Accountant Interview Questions for Experienced Candidates

“For the last three years I've owned the full close for our largest trading entity, from the payables and accruals through to the balance sheet reconciliations and the pack that goes to the finance director. Two people prepare work for me, and I sign off everything before it leaves the team. The biggest decision I made was moving the balance sheet reviews from quarter end to every month, which found a mis-posted customer refund balance two months earlier than we'd have caught it before. If I did it again, I'd document the judgement areas much earlier. When I took two weeks off last year, my cover had the checklists but not the reasoning behind the provisions, so a couple of calls waited for me. Now each judgement has a short note explaining the method and the evidence.”

“One month the system showed a large currency loss even though the rate had barely moved. I pulled the revaluation report by account and found it was revaluing supplier prepayments and a foreign currency inventory account. Those are non-monetary balances, so they should stay at the rate on the day of the transaction. Only monetary items like cash, receivables, payables and loans get restated at the closing rate. Someone had ticked every foreign currency account for revaluation when the system was set up. I reversed the wrong entries, fixed the account settings with the systems team, and checked the previous months, where the effect was small enough to correct in the current period. Now the close checklist includes a quick reasonableness check: expected gain or loss from the rate change against what the system posts.”

“I'd use one machine as the example. In our accounts we spread its cost over ten years, because that's how long we'll use it. The tax rules let us claim it much faster, say most of it in the first few years. So in those early years our taxable profit is lower than our accounting profit, and we pay less tax now. But that isn't a saving forever. In the later years we'll have nothing left to claim for tax while the accounts are still charging depreciation, so we'll pay more tax then. The deferred tax liability is that future tax, recognised now so our profit isn't flattered by the early benefit. I've given roughly that explanation to a plant manager who asked why tax was on his balance sheet, and it landed well.”

“Gross margin at one branch jumped in a single month, and the branch manager was happy to take the credit. Sales hadn't changed much, so I looked at cost of sales. It had dropped sharply. I drilled into the entries and found that a large batch of supplier invoices for stock had been coded to a prepayments account instead of purchases, because a new clerk had picked the wrong code from a similar-looking list. So the margin gain wasn't real. I moved the invoices to the right account before the pack went out, and the margin went back to normal. Then I asked for the two confusing codes to be renamed and added a margin check by branch to my review. It was a slightly awkward call with the branch manager, but much better than reporting it upward.”

“Our team was spending most of close day chasing tiny accruals like taxi receipts and small subscriptions. I proposed a threshold: at month end we'd only accrue items above a set level, based on how small it was compared with monthly costs. I agreed it with the financial controller and mentioned it to the auditors so nobody was surprised. Two guardrails mattered. At year-end we went back to a much lower threshold, and if many small items came from one source, like a recurring service billed late, we'd accrue them together. It saved most of a day each month. The cost was a little noise between months in a few cost centres, and one budget holder complained, so I showed him the effect was tiny and it settled down.”

“At my last company we sold equipment with installation and two years of servicing, all on one invoice. Sales wanted to book the whole amount on delivery. I read the contract and treated the equipment and the servicing as separate promises, because customers could buy servicing from others. Installation was small and done on the delivery day, so keeping it with the equipment made no difference to the timing. Then I allocated the total price using what we charged for each part when sold alone, not the discounted line on the invoice, so the discount was spread across both. The equipment revenue went in when the customer took control on delivery, and the servicing portion went to deferred revenue and was released evenly over the two years. It moved revenue out of the quarter, which sales didn't love, but the auditors accepted the method with no changes.”

“When I took over receivables, the provision was a flat round number carried forward every year. I replaced it with a matrix. I took three years of history, worked out how much of each ageing bucket was eventually written off, and applied those loss rates to the current ageing. The framework we used expects the provision to reflect expected losses, including current conditions, so I adjusted the rates upward for one sector where customers were clearly struggling. On top of that, I set specific provisions for two customers in formal insolvency, and took them out of the matrix so they weren't counted twice. The new figure was higher, which the finance director questioned, but the history and the working made it easy to defend, and the auditors accepted it. It now updates each quarter.”

