Has math always been your strong suit? In all of these subjects you attend at school, was math the one you were always looking forward to? If you enjoy showing off your prowess with numbers, then you should consider pursuing a career as an accountant. Accountants handle many tasks involving finance and numbers, including: reviewing financial statements and documents for customers, clients and businesses; analyzing account information to prepare documents for clients with assets and liability in mind; recommends certain wealth-building strategies to clients that will help them reach their financial goals; approve expense reports within larger corporations; and promoting financial literacy amongst clients and customers.

As far as educational requirements go, a bachelor’s degree in finance or business is necessary. Many businesses also look at educational extras like a graduate’s degree. It may be somewhat more complicated to get an entry-level job in this field, however it is a very rewarding career with many perks and a strong outlook. Here is how you can count your way to an accounting career:

What are the perks of the job?

The perk that stands out the most is the career’s average median salary of $64,014 (according to PayScale) which stands above the national average of $51,000 (according to Workopolis). The perks keep rolling in if you are excellent with numbers and have a strong passion for helping people manage their finances and making everything money-wise clear to them. It is a career that can help many people who struggle to understand the complex world of money management. Many surveyed workers have also reported an exceptionally high satisfaction with this line of work. Accountants and auditors also have strong future job projections numbers with an 11% growth rate.

What are some of the setbacks?

Being an accountant can be a very stressful career with an immense amount of workload, working and re-working financial statements and crunching numbers, and especially if clients decide to disregard your advice and harm their own financial standing in the long run. It is also considered difficult to achieve career with high educational requirements.

How can I grow with this career?

Accountants can be promoted from entry-level accounting positions to intermediate accountants and senior accountants. This path has a relatively straightforward promotion track, having the worker succeed by excelling in their current tasks and taking on more responsibilities that align with their gathered experience. Some accountants also take on careers as auditors, which run in the same vein as accounting.

That’s all great, but could I be hired for other careers?

There are many other financial and business-related careers that accountants can enjoy. Job titles like budget analysts, tax collectors, credit analysts, and professors or teachers specializing in math and accounting classes use the same math and numeracy skills as being an accountant.

Reference:

Monster, “Accountant Job Description Sample”:

https://hiring.monster.com/hr/hr-best-practices/recruiting-hiring-advice/job-descriptions/accountant-job-description-sample.aspx

MyPlan.com, “Accounting”:

https://www.myplan.com/majors/accounting/related-careers-52.0301.html

PayScale, “Average Chartered Accountant Salary”: https://www.payscale.com/research/CA/Job=Chartered_Accountant/Salary

Study.com, “Senior Financial Accountant: Job Description, Duties and Requirements”: https://study.com/articles/Senior_Financial_Accountant_Job_Description_Duties_and_Requirements.html

Workopolis, “The average Canadian salaries by industry and region”:

https://careers.workopolis.com/advice/how-much-money-are-we-earning-the-average-canadian-wages-right-now/