 Alright, what's happening guys? It's Shane again and today we are going to be doing our first ever interview on the channel. Today we are going to be interviewing an accountant. His name is Bill and I'm going to go ahead and let Bill introduce himself right now. Yeah, thanks Shane. So this is the first interview for yourself to do on your channel as well as for me. This is the first interview that I ever do and I'm just very glad and happy to be here with you. You know, share my experience being an accountant over the last 15 years. You know, and I'm just happy to give a quick background of myself first to your audience. So my name is Bill Hanna. I'm a licensed CPA and I have a career that spans 15 years in accounting that started out in audit with PricewaterhouseCoopers. Many of the audience who are into finance or accounting will be familiar with the big four accounting firms and PwC is one of them. And then I transitioned out from public accounting with PwC into a private industry where I worked in a variety of industries and roles ranging from financial analysts and then working my way up the ladder to a corporate controller, which is what I do today. So it's a typical sort of in the accounting industry is a typical career path, which is what I took, which is starting out in public, learning the ropes of audit and audit programs and working with publicly traded clients and then from there you go and work in private industry. So that's a typical path. So the industries that I specialize in as an accountant, I worked in manufacturing and then I worked in services and I also worked in software or tech, which is what I do now. I work as a controller for a tech company in New York City. And yeah, so this is just like a big like a kind of a background and overview. And yeah, so beside that, I, you know, just on myself, I just I live in New Jersey, so I'm in the East Coast, you know, live with my wife was also an accountant and three kids. So yeah, just a quick overview. Awesome. Okay. Well, thank you for joining us again today, Bill. So I just wanted to ask you some of these questions might be a little redundant because you probably just answered them. But can you just give me a quick background on your education? So what degree specifically did you get? So I have a bachelor's degree in accounting from the City University of New York. So those of you who are watching who live in New York or in the metro, the three state tri-state metropolitan area will know that sort of an affordable option for college or university is the City University of New York or referred to as CUNY. So I went to Queens College, which is one of the colleges within that system and studied accounting bachelor's degree in accounting. Got it. Yeah. So those can be some very expensive colleges there in New York. I've talked about those a few times on the channel. So you went straight into like a big university, didn't go to community college first or anything like that? No, yeah, just straight up to, you know, a four-year college. You know, some of the, it's funny because like some of the colleagues have had, you know, along my career have gone to, you know, for example, like a PWC, which is the public accounting framework that I've had colleagues who went to Villanova and went to like more expensive colleges. And we used to joke that we, like we end up just all working in the same group and making the same salary, even though I spent like maybe 10% of what they spent on the degree. This is a, you know, could be a topic for a whole video by itself, just talking like, you know, kind of ROI or cost-benefit of going to an expensive college versus just like, you know, an affordable state university, which is what I chose to do and kind of like did my best there and got like really high grades, which I guess we'll get to at some point during the interview, you know, and invested more in that. You know, so at the end, the outcome was very similar to some of the more expensive colleges. So it's very interesting to see that dynamic. Right, right. That's one thing that I found is when you talk to, you know, different careers, for some of them, the college that you go to does matter. And then for some of them, it absolutely does not matter at all. Like it really doesn't matter. And then some of them, it's kind of a little in between. So you don't want to go to like an online, you know, for-profit type of university, but at the same time, you don't have to go to, you know, an Ivy League university. So yeah, I've always found that very interesting. And that's why I always recommend everybody on the channel that you talk to somebody who is in the career that you are trying to go for or who has been in that career or at the very least talk to somebody who's hiring for that career. What role did you expect to be at now versus reality? So what role did you expect to be at in 15 years versus what happened in reality? Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I think that the, it's funny because when it comes to that, like, what do you expect to be in life in general? It's similar to like my picture for my whole life in general. Like when I was a kid, I had, you know, different ideas of what I wanted to be, what I wanted to become, would it be a doctor, an engineer, whatever the case may be. I went into college and, you know, this is full disclosure. When I went to college, I didn't have an idea on my head that I wanted to be an accountant, right? So I didn't choose the major right up front. I took the elective courses and some of the introductory courses in college and then I chose accounting from a host of other choices available to me. But the short answer to your question in terms of where I, when I started out accounting, where I thought I would be after 15 years, I honestly thought I would be one of two things, either a chief financial officer of a company or a partner at an accounting firm. So these are the two options that I thought are, you know, most available to accountants, you know, chief financial officer or partner at an accounting firm. Now the reality is I could, I realized that I could pursue either one. I could pursue becoming a CFO and I still can and I'm actually, I am at some level pursuing becoming a CFO. However, I