Questions about the life of an Accountant:

CuriousJuice

I'm curious about the lifestyle and workstyle of an Accountant. I have been interested in pursuing the career of an accountant but I am still unsure about it. Ive been doing research online and a lot of what they say make the job sound amazing but I'd love to hear actual realistic truth from people who have experience or knowledge of the profession themselves.
Here are some questions I have & if you can, answer them based on Ireland (Because Im unsure if the accounting career is the same everywhere else in terms of time, pay etc), if not I'd still like to hear about your experiences:
1 - How are your working times? I hear it is 9-5 (which I like due to my love for free time)
2 - Do you get much free time in your life?
3 - Is it true you have many holidays?
4 - Is the pay good as people always brag and state realistically?
5 - What is the job like on a daily basis?
If you have any advice, information to add, feel free to do so.
Thank you for the help. ðŸ‘

Jim2007

CuriousJuice wrote: »

1 - How are your working times? I hear it is 9-5 (which I like due to my love for free time)
2 - Do you get much free time in your life?
3 - Is it true you have many holidays?
4 - Is the pay good as people always brag and state realistically?
5 - What is the job like on a daily basis?
If you have any advice, information to add, feel free to do so.
Thank you for the help. ðŸ‘

You seen to have a very limited view of what accountants end up doing. It’s a qualification and once people get qualified they end up doing all kinds of stuff. I qualified in the late 80s with one of the big four and of my class not one of them work in public practice today and from what I know only one or two even hold financial positions.

The more colorful ones I can remember:
- in a prison doing a long stretch for fraud
- townie who became the owner a sheep farm
- took up playing the fiddle and became a professional musician, regularly tours Europe
- Fishmonger and owner of a well known seafood importers in North America
- Manages an oil rig in the North Sea
- Oil exploration in Africa
- Many got involved in startups and went into general management
- Joined various civil services, including Ireland
- Senior police officer in Spain
- Shop, restaurant & Hotel owners
- Partner in a fine arts gallery in Paris
- Several, myself included do specialized contact work for eight or nine months of the year.

I’d say in general you can expect to find young accountants working close to the profession, where as as you get older other opportunities open up and people drift away.

jonnybravo

1 - I'm 9 - 5.30 but I'm lucky. A lot of jobs would include overtime. The 3 / 3.5 years to qualify through the big 4 (and a lot of other practices) can involve a lot of overtime.
2 - I've young kids so I don't know what free time looks like!!!
3 - I've 25 days which is good. Standard I would say is around 23 days.
4 - Pay is very good. Look up salary reviews - gives an honest average across different grades.
5 - Some days are good and interesting. Some days are boring. Last job I was in was more interesting but I didn't like my manager. Every job has its up and downs.


Overall there is a lot of positives to becoming an accountant but it's hard work to get there. And like Jim said once your qualified it opens a lot of different doors (although most of the people who I went to college with / trained with are still accountants in industry!).

ACADasltiv

1 - How are your working times? I hear it is 9-5 (which I like due to my love for free time)

If you're in industry then 9-5 is pretty standard, but overtime around month end is also necessary a lot of the time. In practice overtime is pretty much given.

2 - Do you get much free time in your life?

As above.

4 - Is the pay good as people always brag and state realistically?

Have a look at job specs online to get an idea of what salary is like, the money can rise quick enough even while still training if you're in industry, less so in practice until you qualify. The market for accountants at the minute is great.

5 - What is the job like on a daily basis?

I trained in an accounting practice that specialised in insolvency so my work was very varied. In a typical day I could be in meetings with clients, working on business reviews, communicating with stakeholders in insolvency assignments like liquidations, receiverships and examinerships. A lot of investigation work like bank analysis etc.

I moved from there to industry and my job is largely reconciliations (ensuring balances match and finding out why there are discrepancies), debtor control, preparing budgets, cashflows etc.

If you have any advice, information to add, feel free to do so.

Accountancy is a very rewarding career once you qualify imo. I would always recommend doing a couple of years in practice at the start simply to ensure you're not closing any doors as it can be hard to jump into practice from industry, but there's no issue doing the reverse (about 3/4 of accountants don't work in practice) however this isn't really so much of an issue now with the market the way it is.

Training can be pure hell at times, you're working long days and then dealing with college in the evenings and weekends; but you get great satisfaction from it when you do meet objectives and pass exams because of it.

To follow on from Jim's post above, accountancy gives you two of the most sought after skills in business; financial management and people management and with these you can progress onto pretty much anything you like which is why so many accountants do jump out and do other things. It also gives you a stable fall back, it's easier to take risks when you know you have a very solid career with a good salary go back to if things don't work out.