Accounting and finance are growing in importance every day. Some of the wealthiest people in the world are professionals with diverse backgrounds in both liberal arts and economics. Regardless of whether you are interested in entrepreneurship, business ownership, law, public office, or the corporate ladder, it is crucial for your financial and economic present and future alike to study accounting and finance. Accounting exists in some form in all economic systems. The modern profession emerged in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Its theoretical foundations were established in the 19th century. There are a great number of career pathways in the accounting and finance fields. You may pursue specialization in such areas as internal auditing, fraud investigation, international business, taxation, loan analysis, mergers and acquisitions, valuation, or business planning. As for careers in finance, while some students dream of landing a job as an investment banker or trader, there is an equally interesting world for risk managers, account executives, portfolio managers, project managers, and security analysts in banking, healthcare, government, information security, insurance, entrepreneurship, nuclear regulation, and philanthropy. While recent regulatory and ethical lapses in the business community as well as economic uncertainty brought on by factors such as outsourcing have raised challenges for both professionals and educators, it is an ideal time for you to explore the field and its applications and plan sufficiently for your education and career opportunities. Career paths in accounting and finance today involve many crossroads and potential dead ends. The purpose of this essay is to encourage you to proactively explore those roads and test various paths in order to engage in successful career planning, regardless of which ones you take. Whatever your preconceptions concerning the nature of the discipline or potential career paths, turn them into hypotheses and experiment to test your assumptions.
The Importance of Career Planning in Accounting and Finance
Career planning is an important aspect of human resources management. The competitive business and employment environment is constantly evolving, but your career path remains in your own hands. As a professional arena or knowledge area, accounting and finance may provide a good opportunity for you to develop your full potential by crafting a suitable career path. Career planning refers to the process of planning one’s professional progression, i.e., from getting a job, advancing through the job, to changing one’s job until a certain level. Career planning helps to ensure an individual’s effective positioning in the job market.
Careers in accounting and finance involve complex processes such as planning liabilities, investing funds, and assessing the risk of their investments. The complexity of financial transactions is influenced by local needs and preferences and the globalization of business, which requires professionals who have the ability to manage financial resources in accordance with existing principles and regulations. In the practice of management, you must be able to control financial resources to ensure support for business sustainability. To develop a career in this area, four factors must be considered, including setting career goals to facilitate career development, knowing your personal strengths and capabilities, understanding market demands, and being able to anticipate changes in the global finance and accounting environment.
Key Skills and Qualifications for Success
For fresh graduates beginning careers and early professionals exploring career changes, it is crucial to understand the skill sets and qualifications to invest in to position oneself for success. The most successful finance professionals have a broad understanding of financial markets, financial statements, and accounting principles. Strong financial and business analysis skills, as well as a demonstrated capacity to communicate and work well with others, are essential to rapidly progress in your career. Skills that are increasingly important involve embracing technology to automate processes and to examine data. Professionals who develop expertise in these and other digital skills will continue to influence how organizations can make strategic choices. In addition to building foundational and advanced skills, continuous learning is an integral part of a strong finance career. It is important to understand what is happening regularly in different asset classes, companies, the economy, and the global financial system.
Understanding the career opportunities and qualifications that lead to success in the finance and accounting industries is critical for someone building a career or considering a career change in the respective sectors. Accounting graduates often continue their education and study to undertake the CPA examination. Professionals working in fixed income or equity are often drawn to becoming a Chartered Financial Analyst charterholder. In the finance field, possessing the CFA credential makes the job applicant more marketable than someone with only an MBA. Applying to the local CFA Society as a candidate member is a requirement to sit for the CFA exam and complete the CFA program. In addition, professionals may choose to embark on additional educational opportunities, such as pursuing an MBA or a terminal degree. The inquiries or remarks of faculty around career paths are welcomed by engineering majors with an interest in finance. In conclusion, finance and accounting positions are lucrative, but success in the fields requires extensive personal investment in not only time but also training and professional growth and knowledge. It is valuable to put in the effort with the tools at hand.
