What's it like being an accountant?

[BoatyMcBoatFace2]

Could you tell me what type of accountant you are and what you do in a day? Also, how did you get there?

I'm considering a career but want to get an idea of what it's like to work in this profession.

Non related degree. ACA audit at big 4. Moved into corporate finance after 4 years (1 year post qual).

Still work for the same firm, in CF. Been here 10 years now and gross around £110k in London split 60/40 salary bonus.

I love the ACA exams and being in college with my colleagues. Also enjoyed the actual audit work but didn’t really like being out of the office all the time. Also didn’t like being seen as essentislly a bit unwanted and not value add.

@alwayscrashinginthesamecar1 re stagnating wages. At my firm, starting salary has only marginally increased over past 10 years, and the starting ‘band’ for each promo from qualified up has actually decreased from when I started!

Well that’s not surprising is it? Supply and demand. Universities are churning out a ton of graduates, all expecting a graduate career that pays well. The applications to accountancy and law firms have spiked as a consequence. Why would those firms offer more money than they need to, if people will work for less?

I didn’t say it was surprising @Nettletheelf , I was merely corroborating what always observed.

I don’t think I wold recommend people get into accountancy now, IMO it’s a high risk career for automation taking jobs.

Well that’s not surprising is it? Supply and demand. Universities are churning out a ton of graduates, all expecting a graduate career that pays well. The applications to accountancy and law firms have spiked as a consequence. Why would those firms offer more money than they need to, if people will work for less?

Practice wages are definitely going downhill. Smaller practices, in particular, are facing heavy competition by ever increasing numbers of "unqualifieds" who are setting up cheap fee accountancy practices, so fees are going down year by year.

I don’t think I wold recommend people get into accountancy now, IMO it’s a high risk career for automation taking jobs.

We've had automation for 50 years. People were saying accountants would be put out of business when desktop computers started appearing in the 80s. Then again when cloud/online software started 20 years ago. The jobs that are disappearing are the basic data entry style of work. True "accountancy" is all about analysis, interpretation, planning, etc., not basic low value number crunching. I'd be worried if I were a book-keeper or data entry clerk, but not worried as a qualified accountant as no amount of automation could replace most of my working day - I've already computerised and automated all the routine drudgery work for my firm and my clients.

I’m not worried about automation either. Show me the computer that can evaluate a load of leases against the new IFRS16 accounting standard, apply the exemptions sensibly, decide which transition method would be the most appropriate for the business and will minimise admin, think about how to present the approach to the auditors, decide whether cost of capital is a reasonable proxy for the interest rate implicit in the lease and explain the effect of adopting the new standard on EBIT to the board in a digestible way.

The lower level jobs are absolutely vulnerable to automation, or outsourcing to a cheaper provider in a less expensive labour market, but that’s been a trend in all industries for twenty years.

I love automation. Who wants to type in a load of purchase invoies when for £20 a month receiptbank will do it all for you?

Hear, hear!

@Badbadbunny many practices deserve to be undercut. I've seen practices charging £thousands for work that really AT BEST should cost £1,000 and we would charge £500 for.

The 100% premium can be excused by the higher overheads of being ICAEW practice or similar but £2,500 to produce a set of accounts and a simple CT600?! The problem is than many small and medium sized practices won;t say to small clients "we are too big for you and will charge you an amount to cover our overheads which you will never need to use".

And I'm ACA big 6 trained, dropped out of the institute because can't justify the practice fees (most of what I do is business mentoring, training and bookkeeping and people don't care what institute I belong to!).

I now have a system which takes numbers from Xero, populates an accounts template and will then populate a CT600. Then I use my brain to review it all. It's marvellous and no input errors!

Sorry it's been a while since I've returned to the thread.

I'm not just looking for something with flexibility, I do want to analyse numbers and I particularly enjoyed the statistical/research part of my psychology degree the most.

I was looking to go in to finance after completing my degree, and I looked at accounting as its so broad and there are many options. I like the area of tax and I did start AAT Level 2 this but had to drop out for financial reasons.

Not quite sure where to start. I may try to get a job for an accountancy firm, maybe as admin and complete my degree part time with the OU. Then apply for a few grad roles.

Some (all?) of the Big 4 do now do non-graduate entry so do have a look. For example www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/careers/articles/brightstart-business-apprenticeship-scheme.html

They do, my friend (who is an ACA himself) has a son doing it. But there aren't many spaces and it's highly competitive