The transition from outdated qualification reference books to improved professional standards began in 2013. The gradual replacement of old regulations is taking place due to the rapid development of various sectors of the country’s economy. Thus, professional standards were developed for many professions, in particular for accounting workers.
The professional standard of an accountant is a mandatory document for use in a number of organizations. The standard was adopted on December 22, 2014, and on February 7, 2015. It entered into force. This document is intended to systematize the requirements for enterprise accounting employees, highlighting the skills and knowledge necessary for a specific position. Professional standard also takes into account the provisions of a number of legislative standards, among which are labor legislation and Federal Law No. 402 “On Accounting” dated December 6, 2011.
Thus, based on Federal Law No. 402, responsibilities that require a high level of professionalism from the subject are assigned to that employee whose education and experience fall under the qualification level of the chief accountant.
The requirements of the professional standard of an accountant, approved by the government of the Russian Federation, apply to persons conducting accounting in the following organizations:
If a company employs only one accountant who combines the duties of a manager and chief accountant, the use of a professional standard is mandatory. If ordinary employees work under the supervision of the chief accountant, for them the provisions of the standard are advisory in nature.
Thus, the heads of these companies who hire an accountant for a certain entity must be guided by the requirements of the relevant professional standard. However, the use of the provisions of the professional standard is not a violation even in those companies where this is not necessary. A necessary condition is to fix the corresponding provision in a local regulatory document.
In addition, based on the text of the standard, you can also:
As mentioned earlier, such standards are mandatory for chief accountants of a number of companies. Thus, for violating the postulates of the standard or ignoring them, the Government of the Russian Federation provides for prosecution. Based on Art. 5/27 Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation, responsibility is expressed as follows:
Professional accountant standard No. 309 is a document that contains a detailed list of requirements for employees in this field. In fact, the document is a general list of qualifications, compliance with which is necessary to perform specific tasks.
The tasks highlighted in the document divide all employees into accountants and chief accountants. Thus, the part of the professional standard that affects the chief accountant assumes a wider range of responsibilities than that of an ordinary specialist, as well as the presence of high qualifications and mandatory work experience.
Such a professional standard is typical in its structure. Thus, the document is divided into the following sections:
Based on the information provided by the NRBU BMC Foundation, there is a possibility that the document will be revised in the near future, and adjustments will be made to its text in the form of additional functions and requirements (Draft Order of the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of the Russian Federation “On approval of the professional standard “Accountant” (prepared by the Ministry of Labor of Russia on October 20, 2017)). This prospect is logical, since working conditions and the economic situation are changing dynamically. The proposed adjustments will concern the list of functions relative to the qualification level.
The direction of duties performed by an employee depends on the availability of certain skills. Thus, responsibility for maintaining primary documents often falls on junior accountants. In particular, their responsibilities include:
The functions assigned to the chief accountant by professional standards include:
First of all, based on the relevant professional standard, an accountant is required to be able to prepare various primary documents, including their electronic versions. At the same time, it is also necessary to own basic electronic resources, office equipment and the necessary programs that will significantly facilitate record keeping.
In addition, for all accounting employees, the requirement to be informed in terms of current legislation is relevant.
An ordinary or junior accountant must be familiar with the rules for preparing accounting records, as well as with the process of calculating the cost of goods or services produced, as well as with salary calculations and related payments. In addition to financial papers, work activity also involves the preparation of statements, certificates and other similar documents.
The chief accountant's tasks are based on a wider range of knowledge and skills. Thus, in addition to awareness of simple accounting operations, the subject requires the skill of drawing up various types of reporting, coordinating the receipt of financial and material and technical resources, as well as the ability to monitor and analyze the financial condition of the company.
The necessary knowledge of a chief accountant includes:
The professional standard for accountants in 2018 has two qualification categories – 5 and 6.
In particular , junior or ordinary specialist belong to the fifth qualification level, which is sufficient to perform standard accounting operations to record the facts of the economic life of the enterprise.
Senior or chief accountant works in accordance with the sixth level, based on which the requirements for such a position are significantly higher than at the fifth level.
An ordinary employee is allowed secondary specialized education (college, technical school or school). The chief accountant must have a bachelor's or master's degree, as well as a minimum of three years of work experience. In this case, the subject’s work experience must be related to the auditing field or accounting.
With experience in auditing companies, the subject only needs three years of actual work. If the work experience is in accounting, the citizen must have at least five years of working time in this field.
