From 04/06/2019, a new professional standard was introduced, which changed the requirements for the qualifications of accountants, and also adjusted the requirements for senior management specialists - chief accountants, financial directors, heads of departments, services, offices and accounting departments.
In this review, we will talk about where the use of categories is mandatory, what categories of accountants are currently in effect, and what are the grounds for assigning a specialist the level of accountant of the highest category.
What to do in connection with the introduction of the new Professional Standard?
The rules of the new professional standard for accountants, in fact, will not require any action from private capital companies - they form salaries and positions based on their own requirements and financial realities.
Enterprises and institutions that apply the professional standard (Article 195.3 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation), in connection with innovations, must analyze and harmonize the professional competencies of existing specialists, and formulate a plan for retraining accountants and obtaining additional professional education for them to obtain the appropriate category.
What a leading accountant should know
A leading ETKS accountant must know the following:
- regulatory legislation of Russia in the field of accounting, taxation, civil and labor law;
- rules, instructions, recommendations for accounting;
- methods, methods and forms of accounting for the activities of an economic entity;
- specific explanation and rules for using the working chart of accounts;
- rules and means of electronic and paper document flow both within the organization and outside it with external participants in the business process;
- the procedure and rules for reflecting transactions for accounting for the company’s property and liabilities in accounting computer programs;
- methods of conducting an economic analysis of an enterprise and determining the cost of production;
- organization of labor relations and enterprise economics;
- occupational health and safety standards at the enterprise;
- rules for using office equipment and software materials.
Having extensive knowledge of the profession will be a guarantee that the leading accountant will complete the tasks assigned to him competently, efficiently and in a timely manner. However, this specialist, such as an accountant-calculator or an accountant-economist, must also not only have the necessary knowledge and skills, but also meet certain criteria and requirements.
How are assigned categories regulated?
The assignment of qualification categories to accounting specialists is regulated by the Professional Standard, approved by Order of the Ministry of Labor of the Russian Federation No. 103n dated February 21, 2019, which introduced a new professional standard for accountants, and which must be followed when certifying employees for category assignment.
The norms of the new Professional Standard establish which category an accountant belongs to, taking into account two main evaluation criteria - the specialist’s level of education and work experience in the profession.
Accountant: categories, qualification requirements, main aspects of the new professional standard
The new professional standard uses the division of the labor functions of accountants into five groups:
- Group “A”: accounting – ordinary specialists (accountants with and without categories, qualification level 5);
- Group “B”: preparation of reporting (accounting, financial) - chief accountants and heads of accounting departments (skill level 6);
- Group “C”: reporting - chief accountants working in enterprises with branches (skill level 7);
- Group “D”: preparation of consolidated statements – specialists preparing consolidated statements (skill level 8);
- Group “E”: provision of accounting and reporting services – accounting consultants (qualification level 8).
According to the new Professional Standard, accounting specialists received the following job titles:
- Accountant - specialists with secondary vocational education, or non-core secondary education and additional vocational education (according to professional retraining programs);
- Accountant of the 2nd category are specialists with a similar level of education and experience in the position of “accountant” for at least one year;
- Accountant of the 1st category are specialists who have worked for at least 1 year in the position of “accountant of the 2nd category” and have the above level of education.
It should be noted that in the new Professional Standard, which defines the categories of accountants, the “leading accountant” is not designated as a specialist in the field of accounting. Enterprises that are guided by the new professional standard in their work should bring their staffing schedule and categories of specialists into line with it.
To figure out which accountant belongs to category 1, 2 or does not have one, you should analyze section II of the professional standard “Description of labor functions” and section 3.1 “Generalized labor function”, which details the types of work and requirements for qualifications and level of education for specialists specific categories.
According to the level of qualification, the chief accountant belongs to the sixth, seventh, and eighth categories, and there are no categories for him by analogy with ordinary accountants (first, second, etc.).
The use of professional standards, and therefore categorization for accountants, is advisory in nature, which gives business entities the right to independently decide whether to use such a professional gradation of specialists or not.
Professional standard for chief accountant
The chief accountant is required to prepare and present financial statements of an economic entity. This generic function includes:
- preparation of financial statements;
- preparation of consolidated financial statements (according to IFRS);
- internal control of accounting and preparation of accounting (financial) statements;
- maintaining tax records and preparing tax reports, tax planning.
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First, the Standard classifies tax reporting as financial reporting. In principle this is fair. After all, the amounts of taxes received as a result of tax accounting are reflected in the accounting accounts. And secondly, the Russian Ministry of Labor believes that an ordinary accountant is not capable of maintaining tax records.
Based on the Standard, the only accountant of the company who prepares the statements should be called (in the employment contract and in the work book) the chief (paragraph 3, part 2, article 57 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation).
Categories of accountants according to the Qualification Directory
Currently, public sector enterprises assign an accountant category in accordance with the Qualification Directory of Positions, approved. Resolution of the Ministry of Labor of Russia dated August 21, 1998 No. (as amended on March 27, 2018). For commercial organizations, the directory is advisory in nature. In the future, it is planned to gradually transition the public sector to the use of professional and industry standards, but this is a rather lengthy process.
