What are the categories of accountants?

Accountant is a popular and popular profession... No business enterprise can fully function without such a specialist. However, not every person knows that in the professional community of accountants it is customary to divide into several categories. Today in our article we will talk about what categories of accountants exist and how they differ from each other.

Large enterprises have full-fledged accounting departments, consisting of a large number of employees. Moreover, each accountant is responsible for a specific sector of work and specializes in performing clearly defined functions. Obviously, these functions belong to a certain level of complexity, respectively, they require one or another qualification level of personnel. In addition, the level of the specialist's salary depends on the tasks performed.

In this regard, it is customary to subdivide all accountants into several categories. So, for example, in budgetary government organizations, a detailed separation is mandatory and is carried out on the basis of the decree of the Ministry of Labor of the Russian Federation of 08.21.1998 No. 37 and Art. 144 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation.

The specific category to which an accountant is ranked depends on his professionalism and competence.And it doesn't matter if a specialist works in a budgetary institution or a commercial organization. A particular category is assigned to a specialist, if it meets well-defined requirements. These requirements can be divided into formal and additional.

The formal requirements for accountants include the level of education (secondary or higher) and work experience. Moreover, the higher these indicators, the higher the rank you can count on. Additional requirements include the real qualifications and competencies of a specialist - they can be identified through special exams, standardized testing or a personal interview. Besides, an important role has experience in a particular field.

According to a special document, namely the accounting professional standard, all accountants can be divided into 5 main groups. Let's consider each of them in more detail.

• Representatives who relate to group "A", are considered ordinary (for example, they include novice accountants who have just graduated from an educational institution). Moreover, the qualification level of such specialists is estimated at 5.
• Professionals who, in the course of their work, are engaged in the preparation of accounting and financial statements are to category "B". Specialists in this group may be the chief accountant or even the head of a department. Their qualification level is 6.
• The main specialists who draw up reporting documents for separate enterprises, as well as work with companies that have branches, belong to to group "C"... They are characterized by a skill level of 7.
• Accountant group "D" on a daily basis are engaged in the preparation of consolidated financial statements. They are characterized by the 8th level of qualification.
• Those engaged in consulting services belong to to group "E".

The in-house instruction divides specialists into several categories.

• Accountant without category - these are such specialists who have secondary specialized education or completed retraining courses, after which they began to work in the financial sector.
• Specialists of the 2nd category have the same level of education as an uncategorized accountant, but have at least 1 year of work experience.
• In order to get the 1st category, need to work in the 2nd category for 1 year.

Every specialist working in the accounting department dreams of getting the highest category and being assigned to the most prestigious group. This not only raises a person's status inside and outside the company, but also affects their earnings. In the process of assigning a particular category, certain qualification requirements are taken into account that a specialist must meet.

So, first of all, the presence of education and its level are taken into account. A special commission analyzes the place of training, as well as the assessments of a specialist in the course of training. However, it is not only a diploma and similar formal signs that matter. It is also important that how successfully a specialist can apply the obtained theoretical knowledge in practice. Professional skills and abilities are also taken into account.

Work experience is also key. In this case, not only the time period can be analyzed, but the specific nature of the work, namely, the field of activity of the accountant (for example, work in a government institution or in a commercial organization).

The process of improving qualifications and categories is not carried out in an arbitrary order, but is clearly regulated... Thus, the equality of all applicants is ensured, since each person goes through the same process in the process of upgrading the category. Thus, graduates of universities, institutes, colleges and technical schools in the process of finding a job for their first job can only become accountants without any category. This is primarily due to the lack of any work experience, respectively, practical skills.

At the same time, it should be borne in mind that such strict rules are inherent exclusively in budgetary state institutions, which carry out their activities in strict compliance with all regulatory documents, as well as charters, orders and regulations. If you are finding a job in a private company, then the situation may be different. So, for example, some heads of commercial companies immediately award a young specialist one category or another (especially if the specialist has not a secondary professional, but a higher education, and also has high marks in the diploma).

If you want to upgrade your category and move to another group, then you will have to go through a special certification procedure. Moreover, this procedure is typical for both budgetary and commercial organizations. Accordingly, before you upgrade your category, you need to prepare - the employer will test your competence both theoretically and practically. After you successfully pass the certification, this fact will be necessarily reflected in the internal organizational documents. A specialist is not issued any special certificates or diplomas. In addition, after that you can apply for a higher position in the company and, accordingly, an increased salary. Thus, the profession of an accountant is complex and diverse. A person who has received the appropriate education can perform a wide variety of functions.