Accountant Career Guide

When it comes to financial matters, accountants are the experts! Accountants are responsible for preparing and examining financial records. They can work for a variety of clients, including businesses and individuals, to provide financial services. To become an accountant, you must first complete an undergraduate degree in a related field, such as accountancy. After this, accountants must then pass seven to become certified.

Find out what it takes to become a successful accountant by reading our real-world career profiles below. Through one-on-one interviews with actual accountants, we give you an insider?s perspective on educational and career paths, salaries, and more.

Accountant Career Ratings

(What these ratings mean)

Income

Career
Growth

Personal Growth

Contribution

Influence

Job Profiles

Real-Life Accountant Job Profiles

Below is a list of links to anonymous job profiles of REAL PEOPLE who have filled out our survey and offered to share their insights with our users about their job in the Accountant field.

ID	Job Title	Gender	Age	Earnings	City & State	Date
33987	Financial Accounting Consultant	Male	45	$35,000	Brooklyn, NY	01/01/2010
33976	Senior Accountant	Female	28	$60,000	Atlanta, GA	01/01/2010
33952	Associate Tax Accountant	Female	35	$35,000	Madison, WI	01/01/2010
33909	Financial Assistant	Female	25	$47,000	Washington, DC	01/01/2010
33892	Staff Accountant	Female	25	$50,000	hacienda heights, CA	01/01/2010

Overview

What does an accountant do?

When it comes to financial matters, accountants are the experts!

Accountants work for a variety of clients, including businesses and individuals, providing financial services. They may specialize in a particular industry or a field of accounting. For example, public accountants work for individuals or businesses and sometimes take on multiple clients. Whereas management accountants work for one corporation and manage their internal finances, and government accountants will work for governmental agencies.

Regardless of where they work, accountants will have typical duties and responsibilities such as:

Managing financial records and making recommendations to their clients
Focusing on efficient operations of financial matters
Managing books, preparing taxes, and maintaining financial documentation
Complying with laws and regulations regarding taxes and financial practices
Suggesting ways to reduce costs, enhance revenues and improve profits
Assessing financial operations, identifying risks and challenges
Computing taxes owed, preparing tax returns, and ensuring that taxes are paid properly and on time

Why they are needed

Accountants are valuable to every single business. They help businesses with many things, such as:

Saving them time, so that they can focus on doing what they’re best at
Protecting them from any unlawful acts or legal issues
Saving a business money by highlighting areas where they can save money
Offering business support and advice to ensure they’re financially efficient
Making their life easier

Pros and cons of a career as an Accountant

Pros:

There is a clear and definitive career path
It is a stable and growing field
There is lots of potential for professional growth
You can work wherever you want in the world
For those who are mathematically minded, the work is interesting and engaging
Accountants are often paid a high salary

Cons:

The education ongoing and can very expensive
The work can seem very dull and boring
They work can be very stressful and demanding
It can be a very competitive field
It can take a while to progress to more senior positions
Overtime is common and the hours can be very long

Employability

Job Market

The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that the employment of accountants is projected to grow 4 percent from 2019 to 2029, which is about as fast as the average for all occupations.

This employment growth is expected because globalization, a growing economy, and a complex tax and regulatory environment are expected to continue to lead to strong demand for accountants. In general, the employment growth of accountants is expected to be closely tied to the health of the overall economy. As the economy grows, there will continue to be be a need to prepare and examine financial records. In addition, as more companies go public, there will be greater need for public accountants to handle the legally required financial documentation.

Finally, technological change is expected to affect the role of accountants over the decade. Some routine accounting tasks may become automated, as platforms such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI), and blockchain become more widespread. Although this will allow accountants to become more efficient, this change is not expected to reduce overall demand. Instead, with the automation of routine tasks, such as data entry, the advisory and analytical duties of accountants will become more prominent.

Career paths

Typically, to become an accountant you will need an associate’s or bachelors degree in accounting or a related field. However, it is becoming more and more common for employers to prefer applicants who have a master’s degree in accounting or business administration.

To have the best employment opportunities, it is also recommended to gather experience. Students can gain experience through part-time internships with businesses.

