What is fund accounting?

sashafierce

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T L

Essentially, investment funds hire third party firms to do their bookkeeping and accounts. The third party firm is the fund accountant. Fund accounting just means accounting for funds, so it includes accounting for the buying and selling of investments, for income, expenses, receivables and payables, for shareholders buying in or selling out of the fund.

Everything still works like the accounting you study in college (ie. debits and credits), there's just some new terminology to learn.

Fund accountants generally have different departments. One department will deal with the day to day bookkeeping, another will produce the financial statements, etc.

The fund accountants I'm familiar with also ask their employees to sit the accounting exams, I don't know if all of them do, and I don't know if it's a strict requirement.

sashafierce

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bigmc23

sashafierce wrote: »

It sounds like an area id be interested in getting into but i dont know how to go about it. Id be willing to try the accounting exams if i done them through a company. Im totally at a loss as to what i should do now to not let my degree go to waste

what makes you think you wouldn't be cut out for accountancy exams? You do have a degree in it afterall

sashafierce

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bigmc23

sashafierce wrote: »

Found the degree rather hard. The college highly unhelpful with people who werent top of the class. As far as im aware dont you need to get into an accounting firm to do the exams? the college was highly uninformative

I don't know much about fund accounting but I think you should go and do your own research about certified and chartered before writing them off altogether. CAI and acca website might be a starting point

Northern Monkey

You won't need accountancy exams to get into a grad fund accounting job. Any firm I have worked for will provide educational assistance if you want to do them (pay your exam and course fees to varying degrees). They normally pay once you pass each exam and it would come with a clause that you have to continue working for the company for a set period of time after getting paid for them or you have to pay it back.

Where are you living? There are loads of companies in Dublin who do it, but some of them have opened offices in other parts of the country (Cork, Naas, Limerick, Wexford, Kilkenny, Drogheda to name a few), so you might not have to move to Dublin if it doesn't appeal.

Jim2007

sashafierce wrote: »

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Well first of all the college is not there to spoon feed you! Part of the exercise in getting a degree, no matter what the topic is, is that you learn to study independently and do your own research! And to be brutally honest if you have not achieved this then you are going to find the accounting exams hard going because a lot of it will involve going over the material on your own. But then we expect a professional accountant to be able to stand on their own to feet, provide solid advice, show leadership and so on.

Fund accounting is just a particular branch of the profession, you still have to pass the same high professional standards, so don't expect it to be some kind of easy pass!

Fishyfreak

Jim2007 wrote: »

Well first of all the college is not there to spoon feed you! Part of the exercise in getting a degree, no matter what the topic is, is that you learn to study independently and do your own research! And to be brutally honest if you have not achieved this then you are going to find the accounting exams hard going because a lot of it will involve going over the material on your own. But then we expect a professional accountant to be able to stand on their own to feet, provide solid advice, show leadership and so on.

Fund accounting is just a particular branch of the profession, you still have to pass the same high professional standards, so don't expect it to be some kind of easy pass!

Jaysus, spare the guy a lecture. He is just looking for some advice.

Ridiculous way to speak to someone:

"But then we expect a professional accountant to be able to stand on their own to feet, provide solid advice, show leadership and so on."

".....so don't expect it to be some kind of easy pass!"

sashafierce

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Ardeehey

Getting back to the OP! Not all emplyers will expect you to do professional exams, most will offer you the opportunity to do them as a perk but it's up to you. These days as the industry is so much more different then when I started the pro qualifications would be a big advantage to climb the ranks but in no way shape or form are they vital unless you specialise in financial statement prep/tax etc.

There are job opportunities at the moment and as the influx of capital continues to increase it'll mean more job prospects on the horizon, if you are interested keep an eye on the usual recruiters and look in the business section of the IT on a Thursday.

Not everyine in Fund Accounting likes it but I've had a good 12 years so far!

sashafierce

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Jim2007

sashafierce wrote: »

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Fishyfreak wrote: »

Jaysus, spare the guy a lecture. He is just looking for some advice.

Ridiculous way to speak to someone:

"But then we expect a professional accountant to be able to stand on their own to feet, provide solid advice, show leadership and so on."

".....so don't expect it to be some kind of easy pass!"

There are plenty of resources out there that the OP could have consulted, but did not! A while spent of Google would have answered most of his questions and then some. I don't think it is too much to expect someone who is seeking a professional qualification to be able to do this!

Ardeehey

sashafierce wrote: »

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If you pick up any job description you'll see the min requirements, usually 2.1 or higher, personally any time I'm interviewing people with no experience as long as there is a degree on the spec then I don't worry about the grade too much..it's all about whether they are interested and if they would be a good fit for the group....and also look to check that they have made a decent effort to research the industry a bit

sashafierce

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Fishyfreak

Jim2007 wrote: »

There are plenty of resources out there that the OP could have consulted, but did not!

An accountancy section of boards.ie being one of the resources consulted.

Anerak

You can sit your CAP 2 exams with ACA and all ACCA exams outside a training contract, but it will cost you as you have to pay for exemptions etc.
There is jobs out there for trainee accountants so I am sure you would find one if thats the route you want to take.
My advice is talk to people who are have followed the fund accounting route and see what advice they can give you and see would you enjoy the work.

Young Blood

Is it possible to do a course in fund accounting without a background in accounting? Say if your degree is in history?

Chinook

There is a resource called 'What Is Fund Accounting' on the website quickstep dot ie. And another one called 'NAV Calculation'. Worth a look.

whatawaster81

I worked in fund accountancy and I had a masters in Business with one Accountancy subject of 10. No one around me had ACCA or anything of the like though it was encouraged, I know people I worked with who are Senior fund accountant and Supervisor without being accountants.

I reckon you'll walk into a job in it.

The big question is whether you'd enjoy it and would want to have a career in it. I know it wasn't for me. It's all about the NAV and the Bloomberg machine.

sashafierce

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whatawaster81

All the usual suspects Citi, State Street, BNY Mellon etc all have huge fund accountancy departments.

There's a thread over in work & jobs working in citi might be worth a read as a bit of an eye opener.

Northern Monkey

whatawaster81 wrote: »

All the usual suspects Citi, State Street, BNY Mellon etc all have huge fund accountancy departments.

There's a thread over in work & jobs working in citi might be worth a read as a bit of an eye opener.

Citi won't have one for much longer, they are exiting the industry.

annaP79

hey

working in fund accounting brings banks and insurance companies, pension funds etc to mind

would you like to work in places like that?
just a thought, in case you prefer working in small companies