9 Rules for Accountants in IT Companies

Guide for Accountants in IT

How to distinguish an outstanding accountant from a boring bore? It's very simple: an outstanding accountant helps achieve the company's goals, shares its values, but does not deviate from their own. Treat accounting in IT as an internal service, and providing outstanding service should be your mantra. In this article, I have compiled 9 rules for a successful accountant in IT. They are based on my experience communicating with clients and managing an accounting outsourcing company over the past 16 years.

1. Presentation Skills

Nothing annoys me more than a table that requires long reads to understand: columns with numbers that cannot be summarized, or cells filled with color without any comments. In addition, emails without a subject line or with a subject like "this email." Or email text along the lines of: try to guess what I meant, or I'll write something now and then explain what was meant.

⇒You don't need to become a presentation master, but conveying information to colleagues and management in a timely manner and in a way that they don't waste their time figuring out what you meant is your responsibility, and therefore, your task.

2. Work with Google Docs or Sharepoint

Are you familiar with the situation when you receive a table in the body of an email? And what to do with it? I do nothing with it; I just ask for the document link again. In correspondence, don't send attached files; just send links. Also, check if reading, commenting, or editing permissions are open.

⇒ If your company doesn't have a file storage policy, then devise your own system of work folders and be sure to describe it. At the very least, if you decide to leave the company, it will be very easy to hand over affairs by granting access.

3. Accounting Documents in Place

Most managers tense up at the mention of "tax audit" because it's not the most pleasant or expected meeting. Imagine a client isn't paying, and the manager has requested documents for a lawyer, meaning for court, to recover our honestly earned money. Or the client didn't pay on time because they don't have the original additional document. Today, order with documents is the key not only to your sound sleep but also to the manager's.

⇒ Having originals in folders on the server or in office folders is what you should strive for. Learn everything about backing up accounting document folders, who has access to backups, and check how it works.

4. Fight Routine and Total Automation of Everything

As in any profession, an accountant has peculiarities. For example, I often encounter this: an accountant's time spent on all processes before automation was, say, 40 hours a week, and after automation - still 40 hours a week. Strange, isn't it? Therefore, the main goal of automation is to free up your time and your colleagues' time, and this should be reflected in your work calendar. Our cases involve time loss on preparing selections, uploading/downloading, for example, from a client's ERP to an accounting program, from an accounting program somewhere else down the chain.

⇒ You must hate routine and the crude manual work associated with it, fight it every hour, simplify and automate everything that can be automated, and everything that cannot.

5. Understand the IT Business

Find out who is responsible for signing documents, who is responsible for making decisions (sometimes these are different people), study the statutory documents – you can find a lot of interesting information there. Understand what the company's product is, who the buyers and suppliers are, how the system of work acceptance and payment is built, familiarize yourself with contracts, and personnel matters.

⇒ Be curious, ask about everything you don't understand. Don't be afraid to be intrusive, as by doing so, you show care for the company.

6. Be Guided by Tax Legislation, Stay Up-to-Date with the Latest Changes, Know Everything About FOPs

Maintaining accounting records, preparing tax reports, calculating salaries, and other matters important for state bodies are your duties, and you must know how to organize and support them without spending too much time, because that's not why you're hired :). The specifics of our Ukrainian IT business also involve close work with FOPs (read: employees), often foreign economic activity (FEA). To avoid spending time studying legislative updates, subscribe to verified newsletters, join accounting communities; this will save you time.

⇒ If a question is high-risk or complex for you, go to management and ask them to seek clarification from tax consultants; this is normal. Monitor the validity period of the director's ECP.

7. Payments

Payment deadlines are sacred. Typically, IT companies prepare a payment calendar, and this will simplify your task of knowing: when, to whom, and how much money to transfer, and from whom and when we should receive money. If there is no payment calendar, then prepare it yourself; this is a good sign.

⇒ Your task is to foresee cash flow gaps and inform management about them. Money must be received and transferred on time – this is another core mantra of yours.

8. Be Prepared to Perform "Non-Accounting" Work

Financial budget preparation? You might be approached with such a task. What's important to know here? Ultimately, the goal of any budget is to determine if we have enough resources to get through this period without additional financial injections. Contract preparation? Don't be scared of this and don't say you're not a lawyer – that's annoying. For a manager, you're almost a lawyer :). Typically, IT companies have a set of templates; just get access to them and confidently fill out additional documents and contracts. If there are no templates, then contact lawyers or consultants to prepare them.

⇒ Submitting reports for FOP employees, if asked to do so – don't refuse; for IT, this is normal. Also, employment orders, in general, all HR matters – these are also yours :).

9. Let's Protect Nature – Greenpeace is Our Everything

You might not be a vegan accountant, but protecting nature is a must-do. At the very least, fight any manifestations of paper clutter. If you absolutely need to print something, first consider if printing it on drafts might be sufficient.

⇒ Help organize waste sorting in the office, show colleagues by your example how they can help with this, and you will make your feasible contribution to the future of our planet.

⇒⇒⇒ If you need advice or consultations from specialists on accounting and tax record-keeping in IT – contact us. We are always happy to help.

Oleksandr Koinov
CEO UHY Prostor