To write finance job descriptions, first outline a list of duties and responsibilities for each position before you try to begin writing. Avoid outlining the required tasks in vague terms and do not use this as an occasion to communicate the company's standards or rules. Make sure to highlight any tasks that are not generally performed by individuals in a given position. Once you have completed a draft, test it to see if it fully communicates the expectations of the person holding that position.
Remember that one of the roles of a a job description is to hold the person in a given position accountable for her actions. When writing finance job descriptions, one of the first things that you should do is to outline what a person's responsibilities are. Consider how individuals who are currently in a given position or those who once held the position misunderstood their duties. Act as if you are providing clarification for those individuals and write definitive descriptions of what should be done.
Make sure that your finance job descriptions are clear. If you are not careful, you could fill a lot of space with a lot of words without communicating exact responsibilities. Staff members are likely to be misled or confused by vagueness. For example, instead of writing that someone has a duty “to review statements and create assessments,” you should write that she has the duty “to review statements from financial institutions and create assessments of recurring business expenses.”
Avoid consuming space with standards, instructions, or obvious details. When writing finance job descriptions, there is no need to state that individuals are required to arrive at work on time. If an individual is required to compose monthly reports, you do not need to write that the reports should be neat and concise. This is not the place to tell people how to perform their jobs; this is where you tell people what their jobs are.
On the contrary, if you are writing finance job descriptions for positions that include duties that are not normally performed by people in those positions, you want to make sure that you outline those tasks clearly. For example, you may work for a smaller company where everyone shares the task of communicating with clients, whereas in larger organizations these duties fall upon secretaries and administrative assistants. In this situation, you need to include “regularly checking and replying to client inquiries” in all job descriptions where that task is expected to prevent any party from assuming that it is someone else's responsibility.
When writing the finance job descriptions, combine related tasks. For example, updating accounts payable and accounts receivable daily can be listed as one task instead of two. "To research, write, and distribute monthly reports to senior executives" can be written as a single task instead of separated into three-numbered or bullet points.
Once you have completed drafts of the finance job descriptions, review them. Try to determine if you could read the description and know what was expected of you if you were walking into the office for the first time. It may be even better to have someone else put your writing to this test. If all major duties are not clear, you need to do some re-writing.
