An Analysis of Corporate Accountant Qualifications and Experiences

This report examines the qualifications and experiences that employers seek in corporate accountants, based on a collection of 30 job advertisements from various organizations in Australia. The report details the organizations, job titles, personal attributes (such as accuracy, organizational skills, communication skills, interpersonal skills, ability to work under pressure, and accountability), and professional/academic qualifications (including CPA/CA certifications, experience in accounting standards, and experience in commercial environments). The report also outlines the tasks, roles, and responsibilities of corporate accountants. The analysis covers skills, experience, and attributes needed to become a corporate accountant, and compares these requirements with the topics covered in the MPA unit HI5020 Corporate Accounting. The findings provide insights into the current demands of the corporate accounting job market, offering valuable information for aspiring accountants. The report highlights the importance of both technical skills and soft skills in securing a corporate accounting position, emphasizing the need for strong communication, organizational abilities, and the ability to work effectively in a team and under pressure.

Qualifications and experiences that
employers seek from Corporate
Accountants

ABSTRACT
A good qualification and experience helps the employees to seek better
opportunities for their future. In the same way, having better experience will support an
individual to garb best option for their career. Thus, the current study main aim is to
provide clear understanding related to qualification and experience to their employers
that further assist them to seek from the corporate Accountants. So, researcher
collected 30 job advertisement related to accountant post in total which further describe
the personal attributes that is required from the a corporate accountant and some
academic and professional qualifications as well.

Table of Contents
ABSTRACT........................................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................................5
MAIN BODY.......................................................................................................................5
1) Number of job advertisements collected...................................................................5
2) Organizations that have posted the job advertisements...........................................5
3) Name of job titles that are mentioned in the advertisements....................................7
4) Personal attributes that are required for corporate accountant................................7
5. Describing all the personal attributes required for a corporate accountant in detail.8
6) Professional and academic qualifications for a corporate accountant......................9
7) Tasks, roles and responsibilities of corporate accountant......................................10
8) Additional topics, attributes or learnings outcomes missing from MPA unit HI5020
Corporate Accounting that are listed on the job advertisement. ................................11
9) Critically examine the skills, experience and attributes needed to become a
corporate accountant. Also critically evaluate how the topics that you have learned in
your MPA unit HI5020 Corporate accounting..............................................................12
CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................14
REFERENCES................................................................................................................14

INTRODUCTION
Corporate accounting refers to the field of accounting that is related with
accounting for different organizations, preparation of financial statements and cash flow
statements, interpretation and critical analysis of financial statements of the company.
Corporate accountants are the individuals that are specialised in accounting for
business, maintaining the financial records of the firm to ensure the compliance of
regulations, policies and laws etc. Generally, they help management and executives to
make financial decisions for the company (Bhasin, 2015). The Report will outline
number of advertisements collected from source like online job portal. Various job titles,
personal characteristics required in corporate accountant, professional and academic
qualifications, skills, experience and attributes needed to become a corporate
accountant etc.
MAIN BODY
1) Number of job advertisements collected.
Job advertisements refers to electronic notification used by organization to hire
someone for vacant job position. Generally, advertisement is given for a particular
period in which candidates can apply. Total 30 job advertisements has collected from
seek. It is top employment marketplace of Australia.
2) Organizations that have posted the job advertisements.
The organizations that have posted the job advertisement for the post of corporate
accountant are as follows-
Beach Energy Limited Oil and gas exploration industry
Allura partners FMCG industry
MPC Kinetic Energy and resource industry
First Graphene Ltd Manufacturing industry
Studco Building Systems Manufacturing industry

J&J Top solutions Service industry Intermediate tax accountant
University of Melbourne Education industry Assistant management
accountant
Queensland Government Government Assistant accountant
Australian Vanadium Ltd. Mineral exploration Management accountant
Morgan consulting Consulting firm Senior management accountant
EOS Group Financial services Management accountant
commercial
Hays accountancy and
finance
Service industry Management accountant
Macias consulting Pty Ltd. Mining industry Senior management accountant
The Andersen Partnership Service industry Senior management accountant
Horizon Engineering Senior financial accountant
Industry capability
network (Victoria) Ltd.
Networking Financial accountant
Accor Hospitality industry Management accountant
Novo Hospitality industry Hotel accountant
AUB Group Ltd. Financial services Senior financial accountant
U & U recruitment
partners
Mining and resources Senior financial accountant
GrainCorp Food supply chain Senior financial accountant
(Fixed term)
Emu plains financial
services
Financial sector Tax accountant (part-time)

