How Accounting is a Successful Career Choice in USA?

Accounting Career Choice
Post in Accounts

Are you ready to go abroad for your higher studies? Planning to choose ‘Accounting’ as the subject for your further studies – Great! In today’s world corporate scenario, there are endless opportunities present in this particular field that, too, with high growth prospects. Deciding upon this subject for higher studies in your Graduation or Under-graduation can give a little toss in the start.

Don’t worry much as we are here to guide you in the process.

What is Accounting?

According to Smith and Ashburne, “accounting is the art of recording, classifying and summarising in a significant manner and in terms of money, transactions and events, which are, in part at least, of a financial character and interpreting the result thereof”.

It is an exact and comprehensive way of recording all incurring financial transactions of a business. Accounting looks particularly into summarising large-scale company’s work operations. It further focuses on drafting upon various financial statements and thereby, analysing the cash flows to know the financial position of the business.

Any business or rated organisations with high turnovers need a base of accounting. These recognised accounting principles and procedures help the business to thrive in the market on a long-run basis.

Why is ‘Accounting’ so much in demandfor leading Businesses?

Now, after having a brief idea upon what accounting means and a few its workings for organisations.

Here you will be further learning on all significant points of accounting as it is one of the appealing subjects to shape your career on.

Accounting is an essential part that helps any business firm with many growth opportunities in this highly competitive corporate market. The leading companies all around the world hire qualified accounting professionals who handle all their financial proceedings. These people analyse each monetary segment of these firms and help them in achieving profitable outcomes later.

Some of the points which highlight the importance of accounting in today’s business culture are as follows:

  1. Accounting helps organisations to have a systematic record of all their monetary transactions.
  2. The results of all business operations during an accounting period in terms of profit and loss are ascertained.
  3. Various financial statements prepared along with the balance sheet to assess the financial position of the firm
  4. Later, all of this information is combined and communicated to companies, essential stakeholders.
  5. All the significant decisions are taken on the basis of these accounting data maintained with appropriate figures.

All the accounting data and facts are prepared as per GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) which is accepted by the U.S. Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) and The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB).

GAAP is a common set of standard policies and procedures which are must to follow while preparation of any financial statements for businesses. These prior developed authoritative terms help to improve the clarity in all communicable points of financial information.

Accounting is way broader field than it looks- you can choose your area of specialisation quickly based upon your interests as in:

  • Financial Accounting:

This segment of accounting deals in summarising all financial statements as in trading, profit &loss statements, balance sheet and last but not the least cash flows. These statements are crucial in terms of assessing the financial position of a firm. It is done on the basis of two methods – cash accounting and accrual accounting.

  • Taxation Accounting:

It is one of the most challenging fields in accounting. Tax accounting refers mostly to providing tax planning advisory, taxation and money-saving concepts. Proper tax regulations save the firm from legal proceedings. Here, the tax income statement is prepared based on two terms – revenue and expenses.

  • Business Accounting:

It mainly deals with the base of all accounting policies and proceedings in any business venture. Business accounting guides in keeping track of all business operations and its finances with high accuracy measures. It further helps the board persons take essential decisions for better organisational growth.

  • Management Accounting:

It is also most known as managerial accounting or cost accounting. It focuses on recording every business costs for ongoing operations. Then, it looks after the maintenance of accounts and preparation of internal reports for company finances, which are required while taking significant decisions.

  • Auditing:

An audit is a part of accounting which deals with examining all the accounting and financial records prepared by the company’s accounting professionals. In this, auditing people look after that if all the organisations comply with the set rules of accounting standards. Proper auditing measures can save your firm from strict government investigative procedures. There are three different types of audits done – Process, Product and System.

  • Forensic Accounting:

It is a form of accounting deals with investigating crimes as in monetary frauds, embezzlement and presents their expert testimonials in court trials. They are mainly known as forensic or investigative accountants, fraud auditors.

Incorporating accounting methodologies in current business:

Every business firm nowadays believes in having an entire accounting system in place. Because these business-minded people know that hiring certified accounting professionals will save their entities from many legal proceedings further. So, have a look upon five such prospecting benefits accounts offer open-handedly:

  • Constructing and controlling budgets:

Budget is the main thing in any operational firm to carry out each of the activities smoothly throughout the year. Then, creating and allotting budget to each department for easy-going of all works. Accounting helps in setting a budget and analysing all the points of business that are involved in cash inflows and cash outflows.

  • Measuring the revenues:

Accounting leads your business firm is forecasting revenue prospects in the upcoming future and be ready to tap those deals in advance. These forecasts help in monetising business opportunities in this highly competitive market scenario.

  • Major operational decisions:

For continuing business operations smoothly, they need to take some big purchase or production decisions. These involve various activities like purchase or sale of company assets or goods. Accounting professionals help you make these significant decisions.

