How To Become An Accountant

How To Become An Accountant How To Start Your Accountancy Career? ChaptersThe Qualifications to Become An AccountantHow Long Does It Take To Become An Accountant?What Salary Can You Expect As An Accountant?Where Can You Work As An Accountant?You might be at that point in your life, maybe after university or even later, when you are considering and weighing the career options that you may take or turn down.If you choose accountancy, you will be joining a workforce of more than 350,000 people in the UK.However, you might still be at that crossroad, where uncertainty and the constraints of life can cripple your decision making power. So let's see why anyone would want to become an accountant.First, you have to forget the preconceived notion that all accountants are maths genius. These days accountancy softwares do much of the number crunching for you.Secondly, you have to understand that accountants are needed in every single industry existing on the planet. Finance professionals are required by everyone, from fashion designers to film-makers, from re al-estate moguls to non-profit organisations.Better than a passport, a membership to bodies such as the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, will offer you job opportunities everywhere in the world. Think about the major commercial hubs on the planet: New-York, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Zurich, Hong Kong, Chicago or Singapore.Accountancy is also one of the rare profession that is  not endangered by automation. Yes softwares and AI are getting better and reducing the time you spent crushing numbers, but this mainly means that you will have more time to meet and consult with your client,   advising on financial strategies.You will also have a secured job. Recessions in the past decades have taken their  tolls in term of downsizing and company restructuration but the financial department, being the one that advises on how to go through such harsh times, is also the one that is the less emperiled when times are tough.If you have not yet decided if becoming an accountant would be the right move for you, let's delve  over the question further.Accounting studies are long and laborious but at the end, the potential compensation is worth it.If you work in the UK, all those tax returns will be sent to HMRC (Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs), which by the way, employs thousands of public accountant to help the government calculate and collect taxes all around the country.Besides governmental agencies, many UK businesses need accountants: colleges and universities, retail stores, health care providers or even the hospitality industry. Even self-employed people such as doctors, nurses, lawyers or actors may need your expertise in making sure that their tax return is accurate.But working as an accountant is much more than filing tax-return, even though the end of the fiscal year period, from January to March, is known in the industry as the busy season.These days accounting firms make most of their through consultancy. The job has evolved, accountants  are no longer str aightforward bookkeepers that make sure all invoices are issues, paid and filed.Anyone can use an accounting program to do that but what most people and almost no software can do, is analysing reports and see what are of a company can be financially more efficient.Forecasting, taxation, budgeting, payroll reporting,   audit or financial reports, are all services any modern accounting firm will provide its customers meaning that each firm as many different specialisations.For example, forensic accounting focuses on the examination of businesses financial records and statistics to ensure that no fraud has been committed, implying a thorough knowledge of government regulation. As a forensic accountant, you will be more likely to work for the government or law enforcement agencies.Or you could specialise in corporate accounting if you hold the right accounting degrees and you would be in charge of  preparation of their final accounts and cash flow statements and well as the analysis and interpretation of a  company's financial results.If you have a very analytical mind, maybe you would be more suited as a certified internal auditor, review a company global risk and control management and improving its financial reliability, compliance with regulation and overall effectiveness.If you are looking for a job, remember the Big Four (accounting firms): Ernst Young, Deloitte Touche, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Combined those four firms audit more than 96% of the 350 biggest British companies and employ more than one million people.Counting money used to be the main occupation of accountants but this has been replaced by consultancy.In any case, accounting might have changed from a simple bookkeeping role a century ago to a multi-national corporation valuation auditing effort today; it remains a pivotal profession to the world of business.