“I had exactly this at my last job. First I exported every open item and grouped them by source: most came from unmatched bank receipts and a few from a payroll interface. I sorted by size and traced the largest items first, because a handful made up most of the balance. Those turned out to be customer receipts nobody had matched, so I allocated them to the right accounts and told credit control. For the long tail of tiny old items, I agreed a threshold with the financial controller, got approval, and wrote them off with a documented list. Then I fixed the cause: bank receipts without a reference now go to a named person the same week. The trade-off was accepting a small write-off instead of spending weeks on pennies, and I made sure the approval was on file.”

“When I joined my last company, our entity and a sister company were out by a different amount every month, and the group team just posted a balancing entry on consolidation. I matched the two ledgers line by line for three months. Three causes came up again and again: goods in transit booked by the seller but not yet by the buyer, each side using a different exchange rate for the same invoice, and management charges we booked that they never received. I agreed with their accountant that invoices would be exchanged three days before month end, both sides would use the group month-end rate, and any charge had to be accepted before it was booked. Within two months the difference was down to a few small timing items we could explain. It meant a slightly earlier cut-off for both teams, which they accepted.”

“At year-end the audit senior proposed releasing a warranty provision, saying claims had been low for two years. I asked for their reasoning in writing first, so we were arguing about the same thing. Then I pulled the claims history by product and showed that a new product line had launched that year, and its early claims were already running higher than the old line. I also showed the provision method we'd used consistently and the sales volumes still under warranty. The manager reviewed it and agreed to keep the provision, but asked us to add a note on how the estimate was made, which was fair. The lesson I took was that our file hadn't explained the estimate well enough. Now every provision has a one-page note with the method and the data before the auditors ask.”

“At my last company I found that a customer rebate agreement had been missed the year before, so revenue was overstated. First I worked out the full effect on revenue, profit and tax, and checked whether it touched any loan covenants. Under the framework we reported in, a material prior period error is corrected by restating the comparative figures and opening balances, not by pushing it through this year's profit. An immaterial one can be corrected in the current year with a note in the file. Ours was small against profit, so after discussing it with the financial controller and the auditors, we corrected it in the current year and disclosed nothing extra. I also added rebate agreements to the year-end accruals checklist, because the real failure was that sales signed it without telling finance.”

“Our product team built a customer portal with our own developers, and the head of technology wanted every hour of the year capitalised, because it would lift profit. I asked for the project plan and the timesheets. The early months went on comparing options and throwaway prototypes, and under our framework that exploring stage is expensed. Once the design was approved, funded and clearly workable, the developers' time building it met our policy, so I capitalised that, with the timesheets as evidence. Training, data clean-up and the bug fixes after launch went to the income statement. So roughly half the cost went on the balance sheet, amortised from the day the portal went live. He wasn't thrilled, but I showed him the policy and the split, and the auditors tested it later and agreed. The trade-off was stricter timesheets for the developers, which they grumbled about for a month.”

“We signed a ten-year office lease with an option to extend for five more. Under the standard we reported in, I recognised a lease liability at the present value of the future payments and a right-of-use asset for the same amount, adjusted for any incentives received and our direct costs of signing. The two judgement calls were the term and the rate. On the term, we'd spent heavily on fit-out, so I argued extension was reasonably certain and used fifteen years, and documented why. For the rate, there was no rate in the lease, so I used our incremental borrowing rate, backed by a quote from our bank. Each month the liability carries interest and the asset is depreciated, so the total cost is higher in the early years than the rent paid. I explained that to the budget holders before it surprised them. Rules differ by framework, so I'd always check which one applies.”

“I'd say no to booking it, but I'd try to help within the rules. Revenue goes in when the customer gets control of the goods, and an invoice dated this quarter doesn't change when that happens. So I'd ask two questions. Can it actually ship today, with the customer accepting delivery? If so, it's genuine revenue this quarter. Or has the customer asked us to hold goods that are finished, set aside for them and can't go to anyone else? That's bill-and-hold, and the tests are strict, so I'd want the customer's written request. If neither fits, I'd explain that it lands next week and it's still a sale. If he pushed, I'd take it to the financial controller in writing. I had a version of this once, and the order shipped two days later with no harm done.”

“A supplier was paid twice for the same delivery. First I called them and agreed a credit against the next invoice, which came through within the week. Then I traced it. The supplier had emailed a copy invoice after chasing payment, and it was keyed with a slightly different invoice number, an extra letter at the end, so the system's duplicate check didn't flag it. I changed two things. The duplicate check now also flags the same supplier, amount and date even when the invoice number differs, and copy invoices go to one person who checks the payment history first. I also ran that same test over the past year of payments and found two smaller duplicates, both recovered. The trade-off is a few false alarms each week, which the team clears in minutes.”