To progress as an accountant you will need to gather more experience and take on more responsibility. Those who excel may become supervisors, managers or partners. Or, they may open their own accounting firm!

Example Job Titles for Accountant

Below is a list of common job titles in the Accountant field. Click the links below for more information about these job titles, or view the next section for actual real-life job profiles.

Certified Public Accountant (CPA)

Benefits & Conditions

Income and benefits

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual wage for accountants in the United States was $73,560 in 2020. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $45,220 and the highest 10 percent earned more than $128,680.

The top paying industry was the finance and insurance industry, where the median annual salary was $78,600. This was followed by the management of companies and enterprises industry ($76,230), accounting, tax preparation, bookkeeping and payroll services ($73,180) and finally, the government ($72,260).

Autonomy and flexibility

Accountants are often highly qualified. As a result, they are well respected and trusted and tend to have a lot of autonomy, and flexibility. Accountants can often progress to a more senior position, or to opening their own practice. When they do this, they will have a lot of flexibility and autonomy. However, an accountant will always have to work under the instruction and wishes of their client.

Locations and commute

According to Zippia, the best states to be an accountant, based on average annual salary and number of jobs available, are:

New York, where the average annual salary is $61,966
Connecticut, where the average annual salary is $58,432
District of Columbia, where the average annual salary is $60,653
Rhode Island, where the average annual salary is $57,855
Delaware, where the average annual salary is $53,112

The worst states, according to Zippia, are South Carolina, Arkansas, West Virginia, North Dakota and Mississippi.

Work environment

The largest employer of accountants in the United States was the accounting, tax preparation, bookkeeping and payroll service industry, which employed 24% of all accountants in the United States. This was followed by the finance and insurance industry (9%), government (8%), management of companies and enterprises (7%) and, finally, self-employed workers (6%).

Most accountants will work in offices, but some work from home. They may work in teams, with clients and other accountants and/or auditors, or they may work independently. Some accountants may have to travel to their clients places of business.

Career Satisfaction

Common Matching Personality Types

Which personalities tend to succeed and thrive in Accountant careers? Based on our research, there is a relatively strong positive correlation between the following personality types and Accountant career satisfaction. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t many exceptions, of course, but if you fit into one of the following personality types then we suggest you give strong consideration to a career in Accountant.

16 Types (Myers-Briggs)

Big Five (OCEAN)

Conscientiousness

DISC

Enneagram

None

Holland Codes (RIASEC)

Personality types

It is likely that accountants will present the INTJ personality type. INTJ’s, or sometimes called ‘The Mastermind’, excel in careers where they can use logic to solve problems and implement effective solutions. They also hold facts to high standards and seek consistency. All of these traits are required to be a successful accountant, who must be logical and pay attention to detail.

Accomplishment and mastery

The sense of accomplishment and mastery for an accountant is often huge. To become qualified, they have a lot of educational requirements and they must often continue to learn throughout their career. This means that their skills are always developing and they are always getting better, which gives accountants a strong sense of mastery and accomplishment.

Normally, accountants work for results-oriented businesses. This environment allows and encourages accountants to use their strongest abilities and skills independently, which gives them a strong sense of accomplishment.

Meaning and contribution

Like all jobs, there will be some mundane tasks that do not feel like they are filled with meaning or contribution.

However, in the grand scheme of things, accountants work to save business time and money, which can have a huge impact on thousands of peoples lives. Due to this, there is often a high sense of meaning and contribution in an accountancy career.

Life fit

Most accountants work full time. However, on occasion, accountants may have to work long days to meet deadlines, such as for quarterly audits or during tax season.

Who will thrive?

First and foremost, in order to thrive as an accountant, you must have strong mathematical, analytical and statistical skills. With this, those who thrive in the profession tend to demonstrate a strong attention to detail, consistency and pride in all aspect of their work.

Individuals will also thrive as an accountant if they have strong communication skills and the capacity to explain highly complicated concepts in simple words. Interpersonal skills will also benefit accountants, as they will need to be able to build trusting experiences and thrive when working in a small team environment.

Who will struggle?

