General ledger accountants are known as GL accountants for short. A GL accountant is a professional that has been put in charge of ensuring the accuracy of a company's overall accounting processes and information. As a general ledger accountant, you must ensure that the company's accounting information is accurately reflected. You are expected to collaborate and properly communicate with internal departments to analyze, gather, and interpret relevant financial information. In addition, you must supervise the relevant personnel until the progress of accounting processes.
More importantly, you are to implement the company's policies and regulations. It is also your responsibility to reconcile accounts with the general ledger. As a General ledger accountant, you are to perform account analysis to ensure that balances and journal entries are not incorrect. Furthermore, you must align general ledger accounting practices to support forecasting and budgeting.
Most general ledger accountants study finance, accounting, or business. To be a qualified candidate for this role, you must hold at least a bachelor's degree in any of these relevant fields. You will earn an average salary of $57,129 per year.
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a General Ledger Accountant. For example, did you know that they make an average of $29.63 an hour? That's $61,628 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 6% and produce 90,700 job opportunities across the U.S.
There are certain skills that many General Ledger Accountants have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed Analytical skills, Communication skills and Detail oriented.
If you're interested in becoming a General Ledger Accountant, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 75.9% of General Ledger Accountants have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 11.3% of General Ledger Accountants have master's degrees. Even though most General Ledger Accountants have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a General Ledger Accountant. When we researched the most common majors for a General Ledger Accountant, we found that they most commonly earn Bachelor's Degree degrees or Master's Degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on General Ledger Accountant resumes include Associate Degree degrees or High School Diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a General Ledger Accountant. In fact, many General Ledger Accountant jobs require experience in a role such as Staff Accountant. Meanwhile, many General Ledger Accountants also have previous career experience in roles such as Accountant or Senior Accountant.