what are the differences between a career in Accounting and a career in Finance this is the topic of this CashNews.co welcome back guys my name is
Bill Hanna and I’m the Financial Controller and this channel is all about giving you the tools and tips to supercharge your Accounting and Finance
career the good news is that the job market for Accounting and Finance is expected to grow at a pace of about 6% annually for the next 10 years and so this
is an exciting time for you to get into Accounting and Finance and grow your career now let’s get into the differences between
Accounting and Finance as a career and the difference number one has to do with the goal what’s the goal of a financial accountant versus the goal of a
financial analysts the goal of the accountant is to get the data in and create Financial Statements and so the accountant is concerned with gathering the transactions of the business and creating Financial Statements as opposed to the goal of a financial analyst
which is to analyze this data and look at it from this point in time forward and project out the performance of the business the second difference has to do with the nature of the work so the accountants work by definition or by nature is looking at the past at the history and gathering the
financial data and information and summarizing that into Financial Statements now the financial analyst is concerned with the future so they are always looking at this point in time going forward and Forecasting the performance of the business the third difference
has to do with the risk what risk is the accountant trying to mitigate all the time and concern with all the time and the risk here is a risk of material misstatement that is the Financial Statements that the accountant is producing has a material misstatement or error this is
opposed to the risk that the financial analyst is dealing with which is the risk between a variance between what they are projecting for the future and reality so our financial analyst is always making assumptions about the future and the risk here is that some of these assumptions may be wrong
difference number four between an accountant and a financial analyst has to do with the type of problems you’re trying to solve and so typically an accountant is trying to solve problems around accruals Revenue recognition making sure the accrues for expenses that have not
yet impacted the cash balance but the service has been incurred or booking Revenue in the right period and just generally following US GAAP which is generally accepted Accounting principles now the kind of problems the financial analyst will be dealing with will to
do with modeling and creating assumptions about the future such as seasonality customer behavior and customer loss or churn in the future the first number five has to do with compensation in the u.s. in 2019 the median salary for an accountant was 71 thousand dollars a year which is not too bad
compared to a financial analyst which had a median salary of 86 thousand dollars a year and so as you can see there’s about $15,000 gap which is about 15 to 20 percent difference between what accountants and financial analysts the first number six has to do with certification now the gold
standard for accountants is to become a certified public accountant or CPA now I’m a CPA myself and for sure had a huge impact on my career increase my salary increase my credibility and just have been a huge impact in my life studying for and passing the CPA exam has been one of the most
difficult tasks that I had to endure in my professional life but lucky for me I found out about Roger CPA Review which is my opinion the best review course out there for CPA exam so if you’re preparing for the CPA or if you are taking a different course right now and looking for an
alternative I highly recommend Roger his style of teaching is highly energetic my biggest problem was studying for the CPA is the material is extremely boring and Roger has a way of making it very exciting and very interesting so I’m gonna leave a link down below in the description for a
promotion that Roger is running right now for his CPA review class make sure if you sign up for the course of sign up using this link so I can get the referral Credits now let’s look at the day in the life of an accountant versus a day in the life of a financial analyst and I
think the best way is to look at a month in the life versus a day in the life because a month will give you a better view on what’s going on in each of their professions for the accountant their months usually begins with the first 7 days of trying to close the period and so that will entail
billing going over invoices from vendors making sure we’re booking all of the expenses even though we have not received the vendor invoice yet accruing for these expenses and things like that and that will entail having meetings with within the accountant team and the meetings probably you
spend the 25% of your time in meetings trying to close the books and trying to make sure you’re following all the rules comparing period over period in terms of expenses and Revenue to make sure you’re catching any anomalies now if you compare that to the month in the
life of a financial analyst you’ll see that a financial analyst spends maybe about 56 to 60% of their time in meetings and now their meetings are different the accountants meetings are usually internal their bidding within the Accounting team most of the time for the
financial analyst most of the time they’re meeting with other people within the company from the sales team to go over Revenue forecasts and assumptions or meeting with the operation team and trying to capture the forecasts for expenses and things like that now there are
three reasons for me to choose Accounting / Finance as a career the first of which is my own personality as an introvert and so I interact with my smaller
Accounting team most of the time and I interact with the larger group and the company from Revenue and operations on a smaller scale so most of the time I’m just interacting with five or six people within my own team and I spend small amount of time
interacting with the rest of the company and that suits my personality more as an introvert I think that Finance suits more a extrovert type personality where you’ll be
spending most of your time interacting with people from all around the company now the second reason for me to choose Accounting was that it’s rule-based and so when it’s rule-based I have a set of rules to follow and I know what I’m doing exactly so I have rules
which is for Accounting its US GAAP which is in the u.s. generally accepted Accounting principles and as long as I’m operating within these rules I know that I’m doing the right thing and there’s no ambiguity it’s mostly black and white
there’s a little bit of gray but mostly black and white and so this is what I enjoy the most and that’s why I chose Accounting now the third reason for me to choose Accounting / color: #1a73e8; text-decoration: none;">Finance has to do with the stress level I believe that the stress level from working in Accounting is lower than none;">Finance the reason being is that you are concerned with two things in Accounting which is accuracy and timeliness and as long as you’re accurate in financials that your reporting and the timing of these of the reporting you will be fine whereas in
Finance there are other factors from outside that can impact your work because you’re always making assumptions about the future and these assumptions may change and so
there will be a variance between you projection and reality so I hope this CashNews.co gives you a good overview and the differences between a career and Accounting and a career in text-decoration: none;">Finance I’d like to hear any questions if you have any questions for me in the comment section below or if you want to tell us your own experience and major in Accounting or in style="font-weight: bold; color: #1a73e8; text-decoration: none;">Finance
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Believe me by making this type of videos , you are becoming an extrovert 😂
Hello sir please hope to get answer which major easier to study accounting or finance ?
