9 Reasons Why a Career in Accounting is a Smart Choice

March 30, 2020

At Global Gurus, we’re all about education and advancement. Indeed, we often discuss the best trainers or speakers on a variety of subjects, hoping that it sparks new interest in our readership.

Today, we’re doing something similar by shining a light on a career as an accountant and how it sometimes intersects with technology advancements. Do your research and find the best options available. Whether it be an online accounting degree if you’re seeking to work and study at the same time, or a traditional program if you are considering attending college full time.

Here are 9 reasons why a career in accounting is a good choice.

1.      Greater Freedom of Movement

Most career choices lack flexibility about where to work. If you wish to stay gainfully employed, it’s necessary to live in a major city or bustling town with opportunities in your field. Depending on the career choice, this can considerably restrict your movements.

However, with accounting, it’s always in demand. New businesses are continually being formed that require accountants on staff, other companies expand their teams, and there are independent accounting companies competing for trade too. This doesn’t change much, whether it’s a major metropolitan city or a small town in Michigan. And with the proliferation of oustourced accounting services, you might be able to work in a sunny beach town somewhere for companies located in cities with a dreary 8-month winter!

Ultimately, a qualified accountant is always going to have reasonable employment opportunities if they’re capable in their role and have a good professional reputation.

2.      Important Role within Any Business

While an accountant isn’t the CEO role, it does put them in an important position within the business. Rather than being someone whose activities go unnoticed or their position having little material impact on the business strategy, being the accountant means getting right in the middle of the action.

Important decisions are made based in part on what the numbers indicate. A financial projection for a new project is a major component of whether the CEO will decide to go ahead or shelve the idea. Similarly, by controlling the company’s financial reporting, ideas can be discussed in detail with the boss to get insight into their thinking. This puts the accountant on the inside of the business and not just a “pen pusher.”

3.      Industry Flexibility or Specialization Possible

Effective financial management is required across all industries. As a result, accountants can work in a variety of industries throughout their career. This brings them into contact with different thinking about how businesses are operated and dealing with CEOs who may exhibit interesting personality quirks. This, at least, keeps things interesting.

While accounting standards are typically the same for reporting purposes, projects for startups or industry-specific ones vary considerably from the norm. Different challenges like figuring out how to afford machinery or other equipment for the business with limited available resources is exacerbated in industries where CAPEX consumes a considerable part of the available funds.

Some accountants choose to stick with one industry and specialize there. Others just prefer the types of people who tend to work in that type of industry – perhaps creatives, no-nonsense types, or another identifiable personality type.

4.      Your Character Traits Might a Good Fit

The type of character traits that suit a role as an accountant aren’t always right for other roles. Certainly, an accountant is usually not a creative or a construction manager (though they may have some pursuits outside of work to keep things interesting).

People who tend to be a good fit for accounting may have the following natural characteristics:

1. An attention-oriented person who picks up those details that others miss
2. Patient mindset
3. Highly analytical in their approach and thought process
4. Methodical and practical
5. Clear communicator with colleagues and management executives
6. A highly ethical approach to business
7. A frugal manager of the company’s finances and expenditures

When looking down the list, it’s clear that not everyone will qualify. Indeed, people who study to become an accountant and succeed commonly fit the above characteristics surprisingly well.

5.      Technological Innovations Through Machine Learning

As previously explained, there are valid reasons behind the ongoing demand for accountants. Indeed, as the regulations and reporting requirements usually become overly complicated through added bureaucracy, smart accountants are required to keep pace with the changes.

Speaking of change, machine learning is an area that puts fear into the workforce, but it shouldn’t do. Rather than taking jobs away, it can help remove much of the time-consuming drudgery, leaving more time to handle the more interesting tasks instead.

For instance, accounting software QuickBooks Pro Hosting powered by Cloud Virtual Desktop can smartly monitor business expenses to see if they qualify for reimbursement. It can validate entries but also use complex rules to examine expenses for irregularities, errors, or potential fraud, which can point the accounting team in the right direction. According to Suffolk University Online, the demand for accountants is only going to grow with the use of the blockchain and automation, rather than put good accountants out of work. It requires smart people to analyze the results and respond to them.

6.      Employment Stability

For companies that are large enough to require a full-time accountant (and possibly more than one on the team), they’re a necessity. In tough times, other departments are likely to see cuts to reduce the payroll size and possibly downsize to a small office with a less expensive lease too.

However, the company will still need the accountant and their team for these reasons:

• Intimate knowledge of the numbers behind the business
• A tighter grip on financial control is required to get through a tough trading period
• Familiarity is required at the executive levels when in turmoil

For accountants, this means greater job security than in many other professions. While an accounting role can be outsourced to an accounting company, that creates additional disruption and potential confusion at a time when that’s best avoided. As such, companies often make cuts in the finance department last and reduce non-essential staff members before that.

7.      A Range of Roles within the Profession

An accountant doesn’t necessarily need to manage the financial side of the business. Instead of dealing with monthly and quarterly reporting and expense reports, they can be focused on management accounting on new, interesting projects.

For busy entrepreneurs that are big on ideas but poor with numbers, an accountant is a missing link that ties it all together. They can help to:

1. Listen to the entrepreneur’s ideas and act as a sounding board to shape them into workable business form
2. Produce an initial suggested budget for what the project will cost to start

• Deliver financial projections covering several possible outcomes based on different levels of success

1. Make multiple revisions to financial planning based on new feedback and inputs on markets, startup costs, and labor expenses

Alternatively, an accountant may choose to work in an accounting firm because they enjoy dealing with many businesses each year; not just one. They can work in startups due to the fast pace and exciting possibilities that the business may get listed or sold off with vested employees reaping rich rewards. Or, they may wish to run their own company providing services to other companies.

8.      Good Remuneration Based on Job Demand

The demand for accountants is such that when looking at the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), this is born out.

The industry demand is expected to grow by 6% from 2018 to 2028. Certainly, the demand level will vary between industries and those accountants who choose to specialize their knowledge or who go into business for themselves will often see the most benefits. Indeed, the traditional financial accounting is the “meat and potatoes” of the profession and won’t grow as much as other areas.

The difficulty in locating and recruiting high-quality accountants means that the median salary for a general accountant’s role is over $70,000 based on BLS statistics. As mentioned, other roles that make use of an accountant’s knowledge often pay more; a Budget Analyst at $76,220, the role of Financial Manager at over $127,000 and Financial Analysts at $85,660 (based on 2018 median pay) are all good indications of this.

9.      Global Employment Opportunities

While accounting standards and reporting requirements do vary from county to country, there’s much that’s the same or similar. As a result, it’s not unusual to see qualified accountants working in other countries for a few years to get international finance experience. This can certainly bolster their resume if they enjoy working abroad and wish to continue to do so.

Being able to work as an accountant in other countries is very useful. For people in many other professions, they’re not in demand elsewhere because their salary requirements will be too high compared to a local person who speaks the language better. Yet for an accountant, there’s always a demand for experienced people who bring something to the table that a local business cannot find from the employment pool available to them.

For people interested in the accounting profession, they shouldn’t be too concerned about the growing influence of technology. While the accounting software is becoming increasingly efficient and more proactive in finding issues and alerting accounting staff (rather than relying on staff finding the discrepancies on their own), this only frees up time to focus on the more interesting aspects of their working life. Therefore, for prospective accountants, embracing technology use is the right approach to take as it’s here to stay and does bring some noticeable benefits with it too.

See also Accounting jobs – https://jooble.org/jobs-accounting-generalist