Holmes Institute: Corporate Accounting Job Analysis Report

This report, prepared for the HI5020 Corporate Accounting course at Holmes Institute, analyzes job advertisements from various portals to identify the skills, qualifications, and experience employers seek in corporate accountants. The report examines 30 job advertisements, detailing job titles, organizations, and industry breakdowns. It outlines required personal attributes like organizational skills, time management, and communication abilities, linking these to course materials and personal understanding. The report also lists academic and professional qualifications such as bachelor's degrees in accounting, experience with financial reporting, and proficiency in software like MS Excel and ERP systems. The analysis compares these requirements with the course content, highlighting overlaps and additional criteria. Ultimately, the report synthesizes the key skills and attributes necessary for success in corporate accounting, offering a comprehensive overview of the field's expectations.

Running head: CORPORATE ACCOUNTING
Corporate Accounting
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s note

Abstract
The main purpose of this report is to bring about an analysis regarding the various
skills, qualities and attributes which are required to be possessed by the potential
candidates for enshrining in the career as a corporate accountant. In this context, the
various job advertisements are collected from varied job portals and they are listed
according to their significance and relevance. The different kinds of job titles as
found from these job advertisements are noted down along with the respective
organisations. The key roles and responsibilities are identified and are compared
with the topics taught in the course materials. Similar topics are observed and noted
down. Any additional criteria provided in the job advertisement is also explained.
Finally, a small summary of all the skills, attributes and experiences required for the
corporate accountants is briefed with suitable points.

Table of Contents
Introduction...................................................................................................................4
Body..............................................................................................................................4
Total number of job advertisements.............................................................................4
Organisations posting the job advertisements and industry breakdown of the
organisations................................................................................................................4
Job titles mentioned in the advertisements..................................................................5
All the personal attributes required from a corporate accountant that have been
mentioned in the job advertisements............................................................................6
Linkage of these personal attributes with our own understanding...............................7
Linkage of these key roles, tasks and responsibilities with the topics given in MPA
unit HI5020 Corporate Accounting...............................................................................8
Additional topics listed in the job advertisements which are missing in the MPA unit
HI5020 Corporate Accounting......................................................................................9
Examination of the skills, experience and attributes needed to become a corporate
accountant..................................................................................................................10
Conclusion..................................................................................................................11
References.................................................................................................................12
Appendix.....................................................................................................................14

Introduction
The report centralises on the idea that corporate students are required to
possess certain attributes as well as qualifications in order to get suited to the
corporate accounting jobs. Therefore, it becomes quite necessary to have a brief
idea of the different kinds of jobs that are available in corporate accounting. The
report summarises the important jobs that are related to corporate accounting and
other similar field related to corporate accounting. Next, the report tends to
summarise all the important segments of the job advertisements. The titles of the
jobs and the interested organisations for recruitment are also listed down. This would
be required for gaining knowledge about the varied types of available jobs and also
about the different personal qualities that are required to be worked upon to get
qualified for these jobs. The next section provides a deeper insight into the attributes
and the professional qualifications that are mainly looked upon by the employers for
qualifying suitable candidates of corporate accounting. The key roles, responsibilities
as well as the skills are also outlined as required by these job advertisements. All the
above stated factors are compared with the topics which are primarily provided in the
course materials. Any similarity or dissimilarity is pointed out through this
comparative study. At the end of the discussion, all the necessary skills and
attributes that are required to be developed by a corporate accountant, are critically
examined and evaluated. The extent of the usage of the topics given in the course
materials are also analysed and properly elaborated.
Body
Total number of job advertisements
The job advertisements are primarily extracted from the different job portals
which are available for the job seekers all over Australia (Dunbar, Laing and Wynder
2016). The relevant job portals chosen for this paper are Jora, seek and Indeed. The
different kinds of jobs relevant to corporate accounting are selected and extracted.
Total 30 job advertisements have been collected for this task. Equal number
of job advertisements have been collected from each of the job portals stated above.
Most of the jobs are related to corporate accounting (Dunbar Laing and Wynder
2016). However, emphasis has been given to the similar job roles such as
management accountant, accountant required for tax and corporate reporting, tax
accountant, accountant required for corporate finance and many more.
Organisations posting the job advertisements and industry breakdown of the
organisations
The different kinds of organisations that are seeking for the corporate
accounting jobs and also jobs of similar department are listed down along with their
respective jobs (Almeida and Fernando 2017).
1) Tax Accountant – a) The Acquire Group
b) W Talent
c) JP Morgan (White et al. 2017).

