A staff accountant job description stops being an internal document the moment you post it. In Colorado, California, New York and Washington, once that state's rule reaches your firm, the posting itself has to carry the compensation, and the federal rules behind the Americans with Disabilities Act treat a written description prepared before advertising or interviewing as evidence of which duties are essential.
That makes the drafting order load-bearing. Three parts of the document are commitments, and all three are settled before anyone applies: the pay you publish, the duties you write down, and the overtime classification, if you print one.
What a Staff Accountant Job Description Publishes About Pay
Post the job in one of these states and your band, meaning the pay range you would actually offer, stops being an internal decision.
Colorado goes furthest on what the notice has to contain, and it reaches the smallest firms. The Equal Pay for Equal Work Act covers all employers, public or private, that employ at least one person in Colorado, so there is no headcount to sit under. Under Part 2 of that Act, employers must disclose pay and other information in all job postings and notices, both internal and public, and must preserve records of wages and job descriptions (Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, INFO #9A, Transparency in Pay and Job Opportunities).
The posting itself has to carry three things, under C.R.S. section 8-5-201(2): the compensation to be offered, the benefits to be offered, and how and when to apply. Compensation means the rate of pay or a range of possible offered rates, plus a general description of any other compensation such as bonuses, commissions or tips. Benefits means describing what they are, health care or retirement or paid days off, without having to price them (Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, INFO #9A).
The third item has the sharp edge. How and when to apply means the employer makes a good-faith estimate of the date the application window is anticipated to close and puts it on the posting, and language like "open until filled" is not compliant (Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, INFO #9A).
Two things soften the deadline rule, and one of them is written for firms that hire the way yours does. A genuinely evergreen position, one you recruit for continuously to keep up with turnover, has no deadline to list, and the posting instead has to disclose that it accepts ongoing applications. A posted deadline may also be extended, where the original was a good-faith expectation of what the deadline would be and the posting is promptly updated with the extension (Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, INFO #9A).
California sets a size threshold instead. An employer with 15 or more employees shall include the pay scale for a position in any job posting, and pay scale means a good faith estimate of the salary or hourly wage range that the employer reasonably expects to pay for the position upon hire (California Labor Code section 432.3).
The same section turns the paperwork into a keeping obligation. An employer shall maintain records of a job title and wage rate history for each employee for the duration of the employment plus three years after it ends, and where an employer fails to keep those records there is a rebuttable presumption in favor of the employee's claim (California Labor Code section 432.3).
New York puts the description itself inside the ad. No employer may advertise a job, promotion or transfer opportunity that will physically be performed, at least in part, in New York without disclosing the compensation or a range of compensation, and the job description for that opportunity, if such description exists (New York Labor Law section 194-b).
Its reach is wider than a New York address. The section also covers an opportunity performed outside the state that reports to a supervisor, office or other work site in New York, and it defines a range of compensation as the minimum and maximum the employer in good faith believes to be accurate at the time of the posting (New York Labor Law section 194-b).
Washington puts the remedy in the applicant's hands. Employers with 15 or more employees must disclose in each posting the wage scale or salary range, plus a general description of all of the benefits and other compensation to be offered to the hired applicant, and a job applicant or employee who prevails is entitled to statutory damages of no less than $100 and no more than $5,000 per violation (RCW 49.58.110).
There is currently a window to fix a bad posting, and it closes. For postings from July 27, 2025 through July 27, 2027, an employer must be afforded an opportunity to correct a violation before a job applicant may seek those remedies, and where the employer corrects the posting within five business days of receiving written notice and, where applicable, tells any third-party posting entity to correct it, neither the department nor the court may assess or award penalties, damages or other relief for that violation (RCW 49.58.110).
One consequence lands before the ad goes out. The band has to be one you genuinely believed you would pay at the moment you posted it, because that belief, and not the eventual offer, is what the Colorado, California and New York standards turn on. An employer may ultimately pay more or less than a posted range, as long as the range, when posted, was what the employer genuinely believed it would be willing to pay for the job (Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, INFO #9A). The number you print is still the number a candidate negotiates from at the offer call, so a band you would not honor costs you there even where it breaks no rule.
These four are examples rather than the full list, and they define coverage differently, Colorado by whether you employ anyone in the state and the other three by employee count. Check the rules that reach your firm and the seat's location before you publish.
