Considering a Career in Accounting and Finance

EliteC

Hi, I'm currently doing my Leaving Cert and the CAO forms will soon be filled out. I am considering a job in Accounting as I'm good at it and am interested, by my Career Guidance Teacher isn't an expert in this field. So I really don't understnad the actually career of accounting. I've looked it up online but there seems to be several different options which is confusing me. I'm interested in all areas of Accounting.

What qualification is required to be an accountant and what careers opportunities are there?

smcgiff

Give a look at the stickie on the professional bodies and it will possibly answer some of your questions. Any unanswered can be asked here.

mr_edge_to_you

Not sure if they still do it but back in the day there was a great Diploma in Professional Accountancy in Athlone IT. Got plenty of exemptions for CIMA and ACCA. Not sure if that's still the case.

onimpulse

EliteC wrote: »

Hi, I'm currently doing my Leaving Cert and the CAO forms will soon be filled out. I am considering a job in Accounting as I'm good at it and am interested, by my Career Guidance Teacher isn't an expert in this field. So I really don't understnad the actually career of accounting. I've looked it up online but there seems to be several different options which is confusing me. I'm interested in all areas of Accounting.

What qualification is required to be an accountant and what careers opportunities are there?

There are lots of different options when it comes to careers but ultimately you'll need a professional qualification to pursue any of them. Your best bet is to do an accountancy & finance degree or something similar. Different degrees will give you a different no of exemptions for the professional exams, the college should be able to advise you on that.

Regarding the professional qualification the main one for Public practice in Ireland would be ACA, however ACCA is very popular too. CIMA is the most popular management accounting qualification. If you want to work in practice you should consider ACA/ ACCA if it's more corporate work you'd be interested in then ACCA / CIMA depending on whether you want to do financial / management accounting.

You can decide all that down the line so for the moment Id just look for a degree which will give you most exemptions for theses professional qualifications.

Regarding careers, there as so many options, many accountants don't work strictly as accountants but in management roles where their grasp of finance is a definite advantage. You could work in a finance department of a company either in the financial accounting side preparing month end and year end accounts or in a management accounting role or FP&A role which is basically providing analysis to management based on the numbers provide by the financial accountants.

Alternatively there is practice, either small practice - preparing accounts or big 4 - mostly audit. Of course then all the big accountancy firms have advisory functions attached so that's an option to... the possibilities are literally endless.

It's a great background to have if you want to work broadly in business. For now pick the right degree and worry about the rest later.

reynolds86

smcgiff wrote: »

Give a look at the stickie on the professional bodies and it will possibly answer some of your questions. Any unanswered can be asked here.

First time poster, so please forgive the ignorance. Can you link me to this sticky please?

smcgiff

It's at the top of the accountancy forum.