Role overview
Accountants are persons that record the day-to-day transitions for commerce into the book-keeping records. Typically, in many small companies, that might be one person, so no one else is taking care of any of the bookkeeping tasks. Thus, it is your responsibility to take care of everything that should be done in this department.
As the term “full charge” implies, these are individuals are fully responsible for all the accounting needs of an organization. Although rarely, full-charge bookkeepers can be assisted by a CPA who prepares financial statements or files complicated tax returns.
Such a person does not have to be an employee or work for the business every day. Instead, they can fulfill their duties on a monthly or even quarterly or yearly basis, depending on the number of transactions your organization has.
Comparison with bookkeeper
If you work as a bookkeeper, there might be a fully-staffed accounting department. The major functions typically get divided between all employees. For example, one employee would be booking the billings and recording the collection of those billings, while the other is responsible for the accounts payable function, which is recording the invoices for money your business owes and payments of bills. Payroll any other function can also be done by a completely different person or even a third party.
Together, they are getting all the business transactions in the accounting books. So, if you work as a bookkeeper, you might only have some basic duties, like recording cash receipts, data entry, limited accounts payable, and accounts receivable work. Your duties would not include tasks such as account harmonization and economic account.
If you are a full-charge accountant, you would provide all the accounting services possible to a company. This means that one individual can handle only a small or medium company on their own. Large enterprises need more staff to guarantee that management, investors, and other outside users have accurate and comprehensive financial data in a timely manner.
Duties and Responsibilities
This employee is responsible for getting all the transactions into the accounting books, whether that means entering them into software or doing it the old way on paper or a simple Excel spreadsheet. Here are some of the other tasks you would be doing for an organization:
- Being in charge of a petty cash box and making appropriate records in the cash book.
- Payables, including purchasing, inventory, and accounts payable aging report.
- Receivables, including invoicing, collections, deposits and cash receipts, and accounts receivable aging report.
- Payroll, including payroll reports, payroll tax deposits, and quarterly and annual tax returns.
- Bank reconciliations, loan and credit reconciliations.
- Monthly and year-end account closing.
- Preparing information for auditing purposes.
- Sales tax, 1099 forms, estimated taxes, tax returns, a personal tax return for the owner.
- Preparing financial reports, including Trial balance, Balance sheet, Profit and loss report, work in progress or job profitability report, cash stream forecasts, budget report, and other economic projections.
- Answering incoming calls, providing front-desk service to customers, and other secretarial duties.
The list of duties and responsibilities doesn’t necessarily end here because this individual is being solely liable for book-keeping and every entity has slightly different requirements for such employees.
Average salary
The salary will obviously vary from business to business, depending on the size of a particular organization, tasks required to be done, location, knowledge, and experience. However, the full charge bookkeeper will make slightly more than a typical bookkeeper, given all the responsibilities.
Their average hourly salary can range from $20 and up to $45. The ability to do this work virtually allows candidates to search for the best clients. At the same time, it means that businesses can hire someone from anywhere in the world and get the job done for much less.
Job requirements
Although there are no formal qualifications or requirements, additional training and instruction are necessary. Full charge bookkeepers need to be well versed in all the book-keeping aspects. This means that a high school degree is likely not going to do it. One can acquire a certification from a recognized organization, on-the-job training, or an associate’s or bachelor’s degree. A college degree is the most common level of education.
The best candidate also has the related experience, such as holding a basic stance in this field. Moreover, it is crucial for bookkeepers to do their tasks without delay and errors. So, on top of the accounting and economic knowledge, personal qualities such as consideration to aspects and organizational proficiency are a must. You should be able to prioritize your work and not miss deadlines.
It is also desirable to have good communications skills, be able to work with at least simple computer programs, and be willing to advance your knowledge. In fact, full-charge bookkeepers often advise their clients on the best way to store and protect their financial information and suitable accounting programs.
