Staff Accountant Job Description
A staff accountant job description template covering journal entries and month-end close, the ATS keywords recruiters screen for, and the CPA path.
Staff accountant is the standard first rung in corporate accounting, and it sits next to a fork most new graduates have already half-decided: public accounting first — auditing or preparing tax returns at a CPA firm — or straight into industry, doing the accounting for one company instead of many. This posting is the second path. Tessworth is hiring directly into a corporate accounting seat, not a training-program rotation.
One fact worth knowing if you're deciding whether to apply: CPA licensure requires 150 credit hours in Texas and almost every other state, and a standard bachelor's degree is 120. That gap is why a lot of staff accountants are finishing a fifth year, a master's, or extra coursework while working full time, and why "CPA in progress" shows up so often on entry-level accounting resumes rather than reading as a red flag.
The difference between "staff" and "senior" accountant is less about years than about ownership: a staff accountant executes a defined piece of the close under a senior's review, while a senior owns the full cycle for their area unsupervised. That's the promotion to aim for, and it's a better way to judge your own readiness than counting years on the job.
Tessworth · Austin, TX
Full-time · Hybrid
$54,000 – $68,000
About the role
Tessworth is hiring a Staff Accountant to join our corporate accounting team. You will own a defined set of accounts through the monthly close — journal entries, reconciliations and the schedules that support them — working under a senior accountant who reviews your work and helps you build toward owning a full close cycle yourself.
This is a full-cycle industry accounting seat, not an audit or tax role: you'll get to know Tessworth's own numbers in depth rather than rotating across different clients' books.
What you'll do
- Prepare and post journal entries for assigned accounts as part of the monthly close.
- Reconcile bank, credit card and balance sheet accounts, and research and clear discrepancies.
- Maintain supporting schedules for prepaid expenses, accruals and fixed assets.
- Assist with accounts payable and accounts receivable during peak periods or team absences.
- Prepare portions of the monthly financial statements and supporting workpapers.
- Respond to information requests from the external auditors during the annual audit.
- Help document and improve the close checklist as you learn where it breaks down.
- Flag unusual account activity to your senior accountant before it becomes a close-day surprise.
What we're looking for
- Bachelor's degree in accounting, finance or a related field (or on track to complete one).
- Solid understanding of debits, credits and how a journal entry moves through the trial balance.
- Working knowledge of GAAP as it applies to routine transactions and month-end close.
- Proficiency in Excel, including pivot tables and lookup functions.
- Strong attention to detail — a transposed number in a reconciliation is a real cost, not a nitpick.
- Comfortable asking questions rather than guessing when something in the ledger doesn't reconcile.
Nice to have
- Internship or part-time experience in accounting, bookkeeping or audit.
- Exposure to NetSuite, QuickBooks or a comparable general ledger system.
- Progress toward CPA licensure, including credit hours beyond the bachelor's degree.
- Experience with accounts payable or accounts receivable specifically.
- Comfort working under a hard monthly deadline without losing accuracy.
Benefits
- Medical, dental and vision coverage, with employee premiums covered in full.
- 401(k) with a 4% company match, vested immediately.
- Hybrid schedule: three days a week in the Austin office.
- CPA exam fee and study material reimbursement once you're eligible to sit.
- Fifteen days of paid time off plus company holidays, increasing with tenure.
Salary range
As posted for this sample role. Real pay varies by employer, location and experience.
$54,000–$68,000/ yr
ATS keywords for this role
The applicant tracking system (ATS) — the recruiting software a hiring team searches and filters applicants with — will screen for these. Weight shows how central each one is to this specific posting.
Required and central (6)
Important (7)
Mentioned in passing (5)
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to work in public accounting before taking a staff accountant job in industry?
No — both are legitimate starting points and plenty of accountants never do public accounting at all. Public accounting exposes you to many clients' books quickly, which some employers value; going straight into industry, as with this role, gets you deep in one company's numbers sooner. Moving from industry into public accounting later is less common than the reverse, but it isn't rare.
Do I need to be a CPA to be a staff accountant?
No. This is an entry-level role. Most states also require two years of qualifying experience under a licensed CPA before you can be licensed yourself, on top of passing the exam, so becoming a CPA is realistically a multi-year process that starts during a job like this one, not a prerequisite for getting it.
What's the difference between a staff accountant and a bookkeeper?
A bookkeeper typically records transactions as they happen. A staff accountant reconciles those records, reviews them for accuracy, and prepares financial statements in line with GAAP — a broader scope that usually assumes a degree, even though the day-to-day tasks can overlap.
How is this different from an accounts payable specialist role?
A staff accountant works across the full ledger and helps prepare financial statements. An accounts payable specialist owns one function — paying vendors accurately and on time — in more depth. Both are legitimate entry points into corporate finance; they just specialize in opposite directions.
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