Sample form of an employment contract with a chief accountant (fixed-term contract)

Employment contract with an accountant or chief accountant: when is it needed?

Almost all relationships in business are built on the basis of contracts. A contract is a written agreement about mutual obligations. The hiring of a person for any position must also be marked by the signing of an employment contract, which usually indicates:

place of work;
position and functions assigned to the employee;
the first day of work, and, if necessary, the last or the period of validity of the contract and performance of work duties;
the amount of salary or tariff rate, the volume of incentive and compensation payments, the basic rules for their payment;
work schedule;
other conditions.

It is also important to indicate the place, date of conclusion of the contract and information about both parties.

The position of chief accountant (or accountant who fully maintains records of an economic entity) is no exception. In addition, it must be taken into account that this position is one of the most significant, since the chief accountant bears enormous responsibility for the preparation of tax, accounting and other reporting, for the accuracy of the information reflected in it. Therefore, the employment contract with the chief accountant must reflect additional key points regarding the performance of labor functions. Which? More on this later.

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Contents of the employment contract with the chief accountant

Let's take a closer look at how to correctly compose the document itself. From the text of Article 16 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation it follows that the chief accountant of a commercial organization is an employee, and the labor relationship between him and the employer arises exclusively on the basis of an employment contract. There is no standard form for this document; the employer draws it up independently, taking into account the individual characteristics of the company and the requirements of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation.

In the contract with the chief accountant, be sure to include the following information:

last name, first name, patronymic of the employee;
name of the employing company;
data from the employee’s identity documents;
TIN of the taxpayer organization and TIN of the employee;
details of the authorized representative of the employing company who signed the TD, and an indication of the basis by which he is vested with such powers;
date and place of conclusion of the TD;
place of work and position of a citizen;
terms of remuneration;
date of commencement of duties;
start date and test period;
labor function of a specialist (work according to the position in accordance with the staffing table, profession, specialty indicating qualifications).

It is recommended to use, when developing the text of the TD regarding the labor function of the chief accountant, the Qualification Directory of positions for managers, specialists and other employees, approved by . In addition, commercial companies have the right, at their discretion, to take as a basis the professional standard “Accountant” approved by . For organizations with state participation, the use of this document is mandatory.

In some cases, Article 7 “On Accounting”, other laws and regulations (for example, the Central Bank of Russia) establish special requirements for chief accountants of certain economic entities. For example, in joint-stock companies, the chief accountant must have a higher education, have at least three years of work experience related to accounting, and not have an unexpunged or unexpunged conviction for crimes in the economic sphere.

A correctly executed first page of an employment contract with the chief accountant includes such mandatory details as the date and place of its preparation.

In addition, a contract with such a specialist can be concluded for part-time work. Its conditions are the same as the standard ones, only the work schedule and payment conditions will differ.

Hiring a cashier has a number of features, which mainly relate to financial responsibility. But the first pages and the general content of the documents are not very different. In addition, if there is no separate cashier in the organization, then another specialist has the right to combine these positions.

What conditions must be included in the chief accountant’s employment contract?

When hiring a chief accountant, the employer should especially carefully consider the following points:

Full financial responsibility (Article 243 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation) - the decision to assign it to the chief accountant is made by the employer himself. In most cases, the position includes such responsibility.
Probationary period (Article 70 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation) - for the chief accountant it can be extended up to 6 months. Here again, the employer has the right to set any period at his discretion.
Urgency of an employment contract (Article 59 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation) - a fixed-term employment contract with the chief accountant is concluded at the discretion of the employer, i.e. the latter draws up the contract on these terms, and the applicant for the position has the right to express his consent by signing the contract or disagreement by refusing to sign .

IMPORTANT! Any additional terms of the contract should not contradict current legislation in the field of labor and employment and worsen the situation of the employee.

Terms of the contract with the chief accountant

The employment contracts that employers sign with their employees must contain strictly defined conditions, but they are allowed to be supplemented depending on the position and specialty of the employee. When hiring a chief accountant, include in the contract additional conditions that do not contradict the requirements of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation. Include similar conditions in the contract with the cashier, even though he is not a manager. The only exception is the trial period.

In addition, the code provides for a number of special conditions in such a contract. In particular, with the chief accountant, as well as with the manager, it is allowed to establish an increased probationary period: instead of three months - six. Such a document can be concluded for a specific period or agreed upon for an indefinite period.

It is advisable to include the following conditions in the employment contract:

probationary period when hiring (up to 6 months);
conditions for termination of TD (at the initiative of the employer and the specialist himself);
financial responsibility of the chief accountant (provided for by the job description);
the duration of the contract (in some cases when concluding a fixed-term contract).