also look at the level of, you know, work-life balance, stress level of work versus reward. So you kind of have to look at the reward versus stress. So for me looking at a CFO's position right now with young children, I have to do the calculation of like how much will work or how much time I have to dedicate to my role versus how much time I need to spend, you know, nurturing my kids and family and taking care of them. So being a corporate controller then became the happy medium where, you know, it's sort of an executive role of the company but not the top executive when it comes to finance. So the top executive is going to be the CFO. The controller is going to be sort of that secondary level or second layer of executive power in the company when it comes to finance. And so that was like a happy medium for me. So yeah, the expectation was more of a CFO role in 15 years and happened to land right now at a corporate controller position. Awesome, yeah. And I know there's a ton of opportunity in FinTech, you know, huge, huge industry there expanding, you know, at lightning speed right now, maybe one of the best industries you could possibly be in. And yeah, that's a great point on work-life balance. Another thing I talk about quite a bit on my channel, not all about the money. In fact, after a certain point, usually for most people, the money is not going to make you any more happy. Now, of course, you know, living there in New York, it's a little more expensive, so might need a little more than average. But yeah, that's one point I always like to point out to my audience for sure. Yep, yep, there is. Even I think I read somewhere that there's a law of diminishing return after a certain level of like reaching a certain annual salary. And I think the number was $75,000 a year or something like that, where you reached that sort of the happiest point in like fulfilling all of your sort of like your essential needs. And then as you get, you know, get up from there and climb the ladder from there, you're adding more sort of stress and work your life and, you know, getting more money, of course, but it's sort of have to kind of, you know, walk this tight throw and like make sure you're like balancing the two. You know, so that's the question I think that you're always going to be asking yourself as you progress in your career. Got it. So what skills within accounting are in hot demand right now? What are some of the best skills you can possibly learn? Yeah, that's a great question. So, you know, when we're looking at that, I think the best way to look at this is like when I look at a candidate's resume right now when I'm hiring on my team, what do I look for as a controller? So what kind of accounting accountant I'm looking for? So the two major sort of scale group of skill sets that I look for is going to be the financial systems and the knowledge of financial systems sort of tying technology and finance together. Right. And we can get into that in more detail. And then the second group is going to be someone who's able to interpret the guidance like the sort of the accounting standards, like, you know, learning the pronouncement that are coming out of the accounting bodies and interpreting them and making sure that the company is following the right standards when it comes to accounting, disclosure, financial statements, presentation and all that. So we can get into the each one in more detail. But, you know, to me, like even more important than the technical accounting side is the financial system side. So someone who's able to automate things and now this is becoming like the keyword and the buzzword when it comes to accounting is, you know, using lists of the, you know, the manpower when it comes to like crunching the numbers and, you know, giving things out and using more of, we refer to them now as bots. These are like the robots or the robotics and the systems that talk to each other and transfer numbers from one place to another, eliminating the human error and also speeding up the process and it's a cost reduction when you rely on systems more than humans. So these are the skill sets that are like in hot demand right now when it comes to accounting. Got it. So correct me if I, you know, say anything wrong here but learning something like some computer programming, Python, maybe SQL, something along those lines would be extremely valuable. And then also just learning how to kind of streamline and automate processes in general seems to be very valuable right now. Is that what you were saying towards the end? Yep, yeah, exactly. So, you know, learning programming is, you know, obviously 10 or 20 years ago when you talked about accounting that was unheard of, right? But now when you find a finance person who's also like a programmer or knows one of those languages is like a really killer combo right now. But like for your audience, like even at a more basic level, right, even if we're not going the route of like learning Python or any other language like that, at a basic level, make sure like whatever position you work at, you're learning the financial system that they're using. So if they're using an ERP software like SAP or NetSuite, get into that and like really understand how they're implementing all of that, the processes of the companies within the ERP says software, right? The more you know of how the implementation of that software works, the more you'll know how to troubleshoot it and the more frankly you'll know how to implement it in the next gig, right? So if I'm hiring you to work on my team, you're going to be much more valuable if you know that in the ins and outs and the mechanics of how NetSuite or one of those systems work. And then you know further down, if you you know unpeel it further, you look at like other systems that you know complement ERP software, it's going to be like the Expensify and these are like the expense management software, you know CARDA is a host of systems now that are built outside of ERP software that complement all of the accounting processes. So learning you know what can be done with these software at a basic level is important but then on top of that if you learn how to troubleshoot them and implement them it's money. This is like this your sort of you know