Job profile
Financial Accountant (M/F/D)

Financial accounting: accounting and financial management

With invoices coming in and going out as various services and products are billed, financial accountants are responsible for reviewing transactions across a wide range of business accounts and preparing monthly and annual financial statements. The job title “financial accountant” is not a protected term with any one definition but their duties are always very similar, forming the basis for both external billing and internal accounting as part of a company’s accounting department. Financial accountants can also receive IHK certification.

Almost every company, regardless of industry, requires expertise in financial accounting. The goal in both internal and external accounting is to clearly present the company’s financial situation. To do so, companies use balance sheets, annual financial statements and P&L calculations to assess their revenue, assets and overall financial situation. When it comes to financial accounting, it doesn’t matter if you’re a generalist or an expert specialising in accounts payable (incoming invoices), accounts receivable (outgoing invoices) or other types of payment records: the financial accountant job market is currently thriving.

With our experienced HR experts, you can get access to consultation for all kinds of employment contracts, as well as support in your job search or recruitment of qualified experts in financial accounting.

For applicants
For companies
For freelancers

Looking for a job as a financial accountant (m/f/d)?

Are you skilled in juggling incoming and outgoing invoices? Are you passionate about preparing monthly or annual financial statements? Or perhaps you’ve been able to expand your expertise to include dunning? Or have you completed further training in the area of payroll accounting or become a certified management accountant? If you’ve got the know-how and are looking for a new challenge in financial accounting, let’s work together to find out where you can do the thing you do best next.

Find current vacancies for financial accountants

Looking for an experienced financial accountant (m/f/d)?

Does your company experience a high volume of both incoming and outgoing invoices? Need an overview of your company’s financial situation? Qualified financial accountants help to keep an overview of your account transactions and create transparency in your company’s revenue, assets and overall financial situation. Whether you’re looking for specialists with many years of experience in accounts payable/receivable and payroll accounting or qualified management accountants, with our HR consultants you can find the right candidate for your vacancy.

Find qualified financial accountants

Looking for current financial accountant projects (m/f/d)?

Are you familiar with all of the various payment transactions of a company with both incoming and outgoing invoices and have experience creating monthly and annual financial statements? Do you know how to review account transactions and analyse a company’s financial situation? If so, use your experience in new financial accounting projects and offer your expertise to help companies account for the use of their financial resources.

Find current projects for financial accountants

What does a financial accountant do?

As a financial accountant, you are responsible for keeping an overview of external billing and internal accounting.

External billing is directed towards external parties and is regulated by law. Owners, customers, creditors, suppliers and other stakeholders are all informed about the use of financial resources. Internal accounting, on the other hand, is not concerned with taking account of financial resources allocated to external partners. It is solely for a company’s internal purposes, such as determining a business’ profitability or controlling various business units.

Financial accountants record all monetary transactions chronologically and factually and allocates these to the correct accounts. Using incoming and outgoing invoices, financial accountants also prepare other payment records and create monthly and annual financial statements.

Tasks of financial accountants

A financial accountant is responsible for the entire spectrum of a company’s payment transactions, from managing incoming and outgoing invoices, dunning and posting business transactions to creating monthly, quarterly and annual financial statements and statistics. Financial accountants are the points of contact for company management and work in direct contact with external auditors (e.g. tax auditors).

In today’s digital world, financial accountants must also have extensive knowledge of maintaining master data.

Accounting and dunning
Financial statements and statistics
Master data maintenance
Preparation of information for the management board
Contact person for auditors
Coordination and management of accounts receivable, accounts payable, asset accounting and banking/cash entries
Processing of payment transactions
Reporting to authorities and administrations
Preparation of profit and loss statements

What is the average salary of a financial accountant?

Financial accountants earn approx. EUR 28,000 (gross) at entry-level. With professional experience, this usually increases to a gross annual salary of up to EUR 45,000. The annual salary ultimately depends on experience and the size/requirements of the company. Some experience with salary negotiations never hurts in this profession.

Training as a financial accountant

Accounting skills are taught as part of all business training (e.g. as an office manager). If you’ve already undergone a large portion of your training in accounting, getting into financial accounting is no problem at all. Most people enter the profession from positions in either accounts payable or accounts receivable.

You can then gain more specialised skills throughout your career as a financial accountant by further training to become a “certified management accountant”. As a management accountant, you will gain the ability to maintain and control both accounts payable and receivable or even carry out complex financial management tasks as part of large corporations. It is also possible to specialise in the area of payroll accounting or asset accounting.

By specialising in the field of financial accounting, you increase your chances of earning a higher salary and take one step closer towards landing a managerial position.

How good are the chances for financial accountants on the job market?

Qualified financial accountants are needed in almost every company in every sector. That means demand for qualified specialists is high. Financial accounting experts are in particularly high demand in the fields of accounting, dunning and payroll accounti

What hard and soft skills do financial accountants need?

Competent experts in the field of financial accounting must have extensive skills in accounting. They must have experience in certain sectors and be able to demonstrate proficiency in the relevant accounting software that is needed to maintain master data.

Financial accountants are able to present the results of their work to both management and external auditors in the form of financial statements and statistics.

Financial accountants must possess the following hard skills:

Good knowledge of business accounting
Know-how in cost and performance accounting
Knowledge of accounting (in accordance with trade and tax law)
Industry-relevant experience
Familiarity with the required software solutions
Extensive knowledge of corporate tax law (fiscal code, valuation law, VAT, etc.)

The following soft skills are also crucial in financial accounting:

Communication skills
Capability of working in a team
Project management experience

Is there a perfect match between financial accountants and companies?

We are convinced that there is the perfect person for every position and every company. And we are just as good at finding a suitable project or company for every financial accountant.

In order to maximise our success in connecting financial accountants and companies, we use our innovative “Find & Engage” concept. In concrete terms, this means that we create comprehensive profiles of both our companies and our applicants in which requirements, skills and also specific requests are taken into consideration. When we are looking for the best possible candidate, we match the company profiles with those of our candidates and only make contact if we are confident that the criteria of both parties will be fulfilled.

The companies and financial accounting specialists then find out whether they can imagine working together in a joint discussion.

If mutual interest is shown, Hays then takes care of all the paperwork and outlines the general conditions. Financial accountants can be hired directly by the company or as part of a temporary employment contract at Hays.