Campbell and partners
accountants Pty ltd.
Financial sector Accountant in accountancy
practices- primarily tax
Michael Page Accounting
and finance
Accounting Tax accountant
Red path partners Pty. Ltd. Construction industry Corporate accountant- part
time
Doyle executive Recruitment industry Corporate management
accountant
Suncorp Financial service industry Corporate financial control
accountant
Aldi stores Retail chain Corporate accountant
TW power services Energy and power industry Corporate accountant
Reo group Consultancy industry Group corporate accountant
3) Name of job titles that are mentioned in the advertisements.
Job positions mentioned in advertisement are as follows -
 Corporate accountant
 Intermediate tax accountant
 Assistant management accountant
 Management accountant
 Senior management accountant
 Assistant accountant
 Tax accountant
 Corporate financial control accountant
 Group corporate accountant
4) Personal attributes that are required for corporate accountant.
In the business, every organization need Corporate Accountant because they are the
person who help them to prepare a budget in order to allocate the funds for spending
purpose to each and every department of the company. In the same way, organization

also wants different personal attributes in a Corporate Accountant as per job
advertisement and these are:
 They must have an ability for accuracy
 Strong organizational skills and multi- tasking abilities.
 Corporate Accountant must have strong verbal and written communication skill
 Great interpersonal skills
 An individual who working as a Corporate Accountant must have an ability to
interact with different levels of management as well.
 They should posses an ability to work under pressure and also meet the
deadlines too.
 A sense of Accountability should be posses in Corporate Accountability and also
the knowledge of a field.
 They should also posses the ability to work in a team and trustworthy as well as
reliability.
 Lastly, they also posses forwards thinking with excellent time management skills.
5. Describing all the personal attributes required for a corporate accountant in detail
There are different personal attributes which is required by Corporate Accountant
as mention in job advertisement, which are mentioned below in detail as.
Ability for accuracy: This skill help a corporate accountant to be accurate in
their work because a misplacement of a digit or even a comma leads to wrong result.
That is why, most of the accountant must have to focus on the details and should also
place a lot of emphasis on the accuracy of their work as well (Tan and Laswad, 2018).
For that they must have strong grasp of the basic that clearly reflect their interest in
order to keep their work up to date as well.
Strong organizational skills and multi- tasking abilities: It is another essential
skill because an accountant need to deal with lot of paperwork, figures and data
regularly. That is whys, to remain on top of all such detail, provide the right information
in perfect manner, the corporate account must posses good organizational skills.
Further, they are multitasker because they have to maintain relationship with other level

of management in order to allocate the funds for spendings and even they also do
accountancy work as well. That is why, they exhibit strong milt- tasking abilities.
Strong communication skill: Strong communication skills helps accountant in
making the good impression on the investor and their client as corporate accountant
always require to write the letter or to communicate with the client on the regular basis
(Tan, 2016).
Interpersonal skills: Interpersonal skills like problem solving and decision
making skills helps an corporate accountant to uncover the potential area of the
concern and helps them in understanding the data in better way. Interpersonal skill like
Negotiation helps an accountant in building strong relationship with the vendor as they
have to negotiate with the vendor, client or regulator on regular basis.
Interaction with different levels of management: It is also important for a
corporate accountant to have an interaction with different level of management in an
organization, because only corporate accountant make allocation to the funds to their
different department. That is why, it must have to maintain proper interaction with other
department as well (Ahadiat and Martin, 2016). Moreover, through this, different
problems are sort out and reach towards proper conclusion as well.
Work under pressure and strong time management skills: This skill is
another plays an important role in an accounting because a strong time management
skills helps the corporate accountant to manage the work as per defined deadlines.
Such that at the time of auditing, the person is able to manage the work when they have
a strong time management skills and can easily work under the pressure so that it will
help them to smooth functioning.
Sense of Accountability: Corporate Accountant must have a good quality of
accountant that helps to accept the result and also determine the fallout of the work as
well. Through the sense of Accountability, the corporate accountant will easily help to
own up to their mistakes and also make sure that they are the most diligent person.
Therefore, this skill helps the accountant to prevent them from an inaccuracies.
Ability to work in a team: Working in a team will help the company to
completed the entire work on time and even this also promote the working environment
which further assist friendship and loyalty too. Moreover, the close knit relationship also

