WHAT CAN YOU DO WITH AN ACCOUNTING DEGREE?
If you are someone who needs to follow a plan rather than applying for jobs willy nilly, then you have come to the right place. It might be helpful to know that we have created a career path map for Accounting majors to use to find career paths that they might have not thought about before. The map is a helpful tool to discover the career potential of your major.
BEST JOBS FOR ACCOUNTING MAJOR
If you recently graduated from college and are having a hard time finding a job, you are not alone. Luckily enough, we set out to help graduates with an Accounting degree to find the perfect job. After looking through 232,971 Accounting major resumes and millions of job listings, we were able to find which are most preferred jobs by Accounting major graduates.
Accountant
Accountants and auditors prepare and examine financial records. They ensure that financial records are accurate and that taxes are paid properly and on time. Accountants and auditors assess financial operations and work to help ensure that organizations run efficiently.
Finance Analyst
Financial analysts provide guidance to businesses and individuals making investment decisions. They assess the performance of stocks, bonds, and other types of investments.
Staff Accountant
Accountants and auditors prepare and examine financial records. They ensure that financial records are accurate and that taxes are paid properly and on time. Accountants and auditors assess financial operations and work to help ensure that organizations run efficiently.
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What is Accounting and Why is it Important For Your Business?
A simple definition of “accounting”
Accounting is how your business records, organizes, and understands its financial information. You can think of accounting as a big machine that you put raw financial information into—records of all your business transactions, taxes, projections, etc.—that then spits out an easy to understand story about the financial state of your business.
Accounting vs bookkeeping
Accounting and bookkeeping overlap in many ways. Some say bookkeeping is one aspect of accounting. But if you want to break them apart, you could say that bookkeeping is how you record and categorize your financial transactions, whereas accounting is putting that financial data to good use through analysis, strategy, and tax planning.
The accounting cycle
Accounting begins the moment you enter a business transaction—any activity or event that involves your business’s money—into your company’s ledger. Recording business transactions this way is part of bookkeeping. And bookkeeping is the first step of what accountants call the “accounting cycle”: a process designed to take in raw financial information and spit out accurate and consistent financial reports.
The accounting cycle has six major steps:
Analyze and record transactions (looking over invoices, bank statements, etc.)
Post transactions to the ledger (according to the rules of double-entry accounting)
Prepare an unadjusted trial balance (this involves listing all of your business’s accounts and figuring out their balances)
Prepare adjusting entries at the end of the period
Prepare an adjusted trial balance
Prepare financial statements
Financial statements
Financial statements are reports that summarize how your business is doing, financially. There are three main types of financial statements: the balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement. Together, they tell you where your business’s money is, and how it got there.
Accounting Terminology Guide
A Misstatement is Inconsequential
If a reasonable person would conclude after considering the possibility of further undetected misstatements that the misstatement either individually or when aggregated with other misstatements would clearly be immaterial to the FINANCIAL STATEMENTS. If a reasonable person could not reach such a conclusion regarding a particular misstatement, that misstatement is more than inconsequential.
Abatement
Complete removal of an amount due, (usually referring to a tax ABATEMENT a penalty abatement or an INTEREST abatement within a governing agency).
Absorption Costing
An approach to product costing that assigns a representative portion of all types of manufacturing costs–direct materials, direct labor, variable factory overhead, and fixed factory overhead–to individual products.
Accelerated Depreciation
Method that records greater DEPRECIATION than STRAIGHT-LINE DEPRECIATION in the early years and less depreciation than straight-line in the later years of an ASSET’S HOLDING PERIOD.
Account
Formal record that represents, in words, money or other unit of measurement, certain resources, claims to such resources, transactions or other events that result in changes to those resources and claims.
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Tips & An In-depth Process To Choose A Perfect Accounting Software
If you have a business, you need an accounting software to record your income and expenses. Ideally this is the first piece of software you should purchase when you start the business. However, most business owners get one only when they need to pay taxes or apply for loans.
So, how to choose a right accounting software for your business? This can get confusing as there are plenty of products available in the market today. I’m trying to make your job easy by listing down some important filtering criterias that you should consider before you invest in an accounting system.
Online or Offline
First question to ask yourself is – Whether I want an online software or a desktop based offline software? How does it matter? Well, most businesses nowadays are adopting cloud based softwares as they offer lot of advantages over traditional offline softwares. However, some businesses like retail stores require speed and not always connected to the internet. For them, offline POS (Point Of Sale) systems are the best bet.
Advantages of Cloud Accounting Software:
– Nothing to install. Just signup and start entering your transactions
– You don’t have to worry about upgrades as all changes are pushed automatically. Online softwares are always up to date.
– Can be accessed from any internet enabled device at any point of time
– Cloud accounting software providers take care of backup and maintenance which is a cost saving for you.
– Data across all your offices is always synchronised.
– It can integrate with other cloud based applications.
When you should buy an offline or desktop based software:
– You have a retail store and need to create few hundred invoices over the counter.
– You do not have internet connectivity at your business location.
Its strongly recommended that you go for an online accounting software as you will have your financial data on your tips even when you are not in the office.
Why Business Writing is Important For Accountants
Accountants do many things, but ultimately, they help make people’s lives more manageable. From filing taxes to regulating payroll for a small business, accountants work wonders for their clients. While crunching numbers, technology implantation and tax compliance (and more!) are all part of their job description, writing is another skill excellent accountants should possess.
Communication Skills
Excellent teamwork goes hand in hand with excellent communication. Accountants often have to work with other departments or firms to fulfill their duties. In this case, excellent communication skills are essential. Not to mention, a huge chunk of business communication happens via email these days. When financial assets are involved, written proof is always necessary. It’s important for accounting professionals to be able to discuss these matters in an articulate and clear way.
Of course, that means that emails remain on file for further reference. This alone should be enough of a motive to keep writing skills sharp. Furthermore, regular written correspondence with clients help builds trust in that relationship. When someone gives their writing that personal touch, it’s apparent in even the most transactional email. Colleagues and clients alike will take note of effective email writing.
Job Retention
Accounting firms have raised the bar on what they expect from their employees. In fact, prospective accountants usually have to complete written and oral exams during the hiring process. Poor grammar could quickly get a rookie accountant the boot. Indeed, plenty of dismissals happen on account of poor writing skills. A large number of firms report this as a reason for job termination.
Common Writing Tasks
Accountants have plenty of writing they need to do frequently. First of all, there are technical documents like analysis of business performance or financial reports. While this kind of writing tends to be packed full of data, there should be a clear explanation. Management and clients have to be able to understand these documents, too. Failure to properly communicate can lead to trouble and misunderstandings.