I'm studying accounting at uni. I was wondering what is the difference between working as an accountant vs studying, because i know that studying is alot harder and stressful like writting essays, assignments and exams.. but is working as an accountant in reality alot easier and is the job very repetitve??
Job as an accountant vs studying (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter honsaw
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Azamakumar
bannèd
lol
Working is definitely harder than studying. The rest really depends on where you want to work.
seremify007
Junior Member
Well it depends what area of accounting you work in. What stage are you at in your university studies?
For what it's worth, I hated studying accounting at uni and just didn't get it- but in practice, I (think I) am quite good working in the audit practice of a large accounting firm. You need to have some appreciation of the stuff in accounting 101 because otherwise how are you going to be able to do the much higher level stuff.
Keep in mind that most people doing university studies go onto become professional accountants as opposed to book keepers. For example, someone with a TAFE background would be responsible for calculating depreciaton or posting entries into the system to recognise a new asset being purchased. They may be asked to extract data from the general ledger and to reconcile between two different listings of accounts to ensure that each transaction is matched off.
In contrast, someone with a university background could be asked to consider whether or not an item meets the relevant recognition criteria to be capitalised (or expensed), and if it is to be capitalised, under what asset class should it be capitalised under? Furthermore they may also need to consider disclosure issues as to how it should be classified in the financial statements or disclosed. They wouldn't be responsible for performing the reconciliation of each item, but rather, they'd look to understand and investigate the implications where things did not reconcile or agree.
This is a very basic high level example of what the differences could be, and obviously there's much more to it than that (it depends what role in accounting you have- whether it be financial reporting, auditing, management accounting/decision support, consultancy, etc).
seremify007
Junior Member
Depends what kind of accountant you are. If all you do is type stuff into a computer then that's neither skillful nor creative. That's the stereotype of an accountant.
If you're doing something where you add value in some form whether it's through helping make strategic decisions, improving communication with funding sources or the markets, identifying ways to save money or meet regulatory requirements, offer new ways of interpreting the laws, etc... then that's a different story.
seremify007
Junior Member
An accounting role is a yes (e.g. accounts clerk, book keeper, accounts payable officer, etc), but you'll need either a university degree of some sort (whether in accounting or not- depends on the firm and the job) to get a professional or graduate accounting role (the ones more commonly discussed on BoS in the university forums). Typically the requirement also involves or leads to the completion of the professional/post-grad qualification (e.g. CPA, CA).
Yes but different employers place different weightings on it. A lot of professional services firms for example look at an individual/candidate on the whole and how suitable they are for the role. Marks aren't everything but you need to still have decent academics given that a lot of graduate roles typically involve learning/developing and balancing work with studies.
it can be, along with many other jobs
james_blocker
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Studying accounting and working as an accountant are certainly different. You will be applying all that you have learnt in real life. And most organizations have on-the-job training as well. As for the job being repetitive, it’s all about whether you like you work or not! A good option for you would be to get in touch with an accountant and see for yourself how accounting is as a career option.
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seremify007
Junior Member
Interesting first post! Can't tell if you're being genuine or not... but interesting nonetheless.