hugely valuable when it comes to you know the market worth of what you can command as a salary. So yeah so I would put a huge emphasis on financial systems for sure. Got it. Okay so for someone who is just about to graduate with an accounting degree could you kind of just break down maybe some of the main areas of work that they would be looking into right after graduation? So you know the thing about working right after graduation so what you'll be doing isn't necessarily what are you going to be doing for the rest of your life right so I don't want someone to stress to stress out on thinking you know for the first couple of years after graduation you'll be doing you know mainly mundane work when it comes to accounting and you should expect that right you'll be you'll be you know sort of the lowest point in the chain in the team in terms of accounting and you'll be doing sort of the data entry you know basic coding of transactions in the system or taking and tying at a member like my auditing days you give you a huge binder and you and you're just sitting all day confirming the stock holding of this huge corporation with their custodian with their stock broker. So there's a lot of unglamorous work to be done at the beginning but that's sort of the groundwork that you're you're putting in you're layering in these hours you're putting in these hours up front so you can learn sort of the ropes and learn the learn the the language and you know the accounting the actual meat and potatoes of accounting and then you'll be able to progress from there and do much more let's call a sexier type of work when it comes to accounting right so whenever when you're graduating from from school you'll be either working and there are two major areas that you're going to be working in when you graduate when with an accounting degree it's either going to be on the revenue side of the business or it's going to be on the expenditure or the treasury side of the business these are like the sort of the two and you can think of it as looking at an income statement there's two major buckets you know revenues and expenses so you're going to be in either one of these two sides so if you start out on the revenue side you're going to be what's what we refer to as a billing analyst or an accounts receivable analysts so your job is going to be in a you know to summarize it is going to be issuing the invoices to customers you're going to be calculating issuing invoices following up with the customers making sure they got the invoices they paid on time and everything else that goes along with that which is you know as you progress in that in that role you'll be doing other things that has to do more with the technical accounting side of things especially around revenue recognition so that's from the revenue side if you start out in the expenditure side and you can start out in either one there is not one that's better than the other you need to learn both ultimately so that you can become a more rounded professional and accounting if you start out on the treasury side and this is where the company spends money you'll be then processing the invoices that come from vendors you know reviewing them for errors you know putting them entering them in the system making sure that whatever you're entering in the system then is translating into going into the right line item on the balance sheet or the income statements and that kind of thing and then as you then progress from that you'll get into a third group of accountants of the company which is the financial reporting right so once you have sort of worked and mastered the billing and the revenue side and then worked in the expenditure and the treasury side you then are ready to sort of work in financial reporting where now you're familiar with other mechanics of the AP and AR and then you're now ready for financial reporting and this is that's when you start getting paid higher salary and you you begin to do more strategic stuff and so yeah this is the expectation that you should have if you get into accounting quite a lot of college got it so i know that especially when it comes to accounting certifications are extremely important so what would you say are the most important certifications are the ones that have the most impact yeah so you know this one is you know a lot of your viewers will know like for accountants you know CPA or certified public accountant it's going to be like the gold standard in terms of you know knowledge experience um and quite honestly stamina because you know to become a CPA i think it's referred to as probably the second most difficult exam sort of nationwide exam i believe the number one is either the bar or the extrovertial exam one of the two i forget um but it's a it's a there's a few requirements that are required needed for to become a CPA so first you need to have a four-year degree in accounting um you need to have an experience working under a CPA for a year or two depending on your jurisdiction and then you need to set for and pass a four-part exam so um you know i i remember you know passing my exam like maybe five or six years into my career um and just to give you like an quick idea of like the impact that i had on my career um there's like an immediate raise that that i got that was like 10% maybe um and then followed by the next role that i went to i was able to command a much higher uh number in terms of salary because of the certification um and that's simply because you're perceived as someone who's have you know the experience and the knowledge to set for the exam and then to be able to to pass the exam itself um you need to have a certain you know threshold it's i guess it's a threshold of knowledge if you if you pass the exam you you you're required to know um a lot about accounting or the thing economics and finance uh the other certification that's becoming very popular is CMA or certified management accountants um it's also becoming an sort of getting equal to what a CPA can do or can would know um except CMA is a little bit different because it has a lot of emphasis on manufacturing and cost accounting um and you'll see increasingly a lot of controllers having CMAs now versus CPAs uh i'd say the distinction is that when when you get your