My Internship as an Accountant - Free Essay Example

The essay discusses experiences, observations, and concepts acquired during the internship. The exercise helped to develop the accounting skills required to become a professional accountant. Students must go for an internship to apply their theoretical knowledge gained in the learning process. Working as accounting receivable means handling all receivables for an organization (Jung, You & Chi et al., 2018). It includes all resources the organization receives. The primary responsibility of the accounts receivable accountant is to receive income and organize it to appropriate revenue accounts.

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The internship helped to develop accounting experience in various functions. The first experience gained from the internship is invoicing. The primary responsibility of the accounts receivable accountant is to prepare and send out invoices to the clients of the company requesting them to pay on time for products delivered. Customers should pay on time so that the retailer can sustain its operations. However, some clients are fond of paying late and this disrupts business operations (Jung et al., 2018). Therefore, the accounts receivable accountant should devise strategies of collecting payments from clients who take goods on credit on time for effective planning. An important lesson learned regarding invoicing include ensuring the document has all relevant information, including date, name, and address of the client, description of items, and terms of payment. It is crucial to prepare invoices professionally to avoid any disagreement with the customers.

The second experience gained from the internship is the process of issuing refunds for returns. Since the retailer is online, cases of returns are many. It is because some customers do not get satisfied with products delivered online. In the process, they return the items and ask for refunds. The process of issuing refunds is critical and requites the balancing of two accounts (Xu & Ma, 2018). From the debit section, there must be a description of sales returns and the amount of money refunded in the sales returns and allowances section. Notably, debt increases the account. Failing to balance the two accounts would affect accounting statements. Therefore, the experience gained was essential in ensuring accounting competency.

Thirdly, the internship was influential in balancing accounting entries. Accounts receivable accountant monitors and evaluates a company’s income and this involves cash and accrual systems. Adjusting the revenue account depends on the type of income generated. In this regard, the exercise helped to identify different categories of income and how to treat them. However, the process starts with generating an invoice indicating every transaction (Xu & Ma, 2018). These transactions appear in the debit section. It is the role of accounts receivable manager to ensure the effective balancing of the books for accuracy and transparency purposes. The experience would be applied in future positions to show competency in the accounting profession.

Although all accountants should understand the tax exemption aspect, accounts receivable accountant should specifically monitor changes in government policy and apply these policies in products and services. Tax exemption policy applies to stated products and services and should be captured accurately in the financial statements. Therefore, accounts receivable should prepare a list of the tax-exempted items and record them appropriately in the financial statement. Accounting is not easy without experience. The internship exercise helped to understand the entire process enriching theory and knowledge gained about organizational finances (Adusei, 2017). Accounts receivable accountants often make a mistake while recording tax exempt transactions and they end up preparing inaccurate reports. After the internship, it is possible to treat all the tax-exempt items successfully.

The other experience gained from the exercise is tracking outstanding invoices. The internship helped to understand how to use Days Sales Outstanding that is an aging report of all invoices. Two ways used to prepare the document according to the exercise include the use of spreadsheets or computer-generated programs (Adusei, 2017). Knowing both a computer program and application of the spreadsheet is crucial since different organizations apply different systems. Although most companies use systems that allow clients to pay within a period of thirty to ninety days, some use spreadsheets, although the process is cumbersome. Therefore, the exercise was crucial regarding the accounts receivable aging.

Additionally, the exercise helped to understand the deposit process. The company received income from different sources daily. It is the responsibility of the accounts receivable accountant to record all deposits and submit them to their respective accounts in the banks. Important to note is that any entry is made against an invoice crediting the accounts receivable (Xu & Ma, 2018). In some cases, vendors pay early and get some discounts. The total discount is debited against special discount account. Before attending completing the internship, the process was confusing but the exercise helped to develop the experience.

An observation made during the internship is that some vendors fail to pay on time, affecting business operations. Fundamentally, accounts receivable accountant has the duty of controlling bad debts. In some cases, vendors do not honor their terms of payment. In the process, their debts inconvenience operations of the retailer. In this case, accounts receivable accountable develops and prepares invoices in advance requesting clients to pay in time (Weli, 2013). Also, bad debts prevent some clients from accessing items on credit in future due to the strained relationship and bad credit rating. In strange cases, the company could write off these expenses under bad debts accounts. However, there must be valid and justified reasons to write off these expenses. The process requires experience in accounting to balance the interests of an organization and the clients.

Virtually, every professional wants to become an expert in their areas of specialization. Before the exercise, I thought I had gained adequate knowledge to become an accountant. However, the entire process changed to rethink about the career. The profession involves ever-challenging tasks and this requires accountants to keep updating their knowledge so that they become professionals. In this regard, the first rethought career goal is partnering with accounting organizations to gain knowledge and experience to become an expert in the career (Xu & Ma, 2018). The second career goal is pursuing certified public accountants packages further to gain deeper knowledge to handle challenging roles and tasks. For example, expert packages require the use of various systems in accounting, although some organizations do not use them. Therefore, it is critical to pursue the career to greater heights to handle complexities involved in accounting.

Conclusion

The internship as accounts receivable contributed significantly to building knowledge and experience as an accountant. Working with an online retailer, the exercise helped to develop theoretical knowledge gained. The internship helped to gain experience in functions, such as order processing, issuing of refunds for returns, tax exemptions, managing debts, deposit process, and tracking outstanding invoices. Based on these experiences and observations, it is crucial to further the career by attending professional courses to become an expert in the career.

References

Adusei, C. (2017). Accounts receivables management: insight and challenges. International Journal of Finance & Banking Studies, 6(1), 1-12.

Jung, M., You, S., Chi, S., Yu, I & Hwang, B. (2018). The Relationship between Unbilled Accounts Receivable and Financial Performance of Construction Contractors. Sustainability, 10, 2679.

Weli. (2013). AIS quality and effectiveness of the decision making process in the use of the ERPS. Research Journal of Finance and Accounting, 4(1), 1-14.

Xu, D., & Ma, J. (2018). The credit asset of enterprise accounts receivable pricing model. Hindawi Complexity, 2018, 1-17.