Accounting is the way to go!

When starting off in your career in business, I feel that pursuing a prefessional accountancy qualification is an excellent platform for career progression. It is much more effective than spending 4 years in a marketing or HR department. Athough these areas are valuable none are as important as the accounting role of a business. If you learn accounting you develop a real understanding of business. I myself find other areas of business more interesting than accounting. However if you want to get to the top in business, accounting is the way to go.

Spec said:

However if you want to get to the top in business, accounting is the way to go.

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Are you speaking from experience?

No not at all. Just looking for someone that has the experience to debate what I have said.

Are you an accountant? I hope not judging by this:

Spec said:

I have an €9000 college debt. I am now earning 20k to 25k per year and paying rent in Dublin. I would like to jump on the property ladder by finding some cheap overseas property with good investment potential. Am I crazy thinking of buying property when I have a college loan?

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Re:

Ok maybe not buy property but could I not buy land abroad and in time the price might well increase?? No I am not an accountant.

You should clear your debts first as advised on the other thread.

Re: Accounting Career Path

As a recent business graduate I feel accounting is the best area to get into in order to really understand business. Can anyone contribute to this point?

Hi Spec

Your line of thinking is interesting....................
As a young accountant you can rise higher and quicker in an organisation than you might in other disciplines. The FD is often the youngest one in the boardroom.In that sense you're right.

The tricky part is further progression from being the "beancounter" to becoming the MD or the CEO , a position which is more likely to be filled by a commercial candidate eg sales, business, engineering or specialist background.

The skillsets of a good CEO and a good FD tend to be substantially different and therin lies the challenge for an FD that wants to go further.
Get your accounting qualification but stay cllose to the business side at all times. Accountants who only involve themselves with numbers will remain with numbers for their whole career. I see it everyday.

This is the path that I've travelled personally.I work in a large multinational organisationson and have MD responsibility for three group subsidiaries.

Good luck !

Hi Aphrodite

Thanks for the advice. You gave me an answer I wanted to hear. Personally I don't really love accounting but I have the perception that it is the most important in a business. I would prefer to reach the top ranks through a more commercial position.

Chris

I am a part-time bookkeeper and I would like to gain some sort of a
qualification to help me in my bookkeeping skills.I do not want to become an accountant as I do not want to leave my current position in purchasing.I have been told that the Association of accounting technicians might be an option or would I be wasting my time and money.I would be grateful for some advice.

In the same boat as MGC, and so interested in any replies please,

If it is book keeping, then yes, I would imagine an Accounting Technician course/qualification would be a good option.

To the OP-it would have been helpful if you had put your original post in context, i.e. you were thinking about studying accounting and wanted to know whether it was a good idea or not.

Accountancy, like any professional qualification, is always a valuable asset to have on your CV.

I work in Investment Banking and noticed that virtually all the senior mgt personnel (MD, Heads of Dept) were either certified or chartered a/cs. So I went ahead and did the ACCA, which work paid for.
I already have a MBS so got several exemptions and got all the exams done in 2 years - it's worth looking into (www.accaglobal.com) to see what you might be eligible for.
While it's not directly relevant to my job (treasury mgt) it is usually a given for other departments of Banking - e.g. Credit analysis which usually is the stepping stone for Asset/Portfolio Management.
I'm not sure how much flexibility there is in other industries but at least with a/c you get a much better overview of the entire business than you would from being in the HR/Marketing depts - the concern would be that you might not be able to get out!
Of course, working for one of the big A/C firms is also an option - and it's not all audits/year end stuff. Most of them are active on the consultancy side which is much more interesting - so you won't just be adding up balance sheets all day!

It has been my experience that if money/ salary is your motivation, then accountancy is the way to go. Interestingly enough there appears to be a shortage of newly qualified accountants in the marketplace which has created a surge in the basic salary over the last 3 months. Company's are actually fighting to get candidates from the "Big 4/5" or indeed industry qualified CIMA accountants.

Swimmer1 said:

It has been my experience that if money/ salary is your motivation, then accountancy is the way to go. .

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Not sure that I agree with this - a lot of people have the idea that accountants are raking it in. There are some who are earning big bucks but the average a/c isnt earning huge money (I know loads of people who assume I am on 6 figure sum just because am a/c, I wish!).

I think that yes, more accountants seem to find their way into top positions but these guys seem to also have another qualification (with the exception possibly of Financial Directors) - ie an enginneer who has subsequently done a/c qualification (MBA most likely).
I think that a/cs are also now recognising the importance of taking head out of spreadsheet & actually gaining a wider understanding of the business rather than just number crunching.

Again not certain where op is coming at this from - if you are trying to decide to pursue a/c qualification then I can recommend it from a flexibility point of view - there are plenty of different areas that you can go into once you have the qualification.

Spec said:

Hi Aphrodite

I have the perception that it is the most important in a business. I would prefer to reach the top ranks through a more commercial position.

Chris

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Also you will find that non accountants in businesses have the exact opposite view point - they see themselves as adding value to the company but that accountants do not...ie sales person brings in the sales which (hopefully) contribute to profit - what do accountants add?

APHRODITE said:

As a young accountant you can rise higher and quicker in an organisation than you might in other disciplines.

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Depends big time on the organisation.

In the organisation I work for qualifications don't metter one wit.

The vast majority of the auditing and finance department are not staffed by people with a finance background.

I emailed our finance and HR Depts on possible opportunities & I have not even recieved an acknowledgement.

Just to answer Nelly and MGC question, the IATI qualification is ideal for bookkeepers as you learn everything there is to know about bookkeeping, Computurised and manual I havent done the course personally, i did the ACCA equivalent instead. You also gain exemptions from the early stages of the Cpa exams if you ever decide to pursue a professional accountancy qualification.

Most accountancy practices besides the big 4 pay badly and to be honest leaving a well paid engineering job to train as an accountant would be a big step down financially. However the banks pay well enough for accountants and that would be your best option to got some decent enough money. Ive been training as an accountant for the last 11 months and my salary is €14000 a year. Very hard to survive on that. Anyway good luck whatever you decide.

Jockey.