An accountant is a person who is trained in bookkeeping and preparation, analysis and auditing of financial records. Financial records are any documentation that illustrates the trade activities of a given company like sales, purchases and expenditure records of a company. He is responsible for creating the annual reports of a business that illustrate the firm’s financial position. This data is useful since it is used to decide on future investment, plan for the company’s future and used to lure in investors to invest in business ideas. An accountant may be employed by an accounting firm or by a large corporation which has an internal accounting function or work as an individual consultant for various companies. They are given certificates by relevant accounting professional bodies that are present in each an every state in the world. Accountants must be people of high ethical values coupled up with virtues like integrity, due diligence and honesty. Accountants can have more than one designation and may perform multiple tasks in a company; educational background determines what roles he will perform in the organisation. Role of an Accountant In a dynamic world 1the accountant has a demanding high profile role that is usually the ladder to the executive ranks in a business. In the early days navigators had tools that helped them to find their direction around the globe in today’s world the accountant has the same tool known as 3the accounting equation; assets equal liabilities plus owner’s equity. The numbers plugged into the equation are known as transactions; transactions are business activities that have an effect on the financial situation of a company and can be reliably measured. Elections and recessions can affect a company’s profits but they cannot be measured but sales and purchases can. To elaborate the accounting role we will use a sole proprietorship company called nostalgic warehouses. The company started as an antic shop but slowly grew to a wholesaler of decorative door and cabin hardware and related items, the manager did all the accounting but soon realised that he needed help to make the business grow. The company decided to hire the services of an accountant; one of the roles he played was being a mentor to the business he helped them plot the path for the firm, which direction to take wholesale or retail and revaluate the business based on the path. He has also helped them to create a strategy, by planning short term, checking their performance annually and having margins to create profit; this would help the business achieve its long term goals. To help them achieve this objectives an accountant must have both excellent communication skills and accounting skills; he must be able to understand what the manger wants to do and translate that into reality. Accountants today are viewed as consultants; they perform tasks such as control of expenditure to know when price increases are necessary, help to liars with financial institutions to get loans that will assist the firm grow more rapidly. Accountants use documents like the 5balance sheet, income statement, equity statement and cash flows to determine tough decisions for companies. The financial statements can also be used to evaluate bad decisions of the company in different segments and also help to know investments decisions in separate sections too. Accountants today are not employed only to create financial records they also interpret and analyse financial data, they are called upon to be dynamic thinkers that would help the organisation achieve their targets. Transaction Analysis The financial statement is important 4to investors, creditors and other decision makers. But this usefulness is based on understanding some terminologies like the asset that represents want the company owns, liabilities as result of receiving goods and services or borrowing from outside business. Also, the definitions extend towards equity which is owners claim after deducting liabilities. Revenues are assets that company gets after receiving goods, expenses which have occurred when you use or pay out the asset to generate another asset. In accounting transaction as particular meaning, which may represent the economic event which is measured in value terms. Some events happen, have an economic impact on the business but are not transaction just because there is no value exchange and they lack accepted standard mean of evaluating the value. Many transactions happen in a business and sometimes one has to employ some standard to establish whether an event occurred and whether it can be measured or not. In order to determine whether an event is a transaction, value has to be exchanged. The value has to be measured, and it must have an impact on the accounting equation. Every purchase big or small must have an effect on account comparison. Using transaction analysis we can be able determine which part or parts of the equation was affected and by how much. Recording Transactions In order to give the picture of the activity in a particular file, all transactions must be recorded on a ledger account this is an account that has been created with 2the debit side on the left-hand side and the credit side on the right-hand side. Charges 1increase asset accounts and decrease liability and owners’ equity accounts and on the other hand loans reduce asset accounts and increase liabilities account and owners’ equity accounts. Every transaction is different how to know what to debit and what to credit is illustrated as follows all assets are always increased on the left-hand side, liabilities and owners’ equity are raised on the right-hand side. Before transactions are recorded on the ledger books, they are first recorded on a general ledger where all business transactions taking into account if they are debit or credit transactions are recorded. When transactions have been recorded on the ledger books, this information is then used to create the trial balance which acts as a guide in the creation of the various financial statements. After the trial balance is created the items are then transferred to their various financial statements and recorded on their credit and debit sides. Conclusion Finally, introduction captured the definition of various terms which are used in accounting. Accountant plays important roles to ensure continuity of business which ranges from helping a firm set up a sound strategy, analysing of the financial statement, crafting of goals, checking of performance. Transaction analysis helps us determine the value of events, how to measure them and their impact on the accounting equation. Recording transaction contributes to knowing which transaction belong to the debit or credit side and the information gathered also helps to allocate the various items in the different financial statements and to check that they all balance out. In conclusion, the assignment was meant to increase the know-how on financial statements and how to prepare them and how to use this information to help a business thrive.