Answer :

Introduction

With the ramified economic business changes, accounting and finance jobs are increasing throughout time. However, it is analyzed that an accountant needs to have core knowledge of financial and accounting aspects.  It is considered that the key roles, tasks and responsibilities to be fulfilled by a corporate accountant as required generally by the ‘corporate accountant' jobs and if an individual wants to get job in this profile then he needs to be more aligned with the job profile, responsibilities and key roles to be played by accountant. In this report, more than 40 advertisements have been gathered to assess the job profile, roles, and basics tasks to be performed by the accountant in his work. In addition to this, the qualifications expected from a corporate accountant on academic and professional has also been divulged in this report to analyze the key roles and responsibilities. In addition to this,  further quantify jobs extended by the topics taught in HI5020 Corporate Accounting in developing the skills, attributes, and experiences required by Corporate Accountant has also been depicted in this report.  

1. Quantity of job advertisements and their sources

For this assignment, 40 advertisements have been collected in total. The different sources i.e. job search portals from which the collected advertisements have been found are as follows: 

• Indeed: 10
• Jora: 5
• Linkedin: 9
• Seek: 16

2. Organizations by whom the job advertisements have been posted on the job portal and their industry specification

From indeed

10 of the job advertisements sourced from job portal indeed are as follows:

From Jora

There are total 5 of the job advertisements from Jora which are given as follows:

From Linkedin

9 of the job advertisements sourced from Linkedin are as follows:

From Seek

16 of the job advertisements sourced from Seek are as follows:

3. All the job titles mentioned in the collected advertisements

From indeed

From Jora

From Linkedin

From seek

4. Personal attributes of a corporate accountant

The following are the skills and personal attributes which are required out of a corporate accountant:

1. Good interpersonal as well as communication skills. The ability to express in both oral and in written form in pre-requisite.
2. Self-motivated spirit with a positive aura (Ahadiat, and Martin, 2016).
3. The ability to work well in a team and keeping leadership skills as and when required. 
4. Stronghold on working hours under pressure. 
5. A good amount of skills to put attention towards minor details (Ahadiat, and Martin, 2015).
6. Strong reasoning, technical and analytical skills. 
7. The attitude of working hard for the attainment of provided goals. 
8. Ability to manage time well to complete the assigned tasks in time and not to miss work deadlines (Tan, 2016).
9. Proficiency in local language and workable understanding of languages running in foreign subsidiaries (required for off-site working) (Tan, and Laswad, 2016).
10. Strong zeal to cope with the dynamic business environment and the related impact of it on business operations. 
11. Strong skills in preparing formal business reports (Howieson, 2018).
12. Strengthen teamwork and aligning the interest of the team with the organizational goal. 
13. Helps team members to create synergy in the work program and focused on strengthening the business outcomes. 
14. Having core knowledge of the financial aspects and accounting work to strengthen the overall accounting work program in the organization.  

5. Key roles, tasks, responsibilities of a corporate accountant from job advertisements

The key roles, tasks, and responsibilities to be fulfilled by a corporate accountant as required generally by the ‘corporate accountant' job are as follows: 