CPA it opens the door for you to work in publicly traded companies as a controller um versus CMA so uh usually if you look at the profile on linkedin of like publicly traded companies controllers you'll find uh that they are for the most part nine to the 295 percent are CPAs and so i highly recommend uh getting a CPA certification for anyone who's getting into accounting got it awesome so uh the next set of questions is probably going to be a little bit redundant as well so if you already you know answered this or if it's pretty obvious which i think this first one in this particular case is going to be pretty obvious uh then just you know just say so but there are some degrees where there's like a lot of different careers you can go into and then there's some careers where there's a lot of different degrees uh that you can get in order to go into that career so it doesn't matter as much but what degree or education would you recommend getting in order to become an accountant i know the most obvious answer is going to be to work to get a you know an accounting degree to work as an accountant but beyond that um just because of the uh flexibility within finance right now um you see a lot of movement for people who work in accounting um and finance and these are sort of like two distinct areas of of working within finance uh there is the accountant uh and then there is the financial analyst right and so for my experience uh getting a degree uh or a major in accounting has been um more beneficial to someone who wants to become even a financial analyst and getting a degree in finance uh and the reason is and it's counter intuitive because if you work if you want to be a financial analyst uh your first intuition is to get a degree in finance but what i found is a lot of accounting professionals who have an accounting degree and work in accounting for many years have built such a huge knowledge um a deep knowledge of what the general ledger is what the financial statement is the mechanics of the financial statements at a much deeper level than someone who have a finance degree um and so it gives you a more of an edge uh to know sort of all the mechanics that behind the numbers on the financial statements uh and how the financial statements are even put together and uh the accounting the technical accounting guidance behind the numbers for you to be able to then create forecasts budgets and all the things that you know financial analysts do um and so my recommendation to someone who's still at a point on time where they can choose what degree to pursue uh is to always uh choose accounting over other related business measures um i am a little bit biased because this has been my experience but also um i have this sort of insight into you know all kind of candidates i'd like to hire to work for me even within financial analyst positions i'm always looking for someone with an accounting degree and an accounting background over other business measures uh so accounting degree uh is is in my opinion is the sort of you get the most value out of it um both in accounting career and in finance career in general got it okay that's some great insight great insight for the audience um so what actually matters when it comes to getting your very first job out of college because i know that first job that's the toughest one you know you got to get your foot in the door get a little bit of experience it's that whole catch 22 situation of you need two years of experience to get the job but in order to get two years of experience you have to get a job so uh what advice do you have to someone in terms of the most important things for getting that first job in terms of internships grades work experience uh projects volunteering skills etc yeah that's a great question so um i think that the most obvious thing that comes to mind is going to be grades um and so getting good grades you know i i think that obviously everybody who's going to college for the most part everyone is trying to get the best grades that they can um and i'll say as a hiring manager that grades are hugely important for those who are still coming out of college you know later on in your life as you progress in your career and you have a few you know years of experience you know under your belt it's going to matter less and less um but for the first job and the second job perhaps um your grades are going to matter hugely and so um i really advise everyone to put a lot of effort into getting the best grades um and getting you know a great point average that's uh something that you feel proud of when you put new resume right uh a lot of times if you're not proud of it you will leave it off your resume and i get it but uh i advise you to get it high enough that you want to put it out there and showcase it and then secondly um i think that joining um you know clubs and societies in school can get you uh in a position where you can get an internship or an entry level role much much faster and the story with that i'll tell you is that in my fourth year of college um you know both me and my wife were studying to be accountants she was part of the the i forget the name of the club but it has to do with the latino latino accountants or aspiring latino accountants and so she was invited um both of us were good students for the most part had really good gpa's um she was invited to interview with you know a couple of big accounting firms earners and young pwc and a third one i forget which one i on the other hand was wasn't part of any of these clubs and i didn't get invited to any of these events so you can see right there and i might my my grades were better than hers but i wasn't invited to any of it because i wasn't part of these clubs um what i did instead is um when they had an event in the school in the campus of the school i just walked in and sort of like introduced myself even though i wasn't even invited um and it's a funny story that's how i actually got my first job of pwc um but this shows you the importance of joining clubs and societies in college uh it may be you know extra work that you may not feel like doing um but it's really important just getting that first job uh where you learn you know get a good foundation in accounting and so i guess we talked about