Types of Accountants

Accountants can be broadly classified into four categories. General accountant or managerial accountant is the one who maintains the accounts and other information about companies, proprietary concerns, partnership businesses, etc. Their duties of this category of accountants is to maintain these accounts as accurately as possible, and get them audited before presenting them to the owners of the business, lenders, and government authorities such as revenue authorities, and company law authorities. In addition, the general accountant also generates accounts related information for keeping track of the financial position of the company such as cash flows, budgets, profitability analysis, etc., and prepares necessary investment plans. Senior and junior accountants assist the general accountant in this job, by finalizing the accounts in accordance with the standards, such as GAAP. Junior accountants are almost bookkeepers since accounting and bookkeeping are inseparable. They maintain the basic documents, such as vouchers, bills, purchase orders, etc., and prepare books of accounts from them by feeding the information in the computer.
Internal auditors are the second type of accountants. They scrutinize the accounts prepared by the managerial accountants, and their staff members, and indicate the flaws, if any. Their duty is to verify and report to the management whether the accounts are maintained in accordance with the standards, and as per the legal regulations. Such inspection by the Internal auditor, however, may be random.
The next category of accountants is that of auditors and government accountants. These accountants study the report of the Internal auditors, but scrutinize the accounts to a greater extent. An audit by this category of accountants is deemed as comprehensive audit. Therefore, the information in an audited report is not questioned. Public accountants form the last category of accountants. These accountants are employed by public accounting enterprises. There are specific qualifications as well that are required at each level.
While this classification demarcates their functions, in real life, there is an overlap of functions. An experienced or qualified accountant may therefore work seek employment as a private accountant, or a personal accountant. In order to audit the accounts, or plan the taxes, however, the accountant should have requisite qualifications. Therefore, an accountant with required qualifications may become an auditor, tax consultant, cost accountant, etc. Accountants may also choose to become forensic accountants, i.e., accountants who investigate frauds, embezzlements, etc.