ACCOUNTANT’S PROFILE: PERCEPTION OF STUDENTS AND PRACTITIONERS

Abstract

The profession of the accountant has many aspects. Accountants shape the largest amount of information in an enterprise and play an important role in the enterprise's activity. This profession is highly regulated, very responsible and usually includes a wide range of topics: including but not limited to different spheres of accounting, formation of accounting policies, or even information system for enterprises. This suggests the need for an investigation into the accountant's profile, in order to determine the set of features which ideally should be developed for the profession. The purpose of the article is to investigate the accountant's profile from the perception of students and practitioners. For the achievement of this purpose the following methods were used: a questionnaire-based study, information systematization, comparison, and summarization. The results of the research from the study were used for the evaluation of the profile of the accountant, for the development of the necessary set of features an accountant should hold, and finally, the results may be used for the future assessment of accounting study programs of higher educational institutions.