1. The basic task is the preparation of account entries relating to capital, liabilities, and asset. From this point, the recording of transactions in the books begins.
2. Analysis of the entries made to make respective ledger accounts for the same and eventually preparing the trial balance (Maas, Schaltegger, and Crutzen, 2016).
3. Preparation of the set of financial statements including cash flow statement, profit, and loss statement and balance sheet. 
4. Review of the financial information and the set of financial statements to comment upon the company’s financial performance and position.
5. Recommendation of financial plans and policies comprising policies and plans for the accounting department (Crane, and Glozer, 2016).
6. Making reconciliation statements for identification of reasons behind financial discrepancies and finding solutions.
7. Developing strong internal controls for finance and accounting and continuously monitoring them.
8. Ensuring the compliance of all legal requirements applicable to the organization and its functional departments. 
9. Preparation of the financial reports required by statute. This has to be done by complete analysis, review, and summarization of financial information (Parker, and Northcott, 2016).
10. Providing the management with forecasted results for coming financial periods by analyzing current and past financial results and making accurate business performance estimate. 
11. Proving the external audit teams, reviewing the company's financial statements, all kind of assistance they require for the accomplishment of the audit function. 
12. Maintenance of tax books where the entry in the relation of every kind of tax levied on business with details of levy and tenure must be timely entered Schaltegger, and Burritt, 2017).
13. Providing tax advice concerning different types of taxes levied on the organization's business ranging from national taxes to international taxes. 
14. Filling tax returns and ensuring proper and timely payment for different taxes being CGT, GST, FBT, VAT, payroll and other taxes.
15. Implementation of the backup management system and ensuring the taking of timely backups by it. 
16. Preparation of invoices and receipts and disbursing payments.
17. Undertaking business consolidation and reconciliation accounting and preparation of respective statements.
18. Aligning the domestic reporting framework with the international reporting framework by complying with the IFRS rules and accounting standards. 
19. Conducting seminars and training on a timely basis for the staff.
20. Effectively liaising with the company's staff, customers, auditors, financiers, and other stakeholders. 
21. For all the meetings conducted for finance and accounting departing, ensuring documentation of proper minutes (Tombs, and Whyte, 2015).

6. Academic and professional qualifications of a corporate accountant

The qualifications expected from a corporate accountant on the academic and professional front are as follows: 

1. Completion of graduation in accounting or possession of an akin qualified degree in the profession of accounting or finance. 
2. Completion of high-end financial courses like CA, CFA, CPA, etc. 
3. Any kind of prior experience of working in an accounting or financial background equipped with the same role as intended to apply for. 
4. Experience in dealing with accounting and financial projects involving client handling.
5. Having qualified to hold XERO certification.
6. Knowledge related to IT handling including working knowledge of MS Office applications like Word, PowerPoint, Excel, etc. 
7. Knowledge of working in accounting packages enabled by technology like ERP, SAGE, SAP, etc.
8. Possession of tax licenses authorizing the personnel to work as an individual tax agent. 

7. Key roles, tasks, responsibilities identified from collected job advertisements with their relation with the topics of MPA unit HI5020 Corporate Accounting

The topics covered by the MPA unit HI5020 Corporate Accounting consists of a versatile group of learning objects dealing with: 

1. Practical application of concepts of accounting done for corporate houses. Examination and interpretation of financial information by extracting and analyzing information presented by listed companies in their annual reports. 
2. Understanding of theoretical and practical approach for the development of accounting entries for corporates. This includes learnings related to the accounting of liabilities, assets, income, expenses, and capital.  
3. The procedure for formulation of financial statements for listed companies both on a stand-alone basis and consolidated basis. 
4. Interpretation of the requirements set by several laws applicable to the financial statements prepared by Australian organizations. The laws and guidelines covered include conceptual framework, International Financial Reporting Standards, corporation law, laws of Australian Stock Exchange, etc.
5. Undertaking business consolidation and reconciliation accounting and preparation of respective statements.
6. Aligning the domestic reporting framework with the international reporting framework by complying with the IFRS rules and accounting standards. 
7. Development of overall personal attributes of the student to prepare him to become a multi-talented corporate accountant.

All these topics taught under the HI5020 Corporate accounting correlate with the key roles, responsibilities, and tasks required to be performed by a corporate accountant. The main and the very basic duty of the corporate accountants as seen from every job advertisement relates to the gathering of financial information and putting it into the understandable form of accounting entries and then to more sophisticated financial statements. These financial statements have to be prepared as per the applicable provisions of corporation law, conceptual framework, IFRS and the basic requirements set by the Australian Stock Exchange. Until and unless the corporate accountant has this basic knowledge, the role attached to his designation cannot even begin. Also to undertake these roles and responsibilities he needs to develop certain personal attributes.  

