The Profession
Career opportunities
The opportunities to train as an ACA chartered accountant are wide ranging. Training is not restricted to working in public practice (a firm of chartered accountants), you can train and work in all business sectors.
There are a variety of environments and specialist areas in which ACA trainees can begin their careers. Recruiters will look for evidence that you have at least researched the sectors and business areas you are interested in and thought about your possible career progression once you have qualified. Even if you change your mind as you go through your training, some idea of the areas of business that interest you will reflect well in interview sessions and show that you have considered your options.
You can train in any business sector; public practice, industry and commerce and the public sector.
Public practice
ACAs train and work, after qualifying, in public practice, also known as professional services. These are accountancy firms that offer fee-paying clients services ranging from audit and tax to management consultancy and forensic accounting.
There are three broad categories of firms, the large international firms, medium-sized firms and small firms. The breadth of experience that you are likely to gain within these accountancy firms will vary according to the size of the training organisation, its client base and the services that it provides.
Large international firms
The large international firms, comprising the ‘Big Four,’ provide a full range of professional services to clients including the FTSE 100 companies and major multinationals from all sectors. With offices in London, throughout the UK and around the world, they often have hundreds of ACA trainees at any one time. In these types of firms you can often choose to specialise in specific areas such as audit and advisory, tax, or corporate finance.
Medium-sized firms
Medium-sized firms can vary substantially in terms of numbers of partners, offices and employees. They tend to be firms with a national network of offices with international representation and clients, as well as large regional practices. Client lists are enviable and varied and can be made up of anything from independent businesses to household name companies in all sectors.
Small firms
The smaller firms of chartered accountants provide an all-round service to their clients. The type of clients they will advise range from owner-managed businesses to trade partnerships and private individuals. Smaller firms tend to favour a one-to-one approach, dealing with small businesses and private clients on a personal basis.
The principal career opportunities within public practice are:
a) General practice
In a smaller firm, trainee chartered accountants work as part of a team, dealing with all aspects of client matters, including taking year end audits, accounts preparation and tax work as well as assisting clients during the year with financial queries and advice. Your knowledge will therefore be spread over a number of technical areas and you will be expected to deal with all aspects of a client’s business affairs. You are likely to achieve responsibility and increased client contact at an early stage in your training and will therefore gain an excellent understanding of how businesses operate. The opportunity to get closely involved with clients is an appealing feature of practice work.
b) Audit
In larger firms trainees will often begin their career within the audit department. Audit is generally the core activity in wider ‘assurance and advisory work’ undertaken by firms of accountants. An audit can be described as an independent check as to whether an organisation’s financial statements are a true and fair reflection of the financial condition of that organisation.
An audit is normally conducted at a client’s premises by a team of auditors who will be at different stages in their professional training. A partner and/or senior manager will oversee the team. Typical activities that auditors will carry out include risk analysis; getting to know the client’s business; building relationships with the client and checking the items that appear in the financial statements. A significant part of the checking process involves reviewing the organisation’s systems to assess whether there are sufficient relevant controls in place to ensure that the accounting process operates correctly. In this respect auditors are adding value to a client. As a result of their audit work they will make suggestions about how the business could improve its controls and business processes: this may involve recommending other services that the firm could offer.
c) Taxation
There are two main areas of taxation work:
Tax compliance, which involves completing and submitting tax returns for both individuals and companies.
Tax advisory and planning, which involves analysing and recommending changes in how individuals and companies structure their finances so as to minimise their tax payments within the framework of legislation.
Both areas of taxation are very much linked and require an ongoing relationship with clients. From the point of view of somebody working in tax this usually means more regular working hours and more office based work than for the equivalent person working on audits.
d) Corporate finance
Accountants working in this field are mostly involved in the merger and acquisition of companies; assessing the financial health of the target company in order to calculate the value of the company for a potential merger or takeover.
e) Business recovery and insolvency
From time to time a business may encounter problems; for example it may find itself short of capital or it may need to reorganise its operations in order to improve cash flow. In some cases a business recovery expert may be able to step in and help steer the business through its difficulties and back towards a successful future, whereas in other situations an insolvency expert may have to guide the business through the insolvency or winding-up process, selling off the business’s assets and paying creditors. Both areas of work involve high levels of diplomacy and robustness and a good level of legal and commercial understanding.
f) Environmental auditing
This is a growth area for the accounting profession, as it becomes increasingly important for organisations to take more notice of their impact on the environment. Environmental auditing examines how companies can avoid wastage and looks at the costs of setting up environmental controls, such as recycling paper and minimising electricity wastage.
g) Forensic accounting
This is the detection and prevention of fraud. Forensic accountants deal with civil, criminal and insurance matters. They use their accounting, information technology and investigation skills to search for evidence of criminal conduct in order to help lawyers, insurance companies and other clients resolve legal and technical disputes.
h) Management consultancy
In addition to advising on financial matters, accountants can often be called upon to advise clients on diverse areas ranging from IT to human resources, strategic planning and marketing.
Increasingly, accountants are developing new areas of expertise and many firms now compete with other financial institutions, such as banks, building societies and insurance companies in providing financial advice within many other specialist areas.
Industry and commerce
Commercial organisations offering ACA training contracts cover the full spectrum of market sectors, from financial services through manufacturing to the service industries. With this kind of diversity on offer, you can be sure of finding your ideal environment, whether you have already decided what you want to do, or want to keep your options open.
Specific roles within industry and commerce include:
Financial controller
Has overall responsibility for the day to day running of a division or the whole company or group.
Management accountant
Management accounting is concerned with the provision of accounting information to management within a business. Accountants produce regular and specially requested reports to help managers monitor current performance and plan future activities.
Financial analyst
Working on specific, one-off projects, for example analysing the costs and projected benefits of an expansion or a new product and producing a report for management.
Corporate treasury
Managing the cash resources of a company, devising the strategy to maximise the return on cash assets.
Tax accountant
In addition to producing the company’s tax computations, the tax accountant will be involved in planning how best to minimise the overall tax bill.
Although there are increasingly more opportunities to train within industry and commerce, the majority of trainees complete their training within practice and then go on to consider options within industry and commerce after qualification. In fact, over half of chartered accountants go on to work in business once they have qualified.
Public sector
Accountants are employed throughout the public sector, including local and national government and the health service. There are a growing number of financial management training opportunities in public sector bodies such as the NHS and National Audit Office. It is an environment where you will quickly develop commercial and decision-making skills as you allocate and monitor resources – in the process, helping to see that they’re efficiently and effectively employed to give value for money.
As well as training and working directly in the public sector, there are many opportunities with the professional services firms to work within specialist public services practices, advising client organisations in the public sector.
In finance departments within public sector organisations, there are many roles available similar to those on offer in practice, including; audit, research, finance officer, tax specialists and many more.
Many graduates look towards the public sector to develop their career because they feel the sector provides the opportunity for work/life balance and the chance to do something worthwhile and give something back to society.
Every organisation must adhere to the Institute’s high standards
The Institute maintains close links with all its authorised training organisations to make sure you get all the support and variety you need during your training. So regardless of the training environment and the size of organisation with which you train, you can be confident of receiving the same standard of training and support that your counterparts will be receiving in any other organisation authorised by the ICAEW, because every organisation must adhere to the Institute’s high standards.
An important point to emphasise is that there is flexibility. Whatever size or type of organisation you choose to train with, your career opportunities are endless; the ACA qualification opens doors to all business sectors.
Once qualified you will not be limited in your opportunities to gain exposure to larger companies or experience within a specific sector. It’s really up to you to decide what type of environment and area will suit you best!
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