motivate the employees in order to align them so that they work together. Not only this,
working in a team also helps the corporate accountant to raise their productivity and
supports network as well as innovation too.
Forward Thinking: Having a forward thinking also assist the firm to take right
decisions for the company and it also help to solve the conflicts as well. As, while
working as a accountant , a corporate accountant also faces different problems, at that
time, having a forward thinking helps them to get out of the problem and this leads them
to exact results also. In addition to this, using a forward thinking skill, they also take right
decision which creates positive impact upon the business.
6) Professional and academic qualifications for a corporate accountant.
Academic qualifications refers to the degree provided to the students after completing a
particular course. The degree may be offered by college, university etc. Professional
qualification refers to the training programme completed by candidate that helps in
future career. As per job advertisements there are various academic and professional
qualification that are required to become corporate accountant. Firstly, candidate should
have qualification in the field of business or commerce etc. They should complete the
course of CPA or CA (Huang, Fowler and Baskerville, 2016). Further, person should
have experience of developing and documenting accounting standard. Candidate
should have experience of playing the accounting role in ASX200 firm. Other than the
above, to get employment on the post of corporate accountant, candidate should have
the experience of working in professional service environment. For example –
experience of 3 years. If, an individual wants to get employment in an organisation it
should also possess the experience of forecasting and preparing budgets in a
commercial organisation. Further, candidate should have the ability to identify the
opportunities to automate the process of accounting and other system to improve the
level of financial control in the organisation. According to job advertisements there are
certain companies that prefers the experience of the individual in small and medium
enterprises. Further, experience in implementing the system like ERP etc. will also be
beneficial for getting the job of corporate accountant in a reputed company. Other than
the above academic and professional qualifications candidate should possess the

experience of playing the role of commercial or corporate accounting. Such as more
than 5 years of experience etc (Bunney, Sharplin and Howitt, 2015).
7) Tasks, roles and responsibilities of corporate accountant.
There are several key roles and responsibilities of a corporate accountant both ethically
and legally which they must follow in order to ensure smooth flow of working in their
firm. Some major corporate firms are
Beach Energy Limited - Oil and gas exploration industry
Allura partners – FMCG industry
MPC Kinetic – Energy and resource industry
First Graphene Ltd. - Manufacturing industry
Studco Building Systems – Manufacturing industry
Roles and responsibilities of corporate accountant are as follows
 The major role of corporate accountant is to analyse the financial data and
support the business in decision making. Decision making can be related to
achievement of goals and objectives, budget, time etc.
 The corporate accountants also deal in preparation of financial statements and
other books of accounts. Moreover, the corporate accountant also analyses the
statements and make certain comparisons regarding the performance of
employees and communicate it to the top level management.
 The corporate accountant prepares budget for the company and allocate it to
different departments like finance, human resource, marketing and production.
Every department needs budget to perform their day to day operations. Thus, it is
the responsibility of corporate accountant to allocate funds efficiently and
effectively.
 It is the responsibility of an accountant to follow the Australian accounting
standards and other corporate legislation to prepare financial reports so that it
can meet the legal rules and regulations of Australia country.
 The corporate accountant also has the duty to communicate problems and
provide sound solutions to the firm. Moreover, it is the duty of accountant to

follow the instructions of directors and implement the solution only after
consulting with them.
It has been identified that the roles and responsibilities of corporate accounting
exactly match with the points stated in MPA unit HI5020 Corporate Accounting..
8) Additional topics, attributes or learnings outcomes missing from MPA unit HI5020
Corporate Accounting that are listed on the job advertisement.
The major attributes and features of corporate accounting are mentioned in the
MPA unit HI5020 but there are few additional functions that are missing. Some of them
are stated below
 It is important for every corporate accountant to develop a business strategy and
ensure adequate planning if they wish their company to operate with maximum
productivity. Also, I have identified that due importance is not given to the soft
skills of an accountant which also play a major role in improving their overall
performance.
 It is the fundamental duty of a corporate accountant to perform their duties
ethically and with full responsibility. An accountant must not indulge in unethical
practices like insider's trading, false representation of company's image and
manipulation of final statements (Bunney, Sharplin and Howitt, 2015).
 Another duty of corporate accountant involves accumulation of all the necessary
documents so that the audit can be completed successfully. Necessary
documents include all the financial statements, tax reports and budgets. The
main responsibility of corporate accountant involves being extremely careful and
cautious while compiling the documents.
 A rare but valuable attribute of corporate accountant involves maintaining
relationship with other departments and keeping a continuous check on their
daily financial operations and then developing reports accordingly. Moreover, the
in-house accountant of every
company holds the responsibility to investigate about the mismatched budget and
expenditures of every department.
Thus, I have observed that these were some important attributes that were
missing from the MPA unit HI5020 Corporate Accounting and the above points are very