Common Career Paths in Accounting and Finance
1. Introduction There are multiple types of accounting and finance jobs available within the market. For those who want to work with clients of all sizes and industries, there is public accounting, working as an auditor or a tax advisor. Those who would want to focus solely on public companies can do so. Business with a focus in corporate finance takes into consideration ethical decision-making, budgeting, forecasting, financial statement analysis, financial asset management, revenue and expense management, time value of money, and the basics of options, futures, and swaps in a global environment. There are also jobs within the firms themselves that require a different focus, which is management of the firm itself. These jobs are generally described as management accountants, who are responsible for the internal financial reporting that organizations need to make informed decisions. Management accountants need to possess the skills that an unaccredited accounting degree holder would need.
2. Summary of Common Career Paths in Accounting and Finance The talent pool of accountants most often begins by working for public accounting firms. These auditors are vital to providing accurate financial information to investors, creditors, and other affected parties. They need to be able to determine if financial statements are free from material misstatements and if they are in compliance with the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. Another large population of unaccredited accountants takes positions in a public accounting firm as tax advisors. They are better off having no formal tax knowledge. The reason for this is that they have no verbiage they need to reconstruct. Career opportunities in the field of finance are abundant. Financial managers and analysts are strong career options. Credentialed accountants are able to meet the objectives of being a financial manager and analyst. This ranges widely, from positions that require a strong accounting focus to positions that require no accounting knowledge at all. A professional with a business degree and an accounting concentration can even go into the positions below.
Public Accounting
Public Accounting
Introduction Public accounting firms serve a variety of for-profit, not-for-profit, and governmental entities. Commonly, such firms serve small, often local businesses. Large international corporations have a significant role. Realistically, though, many small public accounting firms serve small businesses as personal financial consultants offering, among other things, some basic tax advice. Large public accounting firms are national and international in scope and offer not only audit and tax assistance but also corporate and individual financial and business planning advice, as well as valuation services and fraud prevention and detection services.
Public Accounting Positions Firms will almost exclusively hire new graduates to serve in the positions of staff accountant or accountant. As individuals prove themselves to be competent and exhibit leadership potential, they can be promoted to the positions of senior accountant, manager, and/or partner. Corporations will also hire new graduates as financial analysts, internal auditors, or internal financial analysts, and finance professionals after they have attained several years of professional work experience.
Regulatory Environment Several state and national professional organizations set the financial reporting, assurance, tax, and general ethical rules that practitioners engaged in public accounting must follow. These organizations set the financial accounting and financial reporting standards for all for-profit and state and local governmental units in the United States. The financial reporting contained in a set of a company or governmental accounting unit’s financial statements gives investors and creditors information to make business and credit decisions. For this reason alone, the United States government requires both publicly traded corporations and the Federal Government’s Financial Reporting Entity to undergo an annual and independent third-party examination of their financial statements called an audit. This independent examination must be conducted by a certified public accountant or CPA firm.
Corporate Finance
With their focus on a company’s financial decisions, corporate finance professionals play a strategic role within corporations. There are several roles in corporate finance, including financial analysts (who assess investment opportunities), treasurers (who manage a company’s assets and liabilities, including its bank accounts and bonds or stocks), and finance managers (who are responsible for a company’s investment and financing decisions). Tasks vary by role, but can include budgeting an organization’s available funds in terms of life and goods costs, forecasting future financial demands, determining how to spend money, ensuring funds are available for emergencies, planning for deficits or surpluses, devising methods for risk management, and determining the best place for new money with investment portfolios and other investment options. Corporate finance professionals utilize financial modeling and valuation in order to project expected cash flows and their timing.
While these roles are common to corporate finance, the industry is constantly changing. Since the financial crisis, for example, the industry has been much more focused on risk management and compliance matters. Notable challenges in corporate finance include substantial market volatility, shifting economic currents, and geopolitical events. The knowledge and skills of a trainee form the foundation of his or her path to a career in corporate finance. A master’s degree in finance or business administration will be worth slightly more, but industry credentials such as the Chartered Financial Analyst credential could provide an additional edge.