According to the Qualification Handbook, in order to assign specialists the levels of “accountant”, “accountant of categories 1 and 2”, the following requirements must be met:
- Accountant - specialists with secondary vocational education (in an economic profile), without work experience requirements or with special training in accounting programs and at least 3 years of work experience in the field of accounting and control;
- Accountant of the 2nd category are specialists with a higher professional (economic) education, without requirements for work experience in their specialty, or secondary vocational education with at least 3 years of work experience in the position of “accountant”;
- Accountant of the 1st category are specialists with higher professional education (economics) and work experience of at least 3 years in the position of “accountant of the 2nd category”.
Knowledge requirements
In general, the Standard makes not just high, but maximum requirements for the knowledge of both chief and ordinary accountants.
Thus, an accountant needs knowledge of the basics of legislation on archiving, social and health insurance, pensions, as well as civil, labor, and customs legislation.
But it is not necessary for an accountant to know IFRS. It is assumed that the chief accountant prepares consolidated financial statements by transforming the data contained in the accounting registers compiled in accordance with Russian rules.
The standard requires an accountant to prepare cost estimates for products (works, services). To do this, he needs ideas about the technology, organization of production and management adopted in the company. Calculation also presupposes knowledge of industry instructions.
The chief accountant is also expected to have knowledge of judicial practice on accounting issues. Although knowledge of arbitration practice in tax disputes is incomparably more important.
The professional standard does not provide for reduced requirements for accountants who keep records in small enterprises or under special tax regimes.
Evaluation criteria for accountant certification
In order to determine the categories of budget accountants during certification, the following criteria are taken into account:
- the specialist has a specialized education;
- availability of specific practical skills;
- the work experience of the person being certified as an accountant;
- qualification characteristics regulated by the reference book.
Moreover, the requirements for education, skills and job responsibilities are provided for by the Unified Standards for the positions of managers, specialists and employees, approved by Resolution of the Ministry of Labor of the Russian Federation No. 37 of 08/21/1998 (as amended on 03/27/2018), wages for the assigned categories are established by the employer, and depend from the approved standards in a particular enterprise (institution).
Certification and dismissal for non-compliance with the standard
The legislator provides for regular certification to check employees for compliance with the stated requirements. If it turns out that the employee is not suitable for the position held, as a last resort, the employer has the right to fire him (with the exception of pregnant women, persons caring for children under 3 years of age and the disabled) or offer another job with the least qualification requirements.
An analysis of professional training in accordance with accepted standards can be viewed in the video below.
Accountant: qualification categories and remuneration
Why do you need to determine which category a specialist belongs to? Exclusively in order to correctly, in accordance with current legislation, set the specialist’s wages.
Institutions with budgetary funding, as specified in Art. 144 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, they cannot charge wages below base rates and salaries established in accordance with the professional categories assigned to employees. Thus, in order to calculate an accountant’s salary, the calculations must be based on the qualification level assigned to him.
Let us note an important point that specialists often encounter in labor practice. If an accountant has previously been assigned the level of “Accountant of the 1st category”, the requirements for education and experience are confirmed by entries in the work book and a diploma; when subsequently employed in budgetary enterprises, for which the categorization system is mandatory, the specialist is accepted with this category. Downgrading of a category is allowed only based on the results of certification and after an appropriate decision has been made by the certification commission, documented.
Job responsibilities of a leading accountant
The leading accountant of ETKS (or EKS) is required to perform a wide variety of actions and operations. As a rule, these include the following points:
- maintaining accounting records for various areas - fixed assets, intangible assets, goods and materials, liabilities and property, production costs, wages, sales of products or services, mutual settlements with suppliers and contractors, buyers and customers, etc.;
- development of documentation to establish financial and accounting discipline at the enterprise;
- organizing the reasonable use of the company’s resources, including material, financial and labor;
- reception and verification of primary documentation received by the accounting department, its processing and distribution to accounting desks;
- entering primary data into the accounting program for your accounting area with the formation of correspondence for the corresponding analytical and synthetic accounting accounts;
- compiling cost estimates for manufactured products, reporting on their cost, as well as searching for opportunities to reduce overhead costs during the production process;
- calculation and transfer of taxes and fees to different levels of the budget, as well as transfer through the bank-client system of various payments (accounts of suppliers and contractors, employee salaries, guarantees for participation in tenders, as financing of capital investments, duties and commissions for transactions and etc.);
- generation of necessary reporting for external and internal users, for example, for managers, auditors, investors, chief accountant and his deputy, government agencies, labor inspectorate, etc.;
- development of a working chart of accounts, local regulations and methodological recommendations, forms of primary documentation for accounting at the enterprise;
- formation of methods, methods and schemes for accounting;
- submission of information for the implementation of economic analysis of the financial and economic activities of the subject;
- searching for internal reserves to reduce costs and increase the profitability of production processes and the enterprise as a whole;
- monitoring the correctness of the complete set of accounting documents for transfer to storage in the archive;
- development of proposals for optimizing accounting processes in the company and introducing modern accounting methods through computer programs.
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The professional performance of his job duties by a leading accountant is only possible if he has deep theoretical knowledge and practical skills in this field of activity.