Excellent breakdown, addressed everything i wanted to know
Greetings Sir! I'm planning on majoring in accounting but am confused on choosing my minor in MIS or Finance.
So for MIS the pro can be the technical skills that I can gain which will help me win against the automation in accounting since accounting is getting automated. The con might be that MIS is coding and maths heavy. Is the math more difficult in MIS or Finance?
As for finance I feel like if I someday would want to work as an investment banker or any other finance roles, I wouldn't be able to do so if I choose MIS as my minor instead of Finance. And can I develop the technical skills that would help me win against the automation by doing some certificates in IT instead of minoring in MIS? I feel like I can later on develop tech skills but can't go back to do a minor in finance. What would be your advice? I would highly appreciate your answer❤
i am an advocate just want to do MBA just understanding business finance so what is better?
Hey Bill, I wanted to ask your advice on something. I am a high school graduate and want to do ACCA but, with ACCA I want to pursue another complimenting bachelor degree while doing ACCA. So, I have to decide what degree to choose. I don't want to choose accounting because I will be doing it in the ACCA. Now, I can either do Finance or Business administration or Economics. Please tell me what you think and you can mention a degree that is not mentioned above.
That's incredible
❤❤ 🇵🇰 🇵🇰 🇵🇰
Thank You❤
Nice of you to explain how to become a financial accountant, but not do the same for analyst 😞
Totally different careers: Accounting is a narrower field that focuses on professional processes to manage numbers and accounts, while finance uses the same information to analyze potential growth patterns in order to strategize company finances.
Any word on marketing ?
I'm late to the party, but great video detailing the differences. I do a fantastic job (I think) pretending that I enjoy talking to people; I've had many, many years of customer service experience prior to becoming an Accountant. I actually prefer accounting because history is static. I can't make a "failed prediction" about history, but I can definitely fail at forecasting accurately with this broken crystal ball of mine 😉
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What about us cma
Hello, Thank you so much for the video. It really helpful. I am introvert person. Now my major is Finance but I am thinking about transfer from Finance to Business Analytics. Would you please help offer some advise? The difference between Finance and Business Analytics. Thank you.
Thanks Master for helping me to study accounting im motivated thanks alot
I did Roger CPA review too, it was a good course.
Subscribed. I see that this video is three years old…looking forward to catching up on newer content.
Can you get an accounting job with a finance degree?
Once you graduate from accounting, do you have to take CPA exam ?
Thank you very much sir🤝 Actually I'm pursuing MBA and I did financial model course also but im introvert i go to accounting side so please tell me any certificate courses are need?
Hey you didn't mention the certification for the financial analyst…only thr accountant…but I suppose it will be the CFA or FRM
Hello sir, you talked about the certification for accounting (CPA) but didn't talk about finance. What certification in finance is recommended
Adding my comment to make them total half a thousand on this video 💪.
Best video I’ve seen explaining the difference between these two. Thanks
Would you say something about AI impact of finance and accounting area?
I’m an introvert with an Econ degree pursuing the CFA to break into finance and now I’m worried 😂
such a crucial video for anyone to understand and select a career to pursue …..
This is one of the best videos I have found on the difference between finance and accounting. Really appreciate discussing the reasons one might choose one path over the other, and the introvert factor.
Folks have done so many interviews but no job yet. I am looking for a staff accountant position but its not easy at all. I have a post baccalaureate in accounting and MBA. I am originally from Uganda, so not sure if am accent too is contributing to my failure to get a job. I need advice, just helpless