d) Pitcher Partners Brisbane
e) George Weston Foods Australia
f) Bluefin Resources (Aranda and Murillas 2015).
g) Envato
2) Senior Accountant – a) 2XM
b) Lawson Elliot Recruitment
c) Mapletree Investments Pte Ltd
d) The Star Entertainment Group
3) Corporate Accountant – a) Citywide Service Solution
b) Sharp and Carter (Carter and Varney 2018).
c) FourQuarters
3) Corporate and management Accountant – a) Powerstaff Consulting
4) Corporate Financial Accountant – a) Agri Labour Australia Pty Ltd.
b) Amana Living
c) Maersk
d) Intuitive Recruitment
e) Western Process Controls
f) Carlton & United Breweries (Hucker,
Christophersen and Vriesekoop 2017).
5) Accountant of corporate Finance – a) Preacta Recruitment
b) Corporate Services
c) MPAU Finance
d) Kingston Human Capital
e) Arinex Pty Ltd.
f) Corporate Services
g) State Library of Victoria
6) Account Executive – a) Engine Group
b) Marsh & McLennan Companies
Job titles mentioned in the advertisements
The different corporate accounting jobs that are kept into focus relate to
corporate accounting, corporate financial accounting, corporate financial and
management accounting, taxation and many others (Warren and Jones 2018). In this
context the different job roles that have been noted down from the job
advertisements can be summarised below.
a) Tax Accountant
b) Professional Services Consultant
c) Tax Manager
d) Corporate Tax Manager
e) Assistant Corporate Accountant
f) Corporate Accountant (Warren and Jones 2018).
g) Senior Corporate Accountant
h) Accountant

i) Accountant and Team Leader
j) Investigations Accountant of Finance
k) Senior Financial Accountant (Ahluwalia et al. 2018).
l) Tax Vacationer
m) Management Accountant
n) Senior Accountant
o) Tax Advisor – in-house
p) Enterprise Account Executive
q) Accounting Operations Manager
r) Financial Accountant
s) Account Executive
t) Senior Account Executive
u) Service Manager: Finance and Accounting
All the personal attributes required from a corporate accountant that have
been mentioned in the job advertisements
For the purpose of getting selected in the role of corporate accountant, the
potential individuals are required to have certain personal attributes (Ahadiat and
Martin 2016). The employers of the different organisations generally seek for these
attributes in a potential candidate.
The different skills and qualities that are needed for being a corporate accountant
can be stated as follows.
1) The accountant is required to have excellent organisational skills.
2) The candidate must possess time management skills.
3) The candidate should have the ability to concentrate on the important
details of the organisation (Ahadiat and Martin 2016).
4) The creativity skills of the potential individual should be maximum
5) The candidate must also sharpen his communication skills and the
interpersonal skills which would be required for disseminating information
throughout the organisation (Ahadiat and Martin 2016).
6) The candidate should provide his prime attention to the client and detail all
the necessary requirements of the client.
The various other personal skills and qualities of the corporate accountants which
are vividly mentioned in the job advertisements can be briefed below.
1) The individuals must have a couple of years of experience in the
recognised fields such as finance, management or accounting.
2) There should be a perfect balance of drive and interpersonal skills for
fitting perfectly in the ideal culture of the organisations (Bhasin 2015).
3) High motivation should be combined with a positive attitude and an
outgoing mentality.
4) The person should be capable of eagerly delivering great work within the
stipulated deadline.
5) Good presentation and communication skills are also necessary for jobs
like accounting for taxations (Bhasin 2015).

