Becoming a successful accountant is on the radars of many students studying for a bachelors of accounting at Maryville University and a career in the popular industry. Although it takes time and patience to have any chance of landing a job with a top firm, it will pay dividends in the future with a nice salary and many other benefits. If you’re currently studying your accounting degree online, consider the below information to ensure you have what it takes to become a success in a highly competitive industry.

Excellent Organizational Skills

Excellent organizational skills sound like the obvious personal skill, but it’s mandatory for any accountant. If your desk is a mess, you’re going to have trouble finding things. Ultimately, being unorganized could cost your career because of the many mistakes you’re likely to make. An unorganized person is usually a person that’s always in a rush – you can’t be in a rush when you’re studying numbers that need to be 100% accurate.

Ability to Build Formidable Relationships

Accounting isn’t all about numbers and getting tax returns sent in on time, it’s also about building relationships for the future. You need to have a knack for selling so potential clients can see you have what it takes to take their personal/business affairs forward. If you’re not confident, or a people’s person, you’re likely going to struggle to create crucial relationships that could be the difference in you becoming a success.

A Tech-Savvy Individual

Gone are the times when accountants only had access to pen and paper to undertake their workloads. Accountants now have the advantage of computers and software to ensure the process is much more efficient. However, such software isn’t always easy to use, so you’ll need to be tech-savvy to ensure you stay at the top of your game. You’ll not only need to learn the current accounting software, but you’ll also need the know-how to learn other types of software and computers to make your working practices much more fruitful.

Determination to Succeed

If you don’t have the willpower to get out of bed in the morning, accounting probably isn’t the game for you. The top accountants in the world are the people who get into work an hour or two early and finish an hour or two later than everybody else. There are doers in this world and then there are those who only do what’s necessary. You need to be a doer and have the determination to get to the top of the career ladder to become a successful accountant.

You Need to Be Ambitious

The last thing you want is to make a big firm even more money in 20 years’ time. You need to show ambition, and enough of it to want to start your own firm or become a partner of an existing one in the future. Stop making big firms more money when you can make more for yourself with your own knowledge and experience.

My Say

The above are just some of the mandatory personal skills and things you’ll need to become a successful accountant. You could end up being a success at a top accountancy firm, but you needn’t stop there if you want more from your career – a business startup could well be around the corner in the future.