Why the ADA Treats the Written Description as Evidence
The federal regulations define the term the whole analysis turns on. Essential functions means the fundamental job duties of the employment position, and the term does not include the marginal functions of the position (eCFR, section 1630.2(n)(1)).
Your document gets its weight from a list. Evidence of whether a particular function is essential includes, but is not limited to, written job descriptions prepared before advertising or interviewing applicants for the job (eCFR, section 1630.2(n)(3)(ii)).
Read the timing in that clause, because the timing is the instruction. The description that carries weight is the one that existed before the ad went live, so a version written after a dispute has started is not the document the regulation names.
Read what else sits on that list. The same paragraph also weighs, among other things, the employer's judgment, the amount of time spent on the job performing the function, the consequences of not requiring the incumbent to perform it, the work experience of past incumbents, and the current work experience of incumbents in similar jobs (eCFR, section 1630.2(n)(3)). Your description sits alongside those, not above them, which is why a duty nobody actually performs does not become essential by being typed.
The regulation also says why a function can be essential in the first place. A job function may be considered essential for any of several reasons, including but not limited to these: the reason the position exists is to perform that function, the limited number of employees available among whom the performance of that job function can be distributed, and the function being so highly specialized that the incumbent is hired for their expertise or ability to perform it (eCFR, section 1630.2(n)(2)).
The middle reason is the one a small firm actually lives with. Where one person closes the books, there is nobody to distribute the close to, and that fact belongs in the written description rather than in the partner's head.
So mark the work before you advertise: which functions are fundamental, which are marginal, and what each takes in a normal month. What the ADA changes about testing, scoring and medical questions is a separate problem, and it is worked through in the candidate assessment rubric.
The Exempt Line, Read as a Disclosure
If the posting says exempt, that is a claim about the duties, not about the salary.
None of the four posting requirements above asks you to name an overtime classification. What they reach is the accuracy of what you do choose to say, and an ad that prints exempt beside a duty list of routine processing publishes a contradiction.
The test that settles it is the duties test, and it sits with the salary floor, and with what the title actually covers, in how to hire a staff accountant. The point on the posting is narrower. Decide the classification before the ad exists, because the ad is where the classification and the duties get published side by side, and the duties are the half a reader can check.
Where the scope is still moving, leave the classification off rather than publishing a guess. Silence about it breaks none of the four rules above. A wrong classification printed next to the duties is a document you have to explain later.
Shape the Document Around What You Will Be Held To
Write each duty with a frequency and a system, because the amount of time spent on a function is evidence the essential functions rule weighs. A line reading "assists with reconciliations" carries none of that evidence.
Split minimum from preferred, and mean the split. A minimum is a line you screen against, so anything you would waive for a candidate you liked belongs under preferred. Written the other way round, the minimum list becomes a screen you cannot apply consistently, and your record of who was rejected is the record of that.
Then keep the version you posted, dated. Colorado already requires job description records to be preserved, California requires job title and wage rate history for the duration of employment plus three years, and the ADA weight attaches to the description that existed before you advertised. All three want the same artifact, and none of them accepts a reconstruction.
Questions Firm Owners Ask
Do We Have to Post a Range if We Are Not in One of These States?
Not under these four rules, though other states run posting laws of their own and these four can still reach you. New York's section covers an opportunity performed at least in part in the state, including one performed elsewhere that reports to a supervisor, office or other work site there (New York Labor Law section 194-b). Colorado runs the other way, and its guidance says an employer with no employees in Colorado at the time of its hiring or promotion decision is not covered for that decision, even if it considers Colorado applicants (Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, INFO #9A).
Does the Description Have to List Every Duty?
No, and a complete list works against you. Essential functions means the fundamental job duties, and the term does not include the marginal functions of the position (eCFR, section 1630.2(n)(1)). A description that lists everything makes the fundamental duties harder to pick out, which is the opposite of what the document is for.
Settle the Document Before the Posting Goes Out
Read the description you were about to publish as three commitments rather than as a duties template. The pay you print sets the expectation you then negotiate against. The duty list is evidence of what the job actually requires. The classification, if you print one, has to survive the duty list printed beside it.
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