6) The candidate must possess very strong analytical skills.
7) Experience is required in financial reporting and in the application of
accounting information for the purpose of decision making.
8) The candidate should have a forward thinking nature and must be able to
work effectively in a team, featuring collaborative functions.
Linkage of these personal attributes with our own understanding
After complete evaluation of all the attributes, it can be stated that the most
important criteria for being a successful corporate accountant lies in the development
of his interpersonal as well as analytical skills. Along with this the person should be
service-oriented and should perform until his best interests (Richardson et al. 2015).
There might be involvement of many numbers in the process of accounting, but still it
is considered to be a people business. The person should be capable enough to
handle all the responsibilities of the organisation and he should have an innovative
mind. He should always put forward new and innovative ideas that would set a
direction for the performance of the organisation in the future days (Richardson et al.
2015). The most important attribute that a potential candidate might have is the
strong organisational skill, that is, he should have proper knowledge of the
organisation as well as of his duties and responsibilities.
The candidate should be very fluent in his communication skills and should
develop other interpersonal skills as required by the organisation. He/she should
also be able to handle critical analytical problems. There should be a positive attitude
which would motivate the employee to progress further in his duties (Richardson et
al. 2015). At the same time, the person should be very reliable and trustworthy to the
organisation and should not disclose critical financial information to any third party. In
order to reach a great height in the organisation as a tax accountant, the accountant
should be aware of the new amendments of the tax laws and the statement of
economy of the country. Along with all these attributes, the accountant should have
the capability of developing strategies for the organisation that would bring about
long-term growth and development in its financial performance.
All the academic and professional qualifications of a corporate accountant listed in
the advertisements
In order to get selected as a corporate accountant in the organisations and
also for achieving success in this career, the candidate is required to have some
basic academic and professional qualifications.
1) Bachelor’s degree in accounting is the minimum requirement.
2) Minimum 2-3 years of experience in the commercial field is preferred.
3) MS Excel skills, basic or advanced, both are preferable.
4) Excellent working knowledge and experience with MYOB AccountRight is
given extra preference (Paisey and Paisey 2017).
5) Strong technical skills are highly advantageous where the candidate will
be able to extract, understand and use the accounting data.

6) Higher qualifications include CA or CPA. Chartered Accountant is a highly
preferred degree and Certified Public Accountant is also needed in the
organisations for the profile of corporate accountants.
7) The candidate should be proficient in the use of ERP software that is,
Enterprise Resource Planning Software (Paisey and Paisey 2017).
8) Sometimes the candidates are also shortlisted on the basis of their
working knowledge on the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).
9) Experience is always needed at the first hand. For a financial accounting
job there should be experience in the position of financial accountant in
any medium or large scale organisation. In the previous job the candidate
should have done the work of delivering financial reports and analysis that
would meet the needs of the business.
10)Experience in other professional skills are also desirable. These
professional skills include MS Dynamics AX or similar and Advanced MS
Excel skills such as performing V-Lookups and construction of Pivot
Tables (Lomakin et al. 2017).
11) For the role of senior financial accountant, the person should have a
additional qualifications such as sound knowledge of the Australian
Accounting Standard and the knowledge of IFRS (International Financial
Reporting Standard). The person should also comply with the statutory
requirements of the organisation.
Linkage of these key roles, tasks and responsibilities with the topics given in
MPA unit HI5020 Corporate Accounting
The Course material of Corporate Accounting designs many topics which
would be required for carrying out the preparation for the role of corporate
accountant. The objective of the course material is to make students aware of the
different regulations of accounting and application of the accounting tools and
techniques (Shil and Das 2018). The different ethics and culture of the organisations
are also taken into account on a general basis. Further the course teaches the
potential candidates about the professional attitude and the obligations that the
accountants are required to follow and sustain on a lifelong basis. The different
subjects which are taken into consideration are accounting for the purpose of making
business decisions, financial knowledge of the business, accounting for managerial
functions, application of corporate accounting (Parent, Kalenkoski and Cardella
2018). Certain other elements are also given priority which would be required for
getting selected as a corporate accountant. These topics are theories of taxation,
practices and laws of taxation, compliance theories and application, business
research and many others. The current issues influencing the accounting theory are
also taken into account along with other important subjects such as finance for
business and economics for business.
Some of the above stated topics can be related to the roles and
responsibilities of the corporate accounting which are given in the job advertisements
(Bidin, Othman and Salleh 2015). The knowledge of accounting can be used for
maintaining the general ledgers and also for the purpose of bank reconciliations.
One of the primary responsibilities of the corporate accountant would be

