside Accountants in the modern day accounting firm)? If so, discuss these unique responsibilities and indicate their relevance.

Answer 1

Ans- Accountant is a person who is primarily responsible to manage all the accounting activities, from their origin to end, he is the person who keeps records of all the business transactions in books of accounts of the business,

Professional accountant is also an accountant , he performs all the duties of accountant with some other professional activities like,

- Audit of financial statement

- Valuation of business pertaining to any business decision

- Advice the management for various investment decisions and other decisions

Generally in each country there are professional bodies who certifies Accountant as Professional Accountant.

Characteristics of Professional Accountnat

i) Having strong values for ethics

ii) Ready to learn always

iii) Must have organisational skills

iv) Strongly accountable towards work

v) Able to work in a team

vi) Proper knowledge of the field

vii) Creative

Difference between normal and professional accountant-

A normal accountant or (bookkeeper) is the person who is primarily responsible for book keeping and record keeping, his area of work restrict only upto record maintaining,

but a professional accountant is responsible towards accuracy of work, his area of work is beyond to mere bookkeeping , he has duty to verify and confirm the true and fairness books of records maintained by him

Various roles of professional accountant

i) Firstly the major role of any professional accountant is in the business itself, they are the persons who track all the financial records of the company in ethical way and the management and all the other stakeholder believe in their work, they have many major roles like financial consultant, internal auditor, business valuer , liaison between business and government authorities.

ii) Their role is not limited upto business only but in public interest also they have a strong role , common public who buys securities or invest in any business strongly believe the information provided by professional accountant , and on the basis of that information they believe or decide to acquire shares or to invest in the business.

iii) Sometime the professional accountant face situation conflicting their professional values and public interest, in such case being professional  they are expected to act professional and judge in public interest without breaking any professional value.

Yes, professional accountant have unique resposibility not shared by other professions,

As Independent Auditor they provides independent assurance to management that in the organization their internal control process, risk management process and governance tools are working properly , that no other professionals can do this

In public sector they have a major role in fiscal policy towards common public which affects large number of people directly,

In academics they have a unique role to guide and train upcoming professionals to work for the society