In a situation where there is a prospect of dismissal for a subject holding the position of an accountant, one should rely on the professional standard of the chief accountant. In addition, the process of dismissal of even an ordinary employee should be based on the professional standard of the industry.
To do this, you should first of all conduct a certification of the subordinate in order to identify the current level of his knowledge and skills and determine whether they correspond to the position in which the subject is located. If the results are unsatisfactory, the subordinate should be offered additional education programs, advanced training courses, or, if such a possibility exists, a transfer to a less complex position.
The professional accountant standard 2019, approved by the Government of the Russian Federation, became one of the first standards put into effect. It was developed with the participation of the Institute of Professional Accountants and Auditors of the Russian Federation. The document was approved by Order of the Ministry of Labor of the Russian Federation dated December 22, 2014 No. 1061n and registered with the Ministry of Justice on January 23, 2015 No. 35697.
Since 2019, the professional standard for accountants has stated as the main goal the need to generate, document and systematize information about accounting objects and, based on them, prepare reports on the financial position of an economic entity in the period established for the report.
The document defines four groups of employees in the area of activity under consideration:
The Labor Code of the Russian Federation in Article 195.3 establishes the mandatory use of professional standards for the employer in the event that labor legislation defines qualification requirements for an employee to perform labor functions.
The professional standard is applied to the part of the requirements that are determined by laws or other acts. Thus, Law 402-FZ (clause 4 of Article 7) directly establishes requirements for the level of education and length of service of employees who are involved in accounting in:
In other organizations, the use of professional standards is not mandatory.
The professional standard includes a list of labor functions, consisting of two groups:
The issue of determining qualification levels is described in detail in Order of the Ministry of Labor of the Russian Federation dated April 12, 2013 No. 148n. In accordance with it, the 5th level of the professional standard involves conducting independent activities to solve assigned tasks, and the 6th level involves determining one’s own tasks and the tasks of subordinates.
Group A contains one possible job title - “accountant”. Group B includes the title “chief accountant”.
For group A, the professional standard established certain requirements for both education and training, and work experience. Employees must have secondary vocational education, but practical work experience must be at least 3 years.
Decoding of areas of work includes:
For group B in the professional standard, you must have a higher or secondary education. It is required to have documents confirming the completion of additional professional programs for advanced training or retraining.
Work experience in the field of accounting, reporting, and auditing work must be at least 5 years out of the last seven years of work (in the absence of higher education) and at least 3 years out of the last five - in case of higher education.
Activities include:
The professional standard for chief accountant 2019, approved by the Government of the Russian Federation, allows for the establishment of additional requirements for this position in some economic entities.
Thus, the list of job responsibilities of these categories of specialists is quite wide. Not only has the number of functions increased, but their content has also qualitatively changed towards greater specificity.
The form of the professional standard is simple, convenient for use by human resources specialists, for example, to formulate an employee’s job description. In general, both the employer and the employee now clearly understand what needs to be done and what they are responsible for.
The work of public and private employees must be carried out in accordance with certain professional standards, which are mandatory for some categories of employees and recommended for others.
In particular, the use of professional standards is quite common when hiring accountants whose activities involve increased responsibility, and in particular, this concerns financial liability for their activities.
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It is for this reason that many are interested in what professional standard is provided for an accountant and how each specialist should comply with it.
A professional standard is a set of indicators according to which the level of qualifications required by an employee to conduct his activities is characterized, and in particular, the components of this indicator are skills, abilities, theoretical knowledge and practical experience.
A specialty establishes a labor function, while the presence of a qualification demonstrates the level of skill of a particular specialist within his specialty.
Thus, for example, the professional standard “Accountant” indicates the level of qualifications required to perform work in this profession, and this document was officially approved by the Ministry of Justice and officially published in the public domain.
The requirements for the qualification level of specialists are established by their job responsibilities, which, in particular, determine their titles.
In particular, in accordance with Government Resolution No. 23, which was issued on January 22, 2013, the need to use professional standards on the part of employers in the process of forming personnel policies, as well as organizing the certification of their employees, was indicated.
As mentioned above, in some situations the use of professional standards is mandatory, and in particular, from July 1, 2019, they must be taken into account in the process of developing personnel policies and managing the company’s personnel. Also, their use is mandatory in those situations that are prescribed in the Labor Code or any other regulations.
When hiring certain employees, the employer must rely on official professional standards only in those situations that are directly specified in the current Labor Code.
It is worth noting the fact that liability for failure to use professional standards in any situations is not provided for by current legislation, but if the employer, in the process of forming local regulations, undertakes to conduct activities in accordance with qualification reference books, he will need to comply with those the requirements specified therein.