you know great the importance of grades um joining clubs and societies and also uh you know related to clubs joining clubs and societies is networking in general like i've you know i've known people who've gotten their first entry jobs or internships through their professors in college um so just keeping you know your relation good relationship with your professor uh networking with your cup with your classmates um sometimes you you just hear of new opportunities um so it's at the end of the day when it comes to getting your first job it's going to be about your grades and who you know um so networking whether it's offline like on campus or um through you know online or like a LinkedIn um it's it's really important so grades um societies clubs and societies and uh networking these are really important got it um kind of expanding upon that what you just said i am a little bit surprised what you just said a lot of the time uh you know i talked to different professionals and they'll tell me that their grades actually didn't matter like they wasted a lot of time doing their grades um and uh it's it's interesting to hear that so that's a really great insight for the audience um i would like you this is going to be a little bit difficult sorry about this but i would like you to rank from order of least uh actually most important to least important um grades clubs leadership positions internships work experience networking skills uh projects and then the school that you actually go to uh from from most important to least important in terms of getting your first job so specifically for getting your first job out of college um listen i think it's a great question um but i'll tell you what this is like this is like the ingredients to a great meal right um yeah no it's it's cliche to say you need all of the above but um i'll say that you know any experience the thing is that the thing that is lacking when you are a college graduate is experience that's your problem right that you have no experience right you're looking for somebody to hire you but you have zero experience so i'll say out of all of these experience is key if you get some experience during college you'll try to get that uh so one of the things i've done when i went to college as i went to the careers office and i used to go and just sit there and flip through the pages where the that was you know back in the day now it's probably done online but like back then it was a actually an actual book so like the yellow book and you go through the job advertisements and apply to them get i got some work in accounting during college and that has proven to be hugely important when i went to apply for my first job right um so having some experience is really good um you know on top of that um so this is the most important out of all the things you mentioned um and then secondly i'll say grades um if i work my way backward and say the least important i'll say leadership positions and that's because simply when you're applying for your first job you're not expected to be a leader um so that's not hugely important i will put that at the bottom of the list um i'll focus more on grades and getting some experience um skills is going to be a byproduct of all of that so if you get some experience and you focus in your studying and becoming a good student you're going to acquire the skills it's going to it's going to be there and like we mentioned in the previous question you know joining clubs and societies it's just like a you know why wouldn't why wouldn't you do it it's going to help you uh so do it uh so yeah uh i say it's important to to kind of focus on all of these things and i you know tackle your grades and your skills and your experience um but i'll just put on top of the list experience and getting some experience during college uh whether it's an internship paid or not paid um and you know focus on getting good grades that's really important awesome okay so are there any pitfalls that people should know about going into accounting yeah so um you know one of the things that uh and this is something that you will you'll learn when you if you go to college and you take accounting classes um one of the pitfalls that i've seen people do is they get into accounting thinking that it's more like uh more like math like you know just you know adding sort of being a number monkey and like a being counter um it's really not it's it's it's way beyond that it's more of you know being able to read a pronouncement or a guidance um from one of the accounting the several accounting bodies and being able to see how that relates to the business that you're working in um it's becoming more and more of uh you know reading sort of legal or literature language that is issued for accounting and applying it to the business um or reading a contract that you you know you wrote with a customer or with a vendor and you know figuring out you know what could be the problems that could arise from this kind of contract or is it really good for the business or not so this is one of the things that steam people focus too much on the math side of things when it comes to accounting and while they just realize later on that it's more of a and a sort of a business this is more of a business major more than a math major uh the second thing i'd say when it comes to the pitfalls is the amount of stress um you know when you're working in accounting you know just comes with the territory you'll be issuing financial statements right and like you know who are the readers of financial statements you know these are investors and like these are like some of the most aggressive you know people out there right so um inevitably you'll end up with a level of stress right um it's not a you know unmanageable level of stress it's manageable uh compared to all the careers but some people are just surprised by that the amount of stress that you have especially if it's a publicly traded company right you there'll be a lot of pressure um you know however you know like i said it's manageable and and also you'll get paid for it you'll be rewarded for the level of stress that you you put into your work and it's seasonal so you're not you know sitting at the edge of your seat you know every single day right it's manageable