本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛The function and responsibility of Corporate Accountants, also known as General Accountants, will vary based on the size of the organization. In small to medium private corporations, they are normally called General Accountants. In large and public corporations, they are called Corporate Accountants, or Financial Analysts.
The main responsibilities of Corporate Accountant cover the following (with more focus on public companies):
1.Corporate general ledger (possible multi-ledgers)
a. Record all corporate office routine transactions, including payroll, BoD expenditure, auditing fee, legal fee, insurance, group pension, taxes per legal entity, treasury transactions, etc.
b. Reconcile balance sheet accounts such as all bank accounts, receivables and payables, fixed assets continuities, prepaid expenses, loan/debentures, interest continuities, as well as equity accounts.
c. Analyze P&L accounts and compare with budget, forecast and historical data. Provide variance analysis results to department management with indication of over/under performed area.
d. Perform foreign exchange analysis and calculate both realized and unrealized gain/loss by business sections, regions and/or currencies.
e. Other possible functions including consolidation analysis per legal/operating entities, detailed consolidation journal entries back up. (this varies from company to company, some companies have designed group like consolidation analysts would not delegate these jobs to Corporate Accountants)
2. Inter-company relationship
Depends on the ownership of each subsidiary, corporate office will have many liaisons with its child/grandchild units. These liaisons could emerge from treasury activities (bank facilities, risk management, cash flow management, investment decisions), corporate grouped expenditures (insurance, pension, legal, human resources), and tax returns. As a Corporate Accountant, who is responsible for recording these transactions, you need to understand the facts of the transactions and the allocation between each operating units, decide when and how much to charge or get charged by the related operating units. You also need to monitor the collection/payment of such charges to make sure the inter-company accounts are cleared periodically.
Inter-company accounts include: I/C receivables and payables (S/T, both trade and non-trade), I/C loan/notes receivables and payables (L/T), I/C investments, I/C sales/purchases.
Again, if the corporate does not segregate consolidation and non-consolidation accountants, other I/C relationship work would be delegated to Corporate Accountants. These would include maintaining investment schedules, loan schedules, ownership schedules and dividend/stock record schedules.
3.Planning assistance
a. Corporate Accountant could be the bottom part for all corporate office budget process. You will be responsible for preparing operating expenditure budget of the office based on prior years’ and senior management’s estimate.
b. Assist in the process of consolidated corporate budget by compiling all subsidiaries’ budget documents, calculating summarized schedules, coordinating with sub-units management to get timely and accurate response of corporate inquiries.
4.Audit review supporting
a. Prepare audit review document including working papers, annual general ledger account analysis summary, answering audit questionnaire.
b. Provide root documents (invoices, legal agreements, calculated schedules, etc) in supporting the financial presentations.
c. Coordinate with subsidiary audits by providing all corporate involved transaction documents.
d. Maintain historical period (quarterly, annually) audit results including audit findings, materiality tests, auditing adjustments.
5. M&A assistance
Companies seek expanding and growing are often incorporate strategies like mergers and acquisitions once in a while. The role of Corporate Accountant in the M&A projects will be assisting to review target company financial statement, doing some basic due diligence work like testing their plan’s reasonability, comparison planned financials with historical data, doing some benchmark research, as well as asset valuation calculation. This function could be assigned based on your ability and knowledge of the work.
6.Taxation assistance
Taxation calculation differs from accounting significantly. Some clean and well maintained general ledger will provide tax preparer a straightforward view to fulfil their tax return. But in most cases, the difference can not be easily identified due to different GAAP, different tax territories and different tax return purpose. Corporate Accountants will be helping tax preparer in
a. Provide information to support taxable income calculation (i.g. leases, donations, reserves, deferred expenditures, dividend payments, stock transactions, investments, all realized and unrealized gain/loss, etc)
b. Maintain tax payable continuity schedule
c. Ensure timely and adequate tax instalments.
d. Assist in tax audit by government authorities.
e. Special tax information such as R&D tax, NR tax, and other industry specified tax returns.
7. Management ad hoc reports (too detail to be covered)
The career path working toward Corporate Accountants usually requires 2-4 years’ general ledger experience, along with a business degree and near completion stage of a designation. Past experience with banking activities could be very helpful.
The career path working beyond Corporate Accountants are generally on financial reporting, small company accounting supervisory and management, and/or any special finance area that you might be interested in like treasury, taxation, mergers and acquisition projects, etc.