Part 2 of Article 57 of the Labor Code states that the name of a specific position, as well as the qualification requirements that apply to all applicants, must fully comply with what is specified in the relevant qualification directory or specialized professional standard.
Mandatory compliance with this norm is provided only if the specified position, in accordance with labor or other types of legislation, provides for the provision of benefits to the employee or the use of restrictions. In particular, early retirement of a specialist may be considered as a benefit if he works in harmful or difficult conditions.
Otherwise, the use of professional standards by employers is carried out as a basis for determining the level of qualifications of an employee, taking into account the functions they perform, determined by the technologies used and the organization of labor or production processes.
The professional standard for accountants is numbered 309 and was approved by the Ministry of Labor on December 22, 2019. Requirements are distributed in accordance with the level of qualifications, taking into account the growth of functionality, as well as responsibility for all decisions made by the specified employee.
The qualification levels that are indicated in professional standards are specified in Order of the Ministry of Labor No. 148n, which was published on April 12, 2013. The level is set in accordance with the degree of responsibility, the tasks performed, as well as the need to set any tasks and ensure control over their implementation by other employees.
There are nine levels in total, but for standards that require high professionalism of specialists (such as accountants), only those levels above the fifth are applied:
| Fifth level | Provides for the specialist to independently make the majority of decisions on the tasks assigned to him, as well as his direct participation in decision-making that affects the work of the entire department. In addition, the specialist is also responsible for the results not only of his own activities, but also of the entire unit subordinate to him. |
| Sixth level | It involves not only making decisions by an expert, but also independently defining tasks in accordance with the goals of a specific department and the entire company as a whole. After this, he has the right to assign the specified task to the rest of the employees and is responsible at the level of the entire company and the department subordinate to him. |
| Seventh level | Provides the ability to make decisions at the company level, that is, it develops a strategy, determines the goals with which specialists at the fifth and sixth levels will work in the future, and also develops its own methodology and organizes business processes. In addition to this, he is also responsible to senior management. |
The professional standard includes several sections:
| general information | The specific type of professional activity is indicated, and the main goal of specialists working in this position is also indicated. |
| Description of the key work tasks that are included in this occupational standard | This section provides generalized information on all labor functions of specialists, as well as an indication of their decoding with the corresponding codes and the required level of qualifications of the employee. |
| Characteristics of generalized problems | The basic requirements for theoretical knowledge and practical work experience are indicated separately for the chief and ordinary accountants. In addition, more detailed information about the labor functions of each specialist in the context of job responsibilities, required skills and knowledge is also indicated. |
The qualification requirements for a chief accountant are divided into two categories - for ordinary specialists and those who must meet the requirements of Part 4 of Article 7 of Law No. 402-FZ.
The professional standard for accountants, the functionality of this group of specialists includes five sections:
The job description of this specialist may also include a number of other responsibilities, including maintaining personnel records if the company’s management has not established a separate personnel service. In order to ensure full compliance with professional standards, the chief accountant must have at least a full-fledged education, as well as work experience of more than five years with secondary education or more than three with higher education.
In order to perform the vast majority of the functions of the chief accountant, which are prescribed in the relevant professional standard, the accountant must have at least the sixth level of professional qualification.
The seventh level is provided for those positions that relate to accounting and financial management of large organizations or holdings, since in accordance with the current grouping they will already belong to the group “Other senior-level specialists”.
In addition, such specialists are also required to meet a number of additional requirements, such as computer literacy, the ability to manage people, as well as knowledge of various methods and techniques of analysis, as well as a number of other skills.
Today, current legislation does not establish any mandatory form in accordance with which a job description must be drawn up, but in accordance with common practice, it must include several main sections:
| "General information" | Here it is indicated:
|
| "Functional responsibilities" | Includes a detailed list of the employee's typical duties that represent the essential components of the employee's job in the specified position. |
| "Rights" | It is necessary to list the main list of rights specified in the document, and in particular, it mainly indicates the right of the specified person to gain access to any corporate information, as well as the possibility of his interaction with other employees of the company if necessary to solve various problems. |
| "Responsibility" | Standard wording is indicated that the specified employee must bear full responsibility for his actions in full compliance with current legislation, as well as local regulations. |
| "Final provisions" | It is said that the instructions were drawn up in two copies, and the employee was familiarized with the specified instructions against signature. This document is approved by the head of the company. |
If you look at the existing professional standard of an accountant and carefully read its provisions, you can note the presence of requirements for the level of education and work experience of the employee, but it does not say anything about the fact that if the specified requirements are not met, the employee can be fired, and therefore there is insufficient practical length of service or lack of education cannot be considered as a legal reason for dismissal.