and it's seasonal all right so i guess is the third you know one of the pitfalls that i've seen people um you know think or have a misconception about accounting um is something that they realized later on in their career uh were accounting it's not more it's not a glamorous sort of work um a lot of times when when you speak to a family or friends about what you do you know they just glaze over and just not really you know cared up much so and this is okay like this is something that i got i got accustomed to um it's not as sexy as working as an engineer or as working in an ER room as a doctor um so this is something that you need to know beforehand before you get into it it's not a negative um but it is what it is right it's it's the perception of society of what an accountant is um you know someone may not perceive your your what you do as as glamorous but it's okay you might be making twice as much as they make right it's fine but um it's it's it needs to be something that uh is addressed and understood by someone who's getting into accounting before the beginning their journey um and so just to summarize the pitfalls you know accounting is not mass um they're different to be to be a master of different of being an accounting the stress level is there but it's manageable uh and then finally uh it's it's it's not the glamorous sort of type of work that you can be sitting with a group of friends and discussing and people will be kind of glued to the conversation um it's not as sexy as that so uh just realize that before you get into it um yeah i would say this a little pitfalls of you know of accounting would you say that an accounting is a relatively flexible degree so what i mean by that is let's say you know an 18 year old who's about to go to college thinks they want to go into accounting because they want to become a controller for instance so that's their goal they want to become a controller and then a few you know a few years down the line they change their mind right they they they work a little bit and they're like okay i don't want to be a controller anymore would it be relatively easy for them to go in a different direction yeah and that's a great question so um the flexibility that exists within accounting uh it's it's there but it's the limited flexibility uh to the realm of finance right um so what i've seen you know the three major buckets uh i'd say in accounting is either taking sort of the controllership route um if you realize that that's not really what you want to do um and you realize you want to do more of the strategic finance you know more of like you know say you know planning out the future the the financial future of the company so that's more that's more on the sort of the fpna or financial planning and analysis so that's sort of the second bucket that you can easily transition to from a controller to fpna or financial planning and analysis and then the third bucket is going to be now what's becoming uh sort of you know an extremely lucrative and hot market which is financial systems so uh this is like we talked about earlier this is someone who can combine the know-how of programming the different the various financial platforms and software and how to tie this all together and make systems talk to each other and make things more efficient uh less prone to error um and faster and so yeah so the flexibility exists in transitioning between these three major buckets controllership or the accounting um and then you have the strategic finance or the fpna and then you have the financial systems this is the three buckets of work and then the other flexibility that exists and i've had colleagues in the past go to work for the government um so you know for example there is a you know popular program with the fbi in working as a special agent in the accounting field right so this is one of a forensic forensic accounting you're you know investigating you know corruption and government officials a lot of times you're overseas and it's it's this is very glamorous and it's a lot of people you know pursue it um you need to have a certain requirement in terms of age in terms of um you have to go through some i think physical uh test to get through it um the other thing that you can do as well is work for the un so you know i've had a colleague uh go from a controller to working as a treasurer for the un so there's a lot of positions open open up of the un more difficult to get into the private industry for sure um but the flexibility is there so i'd say there's a lot of flexibility within the realm of finance to move between you know accounting and finance positions got it so would you say that maybe compared to other degrees or other types of careers that you know an accounting degree would be one of the more flexible out of all of them or would you not say that um you know that to objectively say that um you know because i've only had the one career right in accounting um yeah that can be kind of difficult to yeah yeah but i guess i guess i'm judging from you know looking at because i have friends or engineers doctors and different um in different walks of life different you know different kind of career types um and the flexibility that i've that i've seen in my career has been great enough to say that it's been higher than even what they do um you know if you're a doctor your choices are either working in a hospital as a doctor or you know having a practice um you could go work for a private company and research um so you know you can tell here that the flexibility in both in accounting and also in all these other fields is what you make of it um you know plus and this is really important what other skills can you combine with this uh to become something else so you know you know take accounting or finance and add communication skills someone who's a great communicator right and you can easily become like a financial motivational you know motivation person um so or a financial coach so uh the ability to be flexible exists it's just what you can add to it and combine combines another skill set with finance or accounting and make and you know reinvent yourself like something else you know that exists um so yeah this i would say this great flexibility compared to like other careers