It should be noted that, according to the provisions of Article 59 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, employers have the right to enter into trade agreements with employees for a limited period only in certain cases. A list of such situations is given in this article. The contract with the chief accountant is included in this list, which means that by agreement of the parties, the contract can be concluded for a certain period: with the voluntary consent of the future chief accountant and the absence of pressure from management in this matter. True, it is almost impossible to verify this fact, therefore, if the company’s policy includes hiring chief accountants for three years, no regulatory authorities will be able to prevent this.

Let us remind you about the test, or, as it is often called in everyday life, the probationary period, which is regulated by the norms of Article 70 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation. For all employees, the law allows testing of knowledge and skills within three months from the date of employment. For particularly important employees, which includes the chief accountant, this period is allowed to be doubled. Not only should such an initiative of the employer be written down in the TD, but also reinforced with an order.

As for financial liability, the position of chief accountant implies such responsibility by default, therefore the conclusion of a separate agreement on full financial liability for such a position is not provided for, but in the job description and in the contract such a condition must certainly be, as defined in part 2 of the article 243 Labor Code of the Russian Federation. This is a very important condition, and it cannot be neglected, since the courts refuse to allow employers to recover losses that the organization suffered as a result of the dishonest activities of the chief accountant. The chances of recovering damages drop even more if liability is not properly documented.

The contract with the chief accountant should include a condition on non-disclosure of any confidential (commercial, technical and personal) information about the company's activities. This condition will make it possible to hold an official accountable if a secret is violated.

When a civil law contract is concluded with the chief accountant

If a company or individual entrepreneur has a small number of transactions per year, then the constant presence of a chief accountant (or simply an accountant) in the workplace is not necessary. In such cases, you can settle on concluding a civil law agreement. It must indicate the amount of work that the contractor must complete in a certain period of time. This could be, for example, submitting reports (quarterly, annual) by a certain deadline.

It is very important to draw up a GPC agreement in such a way that, during an inspection, the regulatory authorities do not reclassify it as a labor contract. This often happens with regular payments to the contractor - here the option of dividing the contract period into intermediate stages, for example quarterly, is suitable. With this division, regular payment for services can be justified as an advance payment for individual stages - submission of quarterly reports, and not wages.

The standard conditions discussed in the GPC agreement are usually the following:

complete information about the parties to the contract - the customer and the contractor;
the total amount of work that must be completed and the time frame allocated for this;
payment amount.

The agreement is certified by the signatures of both parties and sealed, if available.

What is a fixed-term employment contract, and is it possible to conclude such an agreement with the chief accountant?

If the validity period of an employment contract is not specified in its text, it is automatically recognized as unlimited.

If the employer and the hired employee agree that their employment relationship will only last for a certain time, a fixed-term employment contract can be concluded between them. Its validity period is limited by the expiration date of the document specified in the document.

If the period of validity of a fixed-term contract has expired, but the employer does not dismiss the employee, the employment agreement becomes open-ended, and it is not possible to dismiss the employee on the basis of termination of its validity period.

Article 59 of the Labor Code allows the chief accountant to sign a fixed-term employment agreement. Its maximum validity period is 5 years. The law does not define any minimum terms of employment relations, which means that, if necessary, you can hire a chief accountant for 1-2 weeks in order to entrust him with any short-term work.

Results

The execution of an employment contract concluded with an applicant for the position of chief accountant must be approached with full responsibility. This document reflects not only such standard items as the employee’s work responsibilities, wages and working conditions, but also special conditions, for example, full financial responsibility, an extended probationary period or the urgency of the employment contract. All these points were taken into account by our experts when compiling the sample presented in the article.

If a company or individual entrepreneur does not need a permanent accountant, then they have the opportunity to hire an executor to keep records and submit reports under a civil contract.
In this case, it is important that controllers have no reason to reclassify such a contract as an employment contract. You can find more complete information on the topic in ConsultantPlus. Full and free access to the system for 2 days.

Agreement with an accountant for the provision of services

An employer may also enter into a contract for the provision of paid services or a contract with an accountant. Typically, employers who have a small amount of work or the task is one-time in nature (for example, prepare reports for one period) resort to this method of formalizing relations. The conclusion of such an agreement does not contradict the provisions of the Law “On Accounting”, which states that the manager can entrust accounting not only to a full-time employee, but also enter into an agreement for accounting (Clause 3, Article 7 of Law No. 402-FZ dated 06.12. 2011).

The main difference from an employment contract is that the employer does not need the constant presence of an accountant at the workplace; what is important to him is the amount of work completed. In this case, all working conditions are determined by agreement of the parties, provided that they do not contradict the law.

The main condition of such an agreement is the provision of services for payment. It is important to draw up a contract so that it cannot be reclassified as an employment contract. The contract must indicate the start and end dates for the provision of services, and intermediate stages (quarter, month, etc.) related to the specifics of accounting work can be identified - then regular payment for services can be justified as an advance payment for stages of work, and not a salary.

Note! A concluded civil contract with the chief accountant will not have the same legal consequences as a labor contract. That is, only the manager will bear full responsibility for the financial activities of the company.