Characteristics of the in-charge accountant;

              50 HASKINS & SELLS July
T H E demands upon the in-charge ac-countant
are manifold and exacting.
To meet them he must needs have all the
ideal qualities of the junior and senior
assistants, together with certain crowning
characteristics of ability and refinement.
It is amusing at times to hear the un­initiated
applicant for a position on the
staff prophesy as to the brief length of
time he will require before becoming cap­able
of taking charge of engagements. He
is invariably sure it will not take him long;
only long enough to learn how the firm
wishes things done.
Some of the men who have been con­nected
with the firm for several years will
testify that the passing on of the firm's
technique may not be accomplished with
ease and speed. It is a process and a
slow one. The accountant who is anxious
to learn gets one thing today: another to­morrow.
There is no such thing as getting
it all at once, or by reading and study.
The man who would be a first class ac­countant
in charge has many things to
consider. He must initiate his own pro­gram
and supply the force which carries it
out. He must also absorb and blend with
his own the forces which arise at the in­stance
of others.
The accountant who is assigned to an
engagement in charge must first size up the
situation and determine what is required.
He must subsequently decide on the pro­cedure;
carry on the work incident to the
engagement in the most efficient way;
handle his assistants and give them proper
and intelligent instructions. Then there
are conditions in the client's office with
which to deal; the client's employes and
the client or his representatives frequently.
There are the persons in the office to which
the accountant is attached, who have to be
taken into consideration. In addition to
these matters there are the results of the
work on the engagement to be appraised
and put together; comprehensive and in­formative
financial statements to be pre­pared;
comments in clear, forceful English
to be written; and, the report to be re­viewed.
Determining what is required many
times calls for imagination. The require­ments
of an engagement are ofttimes briefly
stated and sometimes not any too clearly
expressed. This is not always avoidable,
because there are times, it must be said,
when the client doesn't know or is not able
to state in the language of accounting ex­actly
what he does want. To get the
point of view of the client and to see his
needs, frequently requires imagination. No
accountant need hope for complete success
who is not able to imagine himself in the
place of the client.
Deciding on procedure calls for the fac­ulty
of planning and organizing. This
does not necessarily mean working out with
pencil and paper a plan of campaign, al­though
there are engagements where this
is essential. On the smaller engagements
the man in charge organizes the work in
his mind as he proceeds to the scene of the
engagement. If the engagement is a large
one and especially if it has to be executed
with precision and despatch, the wise ac­countant
will lay the work out on paper,
assign and instruct his men as to their res­pective
chiefs, posts and duties, well in ad­vance.
Some very exceptional men are
able to do these things during the beginning
of the engagement, but such men are so
rare as to warrant laying down the rule
that a well organized plan, as above in­dicated,
should be worked out on paper.
It is important that sufficient time be
taken to consider carefully in advance ways
and means of carrying out the engagement.
"Haste makes waste" was never more aptly
applied than to accounting work. A wrong
method or a mistake in principle may not
be discovered until the work is nearly com­pleted,
with the result that the work al­ready
done is useless and must be done
The Characteristics of the In-Charge Accountant