In addition, it is also worth noting the certification of professional accountants in accordance with professional standards. In the process of carrying out this procedure, the employer can determine to what extent the qualifications of its current employees meet the requirements specified in regulatory documentation or any internal local rules.
In addition, the employer can also distribute the functions of the accounting department employees in accordance with their skill level and assigned responsibilities. For this purpose, it is best to introduce into the staffing table a separate position for an intern, a site accountant, as well as leading and senior specialists.
In order to obtain a certificate, you just need to complete a few basic steps:
The register of professional standards adopted by the Russian Ministry of Labor and approved by the Ministry of Justice is steadily growing. At the end of August 2016, it contained more than 8 hundred standards, however, among them there is still no single document for economists.
In this case, what should the employer do when determining the employee’s job functionality, formulating the provisions of the job description, resolving payroll issues and other cases that are so conveniently regulated in professional standards? Let's figure it out together.
The Labor Code has made the application of professional standards mandatory since June 1, 2016, and this innovation often amazes employers so much that they do not immediately pay attention to the explanations of the law. And they say that professional standards must literally apply only to those positions for which restrictions are established, compensation is provided, or benefits are possible. For all other types of activities, the use of professional standards is only recommended:
REFERENCE! For the area of professional activity to which an economist belongs, the Labor Code of the Russian Federation does not provide special conditions in the form of benefits and compensation, and no professional limits have been established. This means that the professional standard for this position is recommended, but not required - of course, when it is approved by a separate document.
Economist is not a full job title; rather, it is an entire professional field. An economist can be a person working in different labor fields; among the most highly specialized, you can find the following economists:
The position of a particular economist can be mentioned not only among other possible job titles, but also among the basic names of the specialty.
Among the professional standards adopted and approved to date, there are several created for specialists with possible work tasks of an economist. Let's consider those that can most often be used to work with the position of “economist”.
Speciality financial economist allows you to occupy positions where it is necessary to carry out microfinance operations. The corresponding professional standard “Financial Consulting Specialist” was adopted by Order of the Ministry of Labor of Russia No. 167n on March 19, 2015.
Such a professional is authorized to perform the following basic functions:
The positions offered by the professional standard in this area are “specialist” or “leading microfinance specialist.” Qualification requirements for them are given in Table 1.
Table 1
The functions of an internal auditor can be performed not only by lawyers and accountants, but also by economic specialists. The professional standard for such areas of activity “Internal controller” and “Internal auditor” were adopted by orders of the Ministry of Labor of the Russian Federation No. 236n and 398n, respectively, with a time difference of about 2 months (the first was 04/22/2015, the second was 06/24/2015).
Main Responsibility financial monitoring specialist– is to monitor and suppress attempts to “launder” ill-gotten proceeds. For an economist, three generalized labor functions given in Table 2 may be suitable for this professional standard.
Table 2
For all these functions, this professional standard has a special restriction - reputational admission. You should not work in this job:
NOTE! Based on this limitation, this professional standard is mandatory. Thus, if an employer chose this document to regulate the work of his economist and recorded his decision in a job description or other regulatory act, then he will have to adhere to all the requirements specified in the standard, and failure to comply may result in a fine.
An economist can be involved in personnel management. The corresponding professional standard provides 8 basic functions, 6 of which are available to a labor economist:
All these functions do not require mandatory prior work experience. The qualification level for the first of them is 5, the rest need 6. To work with documentation, a secondary specialized education is enough, for the next two you need to be at least a bachelor, and for the rest you need to graduate from a university in a specialist or master’s program. These functions are not burdened with special requirements, which means that the professional standard is recommended, but not mandatory.
For various areas of an economist’s activity, the following professional standards may also be applicable:
Together with the above, these professional standards are only the most popular ones that employers can use in relation to their economists. If the employer prioritizes the use of professional standards, he can choose the job function that best suits his requirements for the employee. Based on it, you can decide on the job title and qualification components. It is logical to use the professional standard of the type of activity that the entire organization is engaged in.