The compensation range of Corporate Accountant is widely varied depending on the job assigned. It usually has little relationship with the size of the corporation. Generally speaking, the range is from $45K to $80K.更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net
The main responsibilities of Corporate Accountant cover the following (with more focus on public companies):
1.Corporate general ledger (possible multi-ledgers)
a. Record all corporate office routine transactions, including payroll, BoD expenditure, auditing fee, legal fee, insurance, group pension, taxes per legal entity, treasury transactions, etc.
b. Reconcile balance sheet accounts such as all bank accounts, receivables and payables, fixed assets continuities, prepaid expenses, loan/debentures, interest continuities, as well as equity accounts.
c. Analyze P&L accounts and compare with budget, forecast and historical data. Provide variance analysis results to department management with indication of over/under performed area.
d. Perform foreign exchange analysis and calculate both realized and unrealized gain/loss by business sections, regions and/or currencies.
e. Other possible functions including consolidation analysis per legal/operating entities, detailed consolidation journal entries back up. (this varies from company to company, some companies have designed group like consolidation analysts would not delegate these jobs to Corporate Accountants)
2. Inter-company relationship
Depends on the ownership of each subsidiary, corporate office will have many liaisons with its child/grandchild units. These liaisons could emerge from treasury activities (bank facilities, risk management, cash flow management, investment decisions), corporate grouped expenditures (insurance, pension, legal, human resources), and tax returns. As a Corporate Accountant, who is responsible for recording these transactions, you need to understand the facts of the transactions and the allocation between each operating units, decide when and how much to charge or get charged by the related operating units. You also need to monitor the collection/payment of such charges to make sure the inter-company accounts are cleared periodically.
Inter-company accounts include: I/C receivables and payables (S/T, both trade and non-trade), I/C loan/notes receivables and payables (L/T), I/C investments, I/C sales/purchases.
Again, if the corporate does not segregate consolidation and non-consolidation accountants, other I/C relationship work would be delegated to Corporate Accountants. These would include maintaining investment schedules, loan schedules, ownership schedules and dividend/stock record schedules.
3.Planning assistance
a. Corporate Accountant could be the bottom part for all corporate office budget process. You will be responsible for preparing operating expenditure budget of the office based on prior years’ and senior management’s estimate.
b. Assist in the process of consolidated corporate budget by compiling all subsidiaries’ budget documents, calculating summarized schedules, coordinating with sub-units management to get timely and accurate response of corporate inquiries.
4.Audit review supporting
a. Prepare audit review document including working papers, annual general ledger account analysis summary, answering audit questionnaire.
b. Provide root documents (invoices, legal agreements, calculated schedules, etc) in supporting the financial presentations.
c. Coordinate with subsidiary audits by providing all corporate involved transaction documents.
d. Maintain historical period (quarterly, annually) audit results including audit findings, materiality tests, auditing adjustments.
5. M&A assistance
Companies seek expanding and growing are often incorporate strategies like mergers and acquisitions once in a while. The role of Corporate Accountant in the M&A projects will be assisting to review target company financial statement, doing some basic due diligence work like testing their plan’s reasonability, comparison planned financials with historical data, doing some benchmark research, as well as asset valuation calculation. This function could be assigned based on your ability and knowledge of the work.
6.Taxation assistance
Taxation calculation differs from accounting significantly. Some clean and well maintained general ledger will provide tax preparer a straightforward view to fulfil their tax return. But in most cases, the difference can not be easily identified due to different GAAP, different tax territories and different tax return purpose. Corporate Accountants will be helping tax preparer in
a. Provide information to support taxable income calculation (i.g. leases, donations, reserves, deferred expenditures, dividend payments, stock transactions, investments, all realized and unrealized gain/loss, etc)
b. Maintain tax payable continuity schedule
c. Ensure timely and adequate tax instalments.
d. Assist in tax audit by government authorities.
e. Special tax information such as R&D tax, NR tax, and other industry specified tax returns.
7. Management ad hoc reports (too detail to be covered)
The career path working toward Corporate Accountants usually requires 2-4 years’ general ledger experience, along with a business degree and near completion stage of a designation. Past experience with banking activities could be very helpful.
The career path working beyond Corporate Accountants are generally on financial reporting, small company accounting supervisory and management, and/or any special finance area that you might be interested in like treasury, taxation, mergers and acquisition projects, etc.
The compensation range of Corporate Accountant is widely varied depending on the job assigned. It usually has little relationship with the size of the corporation. Generally speaking, the range is from $45K to $80K.更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net