got it and then what type of i noticed this can be a pretty difficult one but what type of person or personality or you know natural traits uh do you think would be good uh for someone that goes into accounting yes good question so um you know by definition just from my my own experience working in accounting um you know if you're in sort of personality type uh your personality type is an introvert and sort of you know thrive more in an environment where you're dealing with a smaller group of people um accounting is is is very well suited for for you um if you are gonna be someone uh who you know does really well with working with you know talking to people all day um you actually are happier when you talk to other people all day um then accounting might not be the right career path for you um so the one area of you know in between or a gray area here is if you get into accounting as a mean of getting into strategic finance when you work in strategic finance you need to be sort of the extrovert type uh who's going to be talking to everyone from sales engineers you know around the company um pretty much every function around the company you need to be communicating with as a finance or a strategic finance person um so if you're if your personality type is an introvert i think accounting is going to be very well suited for you um versus extrovert for that i think you know more strategic finance uh role will be much more uh well suited so for someone who is maybe on the fence between you know finance accounting some of the other business degrees or maybe even someone who doesn't know if they want to do a business degree at all they're just looking you know around a different degrees um what would be your best advice for someone uh for a viewer to find out if accounting would be a good career path or getting an accounting degree would be a good degree for them to get yeah great question so i think that um you know one of the steps you can take is um when you if you're in college and you're still kind of testing the waters and you're trying to look around and see what you should be doing um you know taking an accounting accounting 101 class is a good way to kind of see uh you know you're gonna be stuck studying this for the next three years right so like you really need to like it um so uh taking you know an accounting 101 course is is really good uh the second thing you should be doing is um doing your own research in terms of talking to people who are accountants um and quite honestly doing what you're doing now if you're watching this video and kind of like seeing what it looks like to be sitting on the other side of the fence once you've kind of you know mid-career you've put in you know a good number of hours and years learning what does it feel now you know are you happy with the choice excuse me so this is the kind of thing you should be doing and exploring your own interest you take a take a good class in accounting um funny because for me i didn't really want to major in accounting necessarily but when i took accounting 101 that professor was just an amazing guy um so it you know it's interesting what are the motivations right like the guy used to speak so highly of his own you know private practice as as a cpa and how much fun he has with it um that he kind of convinced me to to get into it so you know i say you know taking a class and speaking to people is really important in kind of discovering in general what you want to do um i just from personal experience i i enjoyed accounting in terms of you know studying it and working in it um it's been rewarding to be someone who can you know open up the 10k of a public company and like really just know you know where to go and what to look for um so so yeah this has been my experience and i you know advise everyone to kind of like do you know watch you know watch interviews uh you know videos try to get as much exposure to what it is really like to work as an accountant there's uh even like things that you can see online on like the day in the life i think the day in the life is really important to kind of measure you know if you can see yourself doing this for a career um so yeah that's what i advise people to do so let's say that uh someone was looking into a very specific position not necessarily you know you specifically but let's say they were potentially thinking about becoming a controller setting that goal for themselves uh how would they go about getting in contact with a controller in such a way where they could maybe ask them a few questions pick their brain to see if it's a good career path for them you know like then has been a good like a good place for that uh where you know sort of at the early on in my career um you know people are just more willing to talk to you than you think um i think this is kind of a misconception that you think that you know no one has a time uh which is true to some extent however you'll be surprised um you know ask and you shall receive like ask for the advice uh reach out and ask um so linkedin is a great resource and like reaching out to people who um you know don't necessarily has to be a controller but it could be someone who's an accounting manager or a city manager uh director um to give you some flavor you know especially if you wanted to get specific like if you for example are you know contemplating whether you should get a position as you know a billing analyst um you know getting getting in touch with someone who is a billing manager or someone who's been doing it for a little while um can be helpful and just knowing you know has this been had did this would really work out for you did you learn from it and you know progress your career in the way that you thought you would um so yeah i think it's um it's really uh you know a head and uh treasure to kind of go out there and look for for these people to talk to um don't be discouraged if you reach out to 10 people for only one person to get back to you this is just a nature of things people don't read their you know messages or inbox that often um sometimes you just not you don't have the time for it but you know asking you shall receive just like ask the question reach out um and you know you'll get some answers would you recommend maybe getting