EKS (Unified Qualification Directory), approved by Resolution No. 37 of the Ministry of Labor of Russia on August 21. 1998, also contains information about job functions and qualification requirements for economists. The EKS identifies the following responsibilities for economic positions:
The EKS requires such an employee to have a higher education in economics and finance; in this case, prior work experience in the specialty does not matter. If an economist has only a secondary specialized education, he must first work on:
ATTENTION! The employer himself decides whether to follow the EKS or the professional standard in relation to his employees; it is only important to note this point in any local regulatory act. The only case where adherence to the professional standard must be mandatory is the position of chief economist for the professional standard of financial monitoring, since it prescribes certain restrictions to employees, noted in the legislation.
The professional standard of an accountant regulates the knowledge, skills and prescribes the employee’s job responsibilities. Find out who is subject to the new requirements, download samples of all the necessary documents
From this article you will learn:
The professional standard of an accountant determines the requirements for education, qualifications and work experience of an accounting employee. It regulates knowledge, skills and prescribes job responsibilities. This code can be used as a guide for all companies hiring an accountant, but in some cases it is mandatory. In such cases prescribed by law, failure to apply the standard will be a gross violation of applicable laws.
If certain requirements for a representative of this profession are established by law, then the company, in relation to the replenishment of whose staff the legislator has prescribed such restrictions, will be guided by the requirements of the standard. For example, open joint-stock companies, banks, and insurance companies should do this (clause 4, article 7 of Law No. 402-FZ). Other organizations may use the provisions of the document if they wish. Most often, people resort to his help when drawing up job descriptions, personnel policies, and selecting new employees.
The requirements for education and work experience are increasing - if a person is applying for a position at a high level, or wants to move to a higher category, he must gain experience. The chief accountant can only be someone whose education and experience are relevant to the requirements of the sixth, seventh or eighth level. But there is a gradation here. For example, for the chief accountant of the seventh and eighth levels, it will be a prerequisite to obtain higher education and advanced training.
The procedure for advanced training is now also regulated. Professional standards for accountants since 2018 oblige accountants and chief accountants to study at least 120 hours over three consecutive calendar years, but not less than 20 hours in each year. The professional standard exam is taken only at special qualification assessment centers.
In addition, the professional standard of an accountant will be supplemented with new job functions: tax and financial analysis, planning and organization of business processes, preparation of company reports with divisions, consolidated financial statements.
Instead of the knowledge in the basics of computer science prescribed by the current standard, the new code specifies that a specialist must understand computer programs for accounting. Instead of vague wording saying that you need to know the basics of legislation on accounting, taxes and fees, etc., the new requirements include the obligation of an accounting employee to thoroughly understand the legal framework relating to his work. Thus, the legislator follows the path of training specialists who understand their business in the smallest detail.
As prescribed by the professional standard, an accountant first of all generates systematized information about accounting objects, and then prepares financial statements based on them. It should show the financial position of the company or businessman as of the reporting date, the financial result of the work and the flow of money for the reporting dates. This information is needed so that reporting recipients can make decisions about the economic reliability of the entity.
According to the “Accountant” standard, a specialist must graduate from a technical school (college) in the direction of “Economics and Management”. A person may not have a specialized education, but then he must have completed accounting courses and also worked in the field of accounting and control for at least three years. Work as a cashier, controller, or assistant chief accountant will be included in the required experience.
There are three categories for ordinary accountants. The scope of skills is distributed as follows:
draws up and accepts primary documents;
registers documents in registers;
calculates the results and closes the turnover.
Most often, the accounting employee does all this himself. Accordingly, the job description will contain points relating to all categories.
The professional standard “Chief Accountant” more strictly regulates the education of a specialist - obtaining a secondary vocational or higher education is mandatory, but you won’t be able to get by with additional ones. Those with secondary education must first work for five years, with higher education - three years.
There are five categories for the chief accountant with different functions:
preparation of financial statements;
maintaining tax records;
organization of internal control;
preparation of consolidated reporting;
the financial analysis.
A job description can be obtained by reworking the requirements of the professional standard. Following the logic of the standard, it should reflect the requirements for education, experience, knowledge, as well as a list of the employee’s responsibilities. You can use a well-developed description of job responsibilities and transfer them to a local company document. This will make it possible to clearly formulate the terms of reference and eliminate potential discussions about what the chief accountant should and should not do.
The instructions can be made an annex to the employment contract or a separate document. If the candidate does not meet these requirements, the company will have the right to refuse to accept him. At the same time, the current instructions, regardless of whether they are based on the standard or developed independently, can be changed if necessary. But it should be taken into account that if the scope of responsibilities changes, the employee will need to be notified of upcoming changes to the terms of the employment contract two months in advance.