  • Tracking all expenditures:

A firm tends to incur much expenditure over an accounting period for running of their business without any shortages in between. So, accounting helps in tracking and maintaining a record of those expenses for the company’s benefit.

  • Analysing financial position:

Accounting also helps in monitoring the company’s liquidity positions. It plays a vital role in the long run of any business entity in this world. It is necessary to have a healthy financial position for experiencing growth.

Can also learn about Modern Accounting:

Accounting sounds easy to do but tracking and maintaining all such transactional records, handling accounts, and preparing reports of the same is not at all easy.

Apart from having so many benefits aligned with the accounting system and maintenance of it, some way or the other business entities lack behind in many terms. These are some hard to tackle procedures of accounting systems such as payroll management, taxation requirements, cash flow management, unforeseen expenses and more.

The manual or traditional type accounting is time-consuming as well. It aims to give accurate results, but it also has a drawback of loss of company records.

In sync with all the urban frame businesses and their prospective operational requirements, these modern accounting softwares are introduced. Depending upon your business needs, types, niche areas, size, products and services, you can choose the software which is best suitable for the firm.

Without going into much detailed account on it these are some of the softwares, which are technologically advance inform and provide relevant results to the company as promised are as follows:

  • FreshBooks
  • Sage 50cloud
  • NetSuite ERP
  • QuickBooks Enterprise
  • Zoho Books

Learning about these extra and completely functional modern accounting softwares can rank your eligibility a level high.

Top 5 Accounting Schools in USA:

Every student who wants to go abroad for accounting related studies can look after this list of top best accounting school that offer professional degrees for under-graduate and post-graduate students.

  1. University of Texas – Austin

The McCombs School at the University of Texas offers one of the top-ranked undergraduate course and Master of Accounting within an integrated five-year curriculum. The McCombs School rated No.1 by US News and World Reports.

  • Brigham Young University (BYU)

It is one of the nationwide recognised universities, and in its Mariott School of Accountancy they offer both undergraduate and Master programs along with PhD in Accounting. It has 100% placement rates with its highly effective teaching methods. 

  • University of IIIinois

This university offers top-rated four year Bachelor course in Accountancy. Along with that it also has Masters and PhD in Accounting Science and Taxation in its Champaign College of Business. It has excellent facilities as well as abroad trips included in these courses available for all students.

  • University of Pennsylvania

It offers accounting programs in its Wharton School of Business which is considered as one of the most prestigious among all. It has undergraduate programs for accounting which includes studies related its types, tax, auditing and more.

It conducts world highly ranked CPA exam for its Masters of Business Administration in accounting with first-rated research equipped facilities. 

  • University of Southern California

It provides certification courses on Accounting for undergraduate level students in its Leventhal School of Accounting. Along with that, it also offers Masters in Accounting, Business Taxation with it’s on course research and international business practices.

So, these are some of the top-rated Universities in the USA, which will further help in shaping your future in the most demanded field of Accounting.

These worlds recognised Universities train the students for jobs present worldwide. Each of their programs includes effective teaching processes and research properties in all majors of accounting as in:

  • Accounting and reporting
  • Auditing
  • Governance Insights
  • Regulations
  • Strategy and operations
  • Tax

Job Security in Accounting:

The jobs in this particular field are in demands always, as maintaining and regulating upon accounting policies and procedures is crucial for each business in power.

Businesses hire qualified accounting personnel to have all the financial requirements in the correct place. Accountants are highly in demand for business consulting, auditing, preparing all necessary cost sheets, solving the economic problems and many more.

The USA has a way more high-level taxation codes and filing procedures for which organisation finds it easy to hire accountants. These accounting people help the entities with planning up for budget, coming up with control measures, and further making monetary decisions.

So, the level of job security is high here, as business associations need trustworthy people to account them with all the monetary works and further documentation processes.

Be motivated and get along!

Final Thoughts:

Accounting is a very detailed subject but not to forget an important one for every business entity in the market. The growing business associations need to follow each standardised measures by GAAP. It also has six major categorisations to choose from as per the student’s area of interest.

There are so many points which excellently show the significance of Accounting in today’s corporate world. To have in sync with modern business requirements, people came with advanced accounting solutions with the help of computer software.

Students who want to have their flourishing career in the field of accounting can go for the top-ranked Universities with all necessary amenities provided. After completing your respective Degrees, you get placed in the jobs which are secured and are also within the best salary range.

Accounting is a subject, which has a never-ending scope for its upcoming professionals like you. So, if you are in thoughts of pursuing this as a career choice, then, be with no worries as it will lead you to success for sure.

Author Bio:

Eoforhild Heathe has completed MBA specialising in Accounting and Business taxation from the University of Michigan, USA. He currently is working with a well-known American Auditing Firm as a senior auditing executive. He has have been working for the last five years now.

I am available to help out students pursuing varied courses of Accountancy and its areas as in financing, taxation and others.