Individuals will struggle as an accountant if they are not naturally gifted in mathematics and statistics. Similarly, you may struggle as an accountant if you are not naturally business or productivity minded – as accountants must be able to help businesses save money and work efficiently.

Finally, people will also struggle as an accountant if they are not willing to sacrifice or give up some things during the first few years in the career, when they will have to work hard and progress and develop their skills.

Requirements

Skills

Skills and talents

As well as completing the relevant education, internships and gathering experience, an accountant need skills and talents such as:

Mathematics Skills, as accounts must be able to analyze, compare, and interpret facts and figures. They may use advanced math skills, such as calculus and statistical analysis, for these tasks.
Analytical skills, as accountants must be able to critically evaluate data, identify issues in documentation, and suggest solutions
Communication skills, as accountants will need to discuss complexed technical matters with those without any experience or knowledge of mathematics
Organizational skills, as accountants will work on a range of financial documents for a variety of clients
Detail-orientation, as accountants must pay attention to detail when compiling and examining documents

Education

To become an accountant, you will need an associate’s or bachelors degree in accounting or a related field. On top of this, it is becoming more and more common for employers to prefer to hire applicants who have a master’s degree in accounting or business administration.

Certifications for Accountants

Any accountant who files a report with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is required to be a licensed Certified Public Accountant (CPA). Other accountants choose to become a CPA to enhance their job prospects or to gain clients. To become a CPA there are certain requirements, such as:

Passing a national exam, which is the four-part Uniform CPA Examination from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). Candidates do not have to pass all four parts at once, but most states require that candidates pass all four parts within 18 months of passing their first part
Completing 150 semester hours of college coursework to be licensed, which is 30 hours more than the usual 4-year bachelor’s degree. Many schools offer a 5-year combined bachelor’s and master’s degree to meet the 150-hour requirement, but a master’s degree is not required
To take continuing education courses, including ethics, to maintain their license

Certification provides an advantage in the job market because it shows professional competence in a specialized field of accounting. Accountants seek certifications from a variety of professional societies. Some of the most common certifications include The AICPA offers several designations. For accountants with a CPA, the AICPA offers the Accredited in Business Valuation (ABV), Certified Financial Forensics (CFF), Certified Information Technology Professional (CITP), and Personal Financial Specialist (PFS) certifications. All of these credentials require experience in the related area, continuing education, and passing an exam.

How to Become

When it comes to financial matters, accountants are the experts!

Accountants prepare and examine financial records and can work for a variety of clients, including businesses and individuals, providing financial services. They may specialize in a particular industry or a field of accounting, such as a public accountant, management accountant or government accountant!

Over the coming years, there is expected to be an increase in the demand for accountants over the coming years, creating many exciting job opportunities!

Immediate action

If a career as an accountant is something you’re interested in, then great! One of the first things you can do is to decide what undergraduate degree to take, if you haven’t already been to university. It would also be very useful to start looking for internships in accountancy firms too, as these entry-level candidates are more likely to succeed in getting into the industry.

Education and learning

Accountants must first complete an undergraduate degree in a related field, such as accountancy. After this, accountants must then pass seven to become certified.

Skill development

Continuous learning is required from accountants who wish to be licensed as they have to sit exams throughout their career. This means that the skill development and learning is high for an accountant, and it is therefore a fulfilling and rewarding career.

FAQs

Ask a Question

Have a question about Accountant careers? If so, our mentors would love to help! Just click on a mentor’s profile below and then fill out the “Ask a Question” form on that page. Your question will then be emailed to the mentor, who can then email you a reply.

ID	Job Title	Gender	Age	Earnings	City & State	Date
33987	Financial Accounting Consultant	Male	45	$35,000	Brooklyn, NY	01/01/2010
33976	Senior Accountant	Female	28	$60,000	Atlanta, GA	01/01/2010
33952	Associate Tax Accountant	Female	35	$35,000	Madison, WI	01/01/2010
33909	Financial Assistant	Female	25	$47,000	Washington, DC	01/01/2010
33892	Staff Accountant	Female	25	$50,000	hacienda heights, CA	01/01/2010

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