an opinion from several different people just so you can kind of get an idea because sometimes you might ask one person and it's like they're super passionate about the career you ask another person they're not not so happy about it um so it's probably a good idea to get an opinion from several different people if possible yes absolutely uh you know i'll tell you like i you know i'm someone who's uh you know biased because i really love what i do um so i'll tell you that it's fun it's rewarding it's awesome i'll tell you all these things you could talk to someone else uh who's having you know i've seen people who had like a mid-career you know crisis where they want to you know get out of accounting and do other things because they found it to be boring um and so yeah getting some different perspective um yeah that's really important i think is there anything else that i didn't go over any questions i didn't ask that you think are you know might be pretty important for someone who's potentially looking to get an accounting degree or become an accountant um you know i guess like the the one thing i'll add is um the benefit of working in accounting is knowing the sort of the ins and outs of the numbers that go into the business um so the the funny thing about it is like when you go to a company you want to talk to someone who knows everything that's going on um you're likely to be you know looking at an accountant um you know who he's someone who is going to know you know sales expenditure cash flow um financing raising financing rounds or raising funds um and all of these things investor relations um and so compare that to someone who works in you know whether it's the r&d or engineering department or in sales most likely they'll know sort of like their realm of what they do they'll be really good at it however someone who can tie everything together for you is going to be someone who's working in accounting most likely and so this is the one thing that's sort of uh people don't think about too much um and it's important right like when you know the mechanics of everything that goes on in the company it makes you much more rounded not only in your career but also as you know when it comes to your investments if you're like investing in the market um you know knowing you're looking at the income statement and figuring out where the potential areas of issues are is really important and so uh and that's one of the things that you know say has been like a rewarding sort of attribute to working in accounting in general got it so would you say that uh getting an accounting degree getting a few years of experience working in accounting would be a really good way to build some skills get some experience if later on maybe you decided that you want to start your own business and become an entrepreneur yeah and in fact you know I've seen you know many many people do that like you know get into either audit or accounting you know spend um you know a decade or so um you know most like the sort of the story that's most often told is that you do that for a number of years and then you kind of start your own practice as an as sort of an accounting practice um and that's sort of the obvious thing to do uh but I've also seen people just start up companies like that's not related uh to accounting and it's either like a consumer product or a tech company that come from accounting background um a lot of people figured out how to solve problems when it comes to the the technology side of accounting and went to start up companies you know start up companies with fentech or um you know financial technology companies in general um so you know I'll say your intimate knowledge of fundraising creating data rooms creating um you know a package for investors to look at this is that this is what comes with the territory of being an accountant and also is what comes with the territory for being someone who is looking to raise funds for their own business and so is a good amount of overlap between the two and so um I I really recommend for someone who wants to become a business person in the future if not to fully become an accountant but at least to get some exposure to accounting um specifically financial statements to to become more rounded in what you do got it awesome well thank you so much for your time I really appreciate you coming on today this was my first ever interview on the channel so hopefully I did okay and where can the audience find you Bill? so I have a youtube channel called the financial controller and you know you go in there you'll find videos on either on career tips and advice for being an accounting or finance I also discussed like interesting fraud cases like Enron, Unluck and Poffy and things like that mixed together with some of explaining some real life accounting tasks the things that I do as a controller the things that I see you know CFOs do and things like that so you can find me on the financial controller on youtube as well maybe you should make a video about GameStop that's right right yikes yeah I know that's the thing it's just a rich material sort of like there's a lot of things that go on that you if you have unlimited time you'll create all of this stuff to talk about these things but you gotta have to choose your battles but yeah it's an interesting story for sure awesome well thank you again Bill for coming on again this was my first interview ever so for everybody that's watching there's something that I didn't cover if I didn't ask the right questions or if you know I went down a path that you guys think I shouldn't go down if I asked too many questions in one area let me know down below also I am gonna link Bill's youtube channel down below as well and if anybody wants to ask questions of course you know if you want to Bill you can definitely answer the questions down below as well so thank you so much for coming on again and have a good one yeah thanks Shane I really enjoyed being on your channel and talking to your audience I'd recommend accounting for those who are at the beginning of their journey and if you have any questions you know like Shane said you can write it down below in the comment I'll be happy to respond to them as well awesome all right take care Bill all right see ya