What does an industry accountant or tax professional do?

April O Neill II

I'm fairly new to the study of accountancy and taxation, and am currently doing a PG Dip.

I'm really enjoying it, I have to say, but am still fairly green.

Most people seem keen to get their training in practice.

I'm just wondering what working in industry as an accountant or tax advisor entails? I'm especially interested to hear about MNCs. What is it like to train in industry rather than practice?

Many thanks!

BanjoSpanner

Working in industry as an accountant means managing the finances of that particular organisation. Ensuring cash flow keeps flowing, ensuring working capital is put to best use, ensuring the business is making money and finding out clever ways to make it make more money. These are a few examples.

Some people prefer to get their experience in practice because it gives them exposure to and knowledge of more than just one business or industry. The idea is that they won't tie themselves down to working in just one area in the future and they'll have a more rounded education.

Industry accounting is a broad area - you could be working in financial control doing periodic reporting, transaction processing in AP, internal forecasting etc.

Have a look at qualified jobs that are available and some of the job descriptions or their requirements to get an idea of what possibilities there are.

One thing to note is that if you are training outside of a graduate program or the like you will have to make your own path and look for development opportunities within and without your organisation. It can be easy to get comfortable in a role and concentrate on exams to the detriment of getting a rounded experience.

For the record I trained in industry abroad as part of a graduate program.

April O Neill II

Thank you both for your replies!

I'm just wondering would be it be considered totally mad to train in industry? I applied for the Finance part of the Microsoft Graduate Program. I returned an evaluation form to them today, but I think all applicants get to that stage so nothing might come of it anyway, but I just thought I'd try to gather some information about what it might entail.

Deleted User wrote: »

Have a look at qualified jobs that are available and some of the job descriptions or their requirements to get an idea of what possibilities there are.

Snap, I actually did this!

mr_edge_to_you

April O Neill II wrote: »

I'm just wondering would be it be considered totally mad to train in industry?

Hundreds of CIMA management accountants, myself included, would say no.

April O Neill II

mr_edge_to_you wrote: »

Hundreds of CIMA management accountants, myself included, would say no.

No offence intended! It's just some people go on (not necessarily on here) like practice training, and specifically big 4 training, is the only way to go.

mr_edge_to_you

April O Neill II wrote: »

No offence intended! It's just some people go on (not necessarily on here) like practice training, and specifically big 4 training, is the only way to go.

None taken! You do make a valid point especially with regard to the big 4 training. You see threads here and people think that is the only avenue own to finance/business graduates. Training anywhere else has never entered their mind.

I remember having that discussion with a former manager once and he said what those people sometimes forget is that big 4 trained accountants do a lot of their training auditing our work. Some of the queries you get asked during an audit would certainly suggest that there's nothing special about Big 4 training. If you get a young new trainee on your audit you will quickly see that Big 4 training is no better or worse than any other, whether its independent practice or industry training.

doesn't matter which route you go down, they're all as tough as each other. Only thing about industry training is you generally get £uck all study leave and you have to pay for your exams up front (claiming them back when you pass an exam). On the flip side the pay is also generally better for trainees in industry.

mr_edge_to_you

Working as accountant in industry covers a very broad scope of work.

Budgets & forecasts
Weekly, monthly & quarterly reporting
Cashflow management
Salaries & Wages
Liaising with auditors
Transaction processing
Costing
Variance analysis
Investment appraisal
Project management
Credit control
Stock taking (possibly)
ERP system experience - SAP is a phenomenal business tool.
Vat, VIES & intrastat returns
CSO returns - a pain in the hole but a significant consumer of time.

Every company has its own set of KPIs that they report and monitor regularly.

You may get some tax exposure but in my experience this was generally handled externally by specialists.

My background is traditionally in manufacturing and processing. Its a completely different environment than working in a practice. I loved the broad all- round nature of working in a factory.

April O Neill II

April O Neill II wrote: »

No offence intended! It's just some people go on (not necessarily on here) like practice training, and specifically big 4 training, is the only way to go.

It's partly self-fulfilling: the firms that hire the most graduates every year are the big four followed by the next bunch that make up the top ten or twenty five. Graduate programs in industry don't hire all that many compared to practice. (I'm ignoring fund accounting and the like as they fall somewhere in between and I don't know much about it)

The hiring manager in industry is likely to have trained in practice themselves and to have moved over. Companies leave the interviewing and training to the audit firms and then hire people once they have done their three and a half year contract.

When I was in college it was the same for most of us who wanted to become accountants (and even for those who didn't want to become accountants but just wanted a career path) - train in practice and then move to industry was the default apparent career path.

I decided during college that I wanted to work in industry and didn't see the point of training in practice to then move into industry. It was a bit of a pain as it took me a bit longer to get established and my first jobs were contract jobs but it has paid off in the medium term.

One point I thought of - a lot of what used to be entry level contract jobs in industry are now job bridge internships.

April O Neill II

Deleted User wrote: »

One point I thought of - a lot of what used to be entry level contract jobs in industry are now job bridge internships.

:mad:

smcgiff

Deleted User wrote: »

One point I thought of - a lot of what used to be entry level contract jobs in industry are now job bridge internships.

When I entered practice my weekly pay was around the social welfare payment mark, so things have improved

Prettyblack

Nowadays industry training is as relevant, for all the bodies: ACA (Elevation), CIMA, ACCA, etc. There are people who go Big 4 without really thinking about what they're doing, and they might hate it - industry might suit them better. That's becoming recognised as valid more and more now - at least amongst the Chartered accountants I work with!

closifer

Training in industry and gaining manufacturing/costing experience would be very valuable as cost accountants are in high demand and are extremely difficult to come across at present