The topics covered under HI5020 Corporate Accounting deals with it. They teach a future corporate accountant about his basic job of dealing with financial numbers and figures. The manner of assessing financial information of the organization, organizing the information to present it as per the requirements, and finally summarising it, is all covered under these topics. Through this course, the student can analyze and review the summarised financial information, all prepared by him, to formulate business plans and make key financial decisions.  

8. Additional topics, attributes or learnings outcomes are missing from MPA unit HI5020 Corporate Accounting that are listed on the job advertisement

As discussed above, the course HI5020, Corporate Accounting infuse basic accounting skills into the learner. These skills relate to the preparation of financial statements and their appropriate presentation as required by law. However, the advanced version of tasks attached to the job of a corporate accountant is missed to be covered by this course. These missed out learning outcomes are as follows: 

1. Knowledge about the taxation system and its working. The students in this module are given negligible information about the various taxes like GST, fringe benefits, VAT, etc. Hence, they are not able to provide tax advice, maintain tax registers, compute taxes and file tax returns.  
2. The manner of liaising with clients, shareholders, customers, suppliers and other related stakeholders is not taught specifically. Basic communication skills are provided, yet the students are not taught in detail. 
3. In real-world, the corporate accountants have to aid the auditors at the year-end in their need relating to financial clarifications and information during the audit is undertaken. However, this cannot be learned theoretically by students. The course neither covers theoretical, nor practical aspects of this required aid.
4. Knowledge about setting up of an internal control system and its review, both are not provided to the students in this program.  
5. This module does not cover the making of financial plans and developing budgets and forecasts. 

For understanding these aspects and their practical coverage, the other modules of the MPA course are responsible, however. it strenghetn teh overall finaincal accountign knowldge.  

9. Help extended by the topics taught in HI5020 Corporate Accounting in developing the skills, attributes and experiences required by Corporate Accountant

The manner of teaching the topics of HI5020 Corporate Accounting is designed in a specialized way. This manner helps in the development of the personal attributes and skills of a student to help him deal with practicalities of the profession of Corporate Accountant. This is because of the following reasons: 

1. The teaching is not merely theoretical. Periodically after completion of every topic assignments are provided to students. These assignments help in improvising the communication skills of the students. 
2. The assignments are required to be completed in a given and fixed timeframe. This deadline if not matched results in penalties. Hence, the students learn time management skills and at the same time learn to work under pressure.
3. The assignments are not provided individually always. At several times group assignments are also provided. Through these group assignments, the students manage to work in a team and that generates team spirit. 
4. The assignments are based on financial and accounting topics and require the students to put attention to detail and use high analytical skills for completion of the work with quality. This makes the analytical knowledge of students stronger.
5. The assignments provided are to be prepared and submitted using the MS Office tools like Excel, PowerPoint, and Word. Due to this the IT competence and handling of computer systems is eased and enhanced. 

Hence, the kind of teaching methodology adopted under the course HI5020 Corporate Accounting is all responsible for developing the skills and attributes needed to be a good Corporate Accountant. 

Conclusion

It takes a complete package of practical understanding compiled with strong theoretical knowledge to make a good corporate accountant. The job comes with varied roles, responsibilities, and tasks. This requires the accountant to develop several attributes related to his personality. These attributes are highly responsible to enable the corporate accountant in delivering his role with utmost quality. Also, the basic qualifications necessary for personnel to grab the job with the designation of a corporate accountant cannot be forgotten. Therefore, after assessing the available job advertisement, it could be inferred that if an individual wants to get job as accountant in any company then it needs to strengthen the personal attitude of working hard for the attainment of provided goals, needs to have ability to manage time well to complete the assigned tasks in time and not to miss work deadlines, proficiency in local language and workable understanding of languages running in foreign subsidiaries, and strong zeal to cope with dynamic business environment and the related impact of it on business operations. Now, in the end, it could be inferred that a person needs to focus on increasing the overall accounting intent first for the expected accounting jobs.