Management Accounting
Management accounting is concerned with the use of accounting information to make decisions within organizations. Financial accounting, by comparison, aims to provide information to parties external to the organization, such as shareholders, creditors, and tax authorities. Managers become highly influenced by or dependent on the information they choose to provide, and the controls they use to monitor their performance can be quite costly both financially and in lost innovation and morale.
There are many job titles closely associated with management accounting. Generally, the top management accountant is the controller. Other important roles include the Certified Management Accountant and the cost analyst. Many organizations regard the controller as qualified as a financial accountant as well as a manager and look for an MBA in such a position. Internally, management accounting emphasizes budgeting in more detail than do other accountants. It provides information used for the evaluation of the performance of managers and other employees. While the income statement from financial accounting is highly aggregated, presenting a firm’s revenue and expenses over time in general, rather than specific proposals or products, the income statement in the management accounting system is mostly composed of budgets and comparisons with budgeted and expected performance.
The underlying set of skills and knowledge that career studies have identified as critical to success in management accounting includes skills in budgeting, finance, and an increasing interest in sustainability, risk management, and environmental compliance. Management accountants have conventionally viewed themselves as providing internal information that is at least as important, if not more so, than the externally oriented information. For instance, while a company may be profitable, it is also possible that the company will not be able to meet payroll due to inadequate cash reserves. Additionally, management accountants have long pointed to the important role non-financial information plays in many decisions, particularly those that involve future outcomes.
Emerging Trends and Opportunities in the Field
Emerging Trends and Opportunities
Technologies such as automation and artificial intelligence are disrupting traditional accounting and finance functions. Despite the concern around job elimination, these technologies are creating opportunities for accountants and finance professionals to reimagine business models and practices. The field of data analytics is today contributing to a variety of decisions, from operational improvements to strategic planning, and is creating greater transparency in business operations. The focus on sustainability and corporate citizenship presents new challenges and opportunities for accountants and finance professionals. Increasingly, businesses are finding the need to evaluate the link between financial and non-financial performance. Regulatory frameworks—to which accountants and finance professionals must adhere—are also transforming, particularly around environmental social governance. With these changes, some industry observers believe that regulators and standard-setters are attempting to influence business strategy from behind the scenes. Other recent opportunities for accountants and finance experts include the introduction of new standards and the growth of compliance mandates in the digital age for information technology systems. Given this rapid technological advancement, future accountants and finance professionals must be prepared to embrace new skills in the financial world. Future job opportunities may include specialized sectors such as forensic accounting, risk management, and a greater range of specialized decision-making supports for both accounting and finance. Many CPAs in public and other sectors also hold the Certified in Financial Forensic Credential. The combination of a CFF and a CPA recognizes individuals with expertise in forensic accounting to meet the demands of a modern audit and assurance environment. The opportunities in finance are also growing, and there is significant demand in areas such as business valuations, financial planning and analysis, and investment management, as well as in industry sectors such as the fast-moving software technology industry. Therefore, accounting and finance are both broad areas that can be rewarding. Due to increasing demand for assurance services in public practice, the demand for new CPAs, CA-ITs, and CAs has never been stronger. This demand is also very strong for professional accounting designations.
Key Takeaways
Whether you are just beginning to consider career options or are actively pursuing job opportunities within the field, the key takeaway is that a job does not determine a career. A career in accounting and finance can take you into almost any sector, field, or organization. This essay has discussed an array of positions and employers, demonstrating the many different routes that careers can take. If you are confident that this is the field for you, prepare yourself academically and socially. The real-world skills required include being hands-on and continuing to learn about the technical aspects of the job as well as the industry as a whole. Pursuing a credential could also prove helpful. The blossoming of fields such as big data, cybersecurity, internal auditing, and various cloud-based systems and integrations all point to where the industry is headed. It must be noted that employee transition within the industry is becoming more common as employees seek growth opportunities. Adequate preparation for the future must include repeat performances of self-evaluations in order to be competitive. If the last six weeks have made one thing clear, it is that passion and integrity will bring the right candidates to their desired destination, regardless of their point of origin.