“We needed purchase orders raised before spending, because invoices were arriving for costs nobody had approved and our accruals were guesswork. Operations pushed back hard, saying it slowed down urgent repairs. Instead of pushing the policy, I spent a morning with their supervisors. The real problem was that raising an order took several screens and approval sat with one person who was often away. So I got a short form approved for repairs under a set amount, and added a second approver. I also showed their manager a report of their spend without orders each week, which made it visible without me chasing. Within a few months, most invoices had an order, and our month-end accruals became far more accurate. The trade-off was a looser rule for small repairs, which I thought was worth it.”

“When a big customer paid late for three months in a row, our finance director asked me for a weekly cash view. I built a thirteen-week forecast from the receivables and payables ledgers, with payroll, tax payments, rent and loan repayments added on their real dates. Receipts were the hard part, so I used each large customer's actual payment behaviour instead of their terms. Every Monday I compared last week's forecast with the bank and noted why they differed. The first few weeks were off quite a bit because I'd been too hopeful about two customers, so I adjusted. After that it was usually close. It showed a tight week coming a month ahead, so we agreed new terms with two suppliers and chased a few overdue customers early, and we never had to draw on the overdraft.”

“At my last company the chart had grown to well over a thousand accounts, with separate accounts for the same expense in each department. Reporting took ages and coding errors were constant. I led the redesign with the controller. The main rule was that the account says what the cost is and the cost centre says where it happened, so dozens of department-specific accounts collapsed into one each. We split a few accounts that were too broad, like professional fees into legal, audit and consulting, because management kept asking. I built a mapping table from every old account to a new one, ran the last two years of trial balances through it, and checked the totals matched to the penny. It took three months, and we lost a little detail in a couple of areas, but coding errors dropped and the monthly pack became much faster.”

“Every month we built the sales commission accrual by copying reports from three systems into one workbook, which took nearly two days. I rebuilt it with Power Query so the three exports load and join on their own, and the calculation runs off a rules table instead of formulas buried in cells. Before trusting it, I ran the old and new versions side by side for two months and explained every difference, and one of those turned out to be an error in the old manual version. I added check totals that must agree with the source reports, and a clear warning if a salesperson appears with no rule. Then I wrote a one-page guide and had a colleague run it alone while I watched. It now takes about an hour. The trade-off is that someone needs to know Power Query when the rules change.”

“First I check that the balance agrees to the ledger at the right date and that the support comes from outside the ledger, like a bank statement or a supplier statement. Then I look hard at the reconciling items: anything old, anything round, and anything that appears every month with the same amount. Last, I ask whether the balance makes sense. Once a junior's accruals reconciliation was perfectly tidy, but one accrual had been sitting there for eight months with a note saying invoice expected. I asked her to call the supplier, who said the work had been cancelled. So we released it. I didn't just fix it myself; I sat with her and showed her why the age of an item matters more than whether the sheet balances. Her reconciliations got much sharper after that.”

“A payables clerk on my team kept posting invoices to the wrong period near month end. My first instinct was to correct them in review, but that just hid the problem. So I sat with him for an hour during close and watched how he worked. The issue wasn't carelessness: he didn't really understand that the service date, not the invoice date, decides the period, and the system defaulted to the invoice date. I explained the principle with his own examples, gave him a simple rule to check on each invoice, and asked the systems team to show the service period on the entry screen. For the next two closes I checked a sample of his work and gave feedback the same day. The errors mostly stopped by the second month, and later he was the one explaining cut-off to new starters.”

“First I'd list everything that person owned and sort it by what the auditors need first and where the risk sits. The big balance sheet reconciliations, revenue cut-off and provisions come first. Management reporting extras and nice-to-have analysis can slip. Then I'd redistribute: I'd take the judgement-heavy items myself, like the provisions, and give the routine reconciliations to a colleague with clear notes, checking in twice a day. I'd call the audit manager the same day and agree which areas they'd test first, so we deliver those on time and push others back a few days. And I'd tell the financial controller what's at risk, instead of hoping to catch up quietly. I did something like this two years ago, and asking the auditors to reorder their plan saved us, because they were happy to start with sales testing.”