maintenance of expenditure of capital including creation, depreciation as well as
disposal of assets. The subjects incorporating finance for business and economics
for business would be helpful in this regard.
Other responsibilities of corporate accountants as needed by the organisations
are consolidation of the elements of the financial statements, treasury and tax
accounting. The subjects covered under financial accounting and practices of
taxation, would be helpful for the potential candidates to perform these activities
(Bergmann et al. 2016). Some other roles require the accountants to provide
presentation to the board, audit committee and also to the auditors. The subjects
based on audit and assurance would be helpful in this regard (Mock, Ragothaman
and Srivastava 2018). Development and administration of accounting practices
inside the organisations can be cited as one of the important examples of the duties
which are required to be done by the corporate accountants. Other important
subjects would be relevant and significant in this case such as financial knowledge of
the business and many more.
Additional topics listed in the job advertisements which are missing in the
MPA unit HI5020 Corporate Accounting
The subjects taught in the course materials are mostly relevant with that of the
duties and responsibilities of the corporate accountants. However, the corporate
accountants have many other roles which are not completely elaborated in the
course materials (Berg 2015). Some of these additional duties and responsibilities of
corporate accountants can be stated below.
1) Management of the loan of the intercompany and also the process of
investment provision.
2) Working with the service providers of the companies
3) Ensuring the compliance of workflow with the requirements of internal
control
4) Implementation of new accounting standards based on lease
procedures and revenue generation.
5) Asset accounting which is required to meet all the legislative, Treasury
and Statutory requirements (Page 2017).
6) Assisting in the budgetary process of the organisation
7) Analysis of the reporting of sales and other processes.
8) Management and forecasting of cash flow of the organisation
9) Preparation of ad-hoc projects (Salmela-Aro and Little 2017).
10)Management and accounting of the payroll process of the organisation
11)Supervision of the process relating to accounts payable.
12)Liaising with the team members for the purpose of issuing construction
invoices which are completely operated through MYOB accounting
software.
13)The accountant should be able to oversee and predict the operational
segment of the business of the company, including the ad-hoc tasks
which are embedded in the operations.

14)The candidate should have a project accounting background and
should be able to properly carry out tasks that are similar to project
accounting.
15)The accountant should have a thorough knowledge of financial
modelling and should also be able to conduct risk assessment
procedures in order to detect the probable risks of the organisation.
Along with all the above stated duties, the corporate accountant also has varied
kinds of jobs that are specific to an organisation. Some of these jobs could be
analysis of variances for the financials of the organisation. The management
accounting jobs require the candidates to prepare and manage the CAPEX and
OPEX budgets. These candidates also identify the cost and revenue drivers of the
organisation which are critical for formulating revenue and cost budgets.
Examination of the skills, experience and attributes needed to become a
corporate accountant.
The three most important skills that can be highlighted in the context of
corporate accountants are communication skills, proficiency of Information
Technology and customer service aptitude. Communication skill is required for
effective communication within the departments of the company such as explanation
of the accounting figures to the supervisors, clients and other key stakeholders of the
company (John 2015). Communication skills also include the skills required for
preparing a presentation and other writing skills. Information technology proficiency
is also very important as the accountants are required to use different financial
software for the purpose of doing their activities. Customer service aptitude is a very
important skill when the accountant is required to have a framework of customer
service for accommodating the needs of the different departments of the companies.
The corporate accountant require experience in the same field. The time
period for these experiences may vary from 2-5 years. The candidate should also
possess working experience in accounting and reporting (John 2015). Generally tax
accountants are required to have experience in the same field in different middle to
large scale organisations. Experience as CA or a CPA in a renowned firms would be
preferred more than the other experiences (Anderson-Gough 2018).
The attributes required for becoming a successful corporate accountant have
a wide range. Firstly, the accountant should have a very strong sense of ethics and
must understand the value of organisational work as well as culture. The accountant
should have immense knowledge of the field where he is working on. He should also
have the capability of working in a team and should be trustworthy to the
organisation.
The different topics used in the course material are needed to sharpen these
skills and attributes of the corporate accountants. The topics which are related to
finance and economics of business would help the accountant to develop analytical
skills (Anderson-Gough 2018). The other topics such as corporate accounting would
sharpen the skills of the accountant regarding his own field of work. Along with these
subjects certain other subjects would help in the development of the interpersonal as

well as personal skills of the candidates. These subjects are accounting theory and
the current issues of accounting, audit assurance and compliance to the auditory
requirements, theory, practice and laws of taxations, business research and statistics
for undertaking all the important business decisions. Almost all the other topics
would contribute to the enhancement of the analytical and designing skills of the
accountant regarding the financial modelling to be performed in the organisation.
Conclusion
From the above report, the candidates would be getting an idea for carrying
out preparation that is required for the job of corporate accountant. In this context the
different kind of jobs available in corporate accounting and similar subjects are
collected from different job portals and are suitably jotted down. The different
organisations recruiting potential candidates for this job role are highlighted. In this
context the required academic, professional qualifications along with the personal
attributes of the potential candidates are stated. The different designations of the
jobs that are found in these job portals are extracted and written in a systematic way.
The established roles and responsibilities of the candidates with respect to these
jobs are also outlined. Finally, all these roles and responsibilities are compared with
the topics that are taught in the course materials in order to find a common link.
Similarities and dissimilarities are further notes down in this respect. Examination of
the required qualities and skills of the corporate accountants is done along with
suitable examples from the course material.

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