 Hello in this presentation, we will discuss the discussion question of describe accounting opportunities This will be a common essay question and it's also a really relevant question to people working in the accounting field Accounting is often thought to be somewhat of a narrow kind of field and really in reality It's a really big field and there's a lot of areas within it And we have to break accounting down into certain components when we work in accounting We're gonna have to break our our abilities or our job performance to certain areas So when we're thinking about accounting in terms of where do we want to be within accounting? We may have picked accounting as something we want to do or a component of something we want to do And we may feel that we've narrowed down our choices to accounting We're gonna focus in on accounting and we're gonna look for a job within accounting and think that we have sufficiently narrowed down our options in that case to really Focus on something that we can take in and just note that Accounting still very broad. It's still too broad for us to focus in on We're still gonna have to narrow down more than accounting So note that accounting itself many different areas of accounting can be it touches on different areas Including areas of just business general business areas and it also touches on areas of law areas And you could see this when we look at something like the CPA exam Where we have taxation clearly is a component of law and when we deal with something like business type of activities and transactions We're typically dealing with areas that are gonna be touching on on business law on law areas as well so so note that accounting is kind of Originated from at the subcategory some of the professions that really are some of the older professions is the legal profession and the medical profession and Accounting is has is something that over time has kind of been a subcategory of those in terms of An accounting being a subcategory of a legal profession that is broken out as things have gotten more complex And now the accounting field does continue to change and get more Get more complex as well as things as there's more data out there There's a lot of different areas within accounting So if you're an accounting major if you're working in an accounting field and you think that things are too You know if you've narrowed things to too narrow or you think that Accounting is narrow enough probably not you probably need to narrow down within Accounting somewhere and focus in on where you're gonna be within the accounting field just like a law major Would take the bar which is taking everything within law or something that's way too much information when you actually go into Law practice you're gonna be focusing in on something a lot more narrow Then you would be taking in terms of studying for the law the account is gonna be much the same Accounting's you know more more narrow possibly than a law degree But it still very covers a lot of different things and we've got a we've got a narrow that down in terms of what we're actually Going to do there so a couple ways we can do that We can we can break accounting down in terms of private accounting And public accounting meaning we can think about the ideas of working either for a company or working for a public Accounting public accounting typically dealing with attestation you might be doing a small like some types of bookkeeping working with different clients and that and attestation being like audits and reviews that are going to be required for for different companies for for different reasons and then you could be walking if you're working for a business Then you're working in the GL department You could be working in very many many different areas when you're working within a business So if we break out the accounting field between public accounting Which is kind of like taxation and audit working for a public accounting firm Versus working for a company in the accounting department By far the most people within accounting work in a company in the accounting department And there's a lot of different areas within within the accounting department But that's one of the major broad categories we can break out if we're working in public accounting firm We're typically working for an accounting firm for a CPA firm And we would then be doing things like taxation audits reviews compilations and Consulting with different clients if you work in a CPA firm typically it's set up more as a partnership So you might have different partners with different kind clients that they focus in on and working for those partners And the nice thing about working at a CPA firm is that you deal with it You do deal with more of a broad set of Problems meaning you're not focusing in on one thing per se you are working with a bunch of different clients Now within that field if you're working in public accounting depending on the size of the firm you're working at The the public account might specialize in different ways meaning if you're working in public accounting You may be working in a firm that specializes in a particular industry So although you're working with different companies you might be working with a firm that specializes in a specific area meaning We might be specializing in Real estate or we might be specializing in manufacturing companies or we might be specializing in Merchandising companies and those that that specialization is what oftentimes different firms will do So they might have a bunch of different clients and you get variety in that way if you work at public accounting We're working with a bunch of different clients as opposed to if you work for one individual company where you really focus in on what one company But but even if you're in public accounting You're still going to specialize oftentimes by the whole firm or the partners you're working in with oftentimes specializing in a particular area Note also that if you're working in public accounting in a bigger firm that deals with bigger clients Then you're probably going to be specializing in particular areas of the audit I mean you're probably going to be getting good at particular areas the bigger The the the company is whether it be a company or a partnership the bigger the clients you're working with The more they need someone to really specialize in a particular area So as you get as you work at larger places You're probably going to be specializing into not not just audit or tax but specific areas within audit and tax And becoming really proficient at particular things particular things that are going to be needed in these large companies versus Smaller companies if you work at a CPA firm that works with small to mid-sized companies Then you probably you may be working on a broader base of things meaning you may be working in the accounting Audit department and doing some taxation at the same time doing doing both of those things you might be having a broader scope of the amount of the audit that you'll be involved in and As well as the tax work But not all of that work will be as in-depth as it would be for larger companies You're not dealing with the same level of transactions You're not dealing with some of the things that a larger company would have to deal with you may have less Regulations that you'll have to deal with if you're working with smaller companies So that's often some of the trade-offs you'll have you'll have if you're working for a big public-accounted firm big projects You typically will end up specializing You'll typically be getting really good at a small piece a small cog of a big of a big project If you're if you're working at a public accounting firm that's smaller You may be working in different departments and picking up more stuff be more of a generalist Working more in different departments and doing more of a process within an audit because the audit itself or the attestation agreements or the Compilations might be smaller So that's that's in public accounting public accounting used to be something that's most kind of a requirement for some states to get licensed as a CPA license And I don't think that's required for most states now that you can get a CPA license Without the audit hours although there's you typically going to be in a test station License that would allow you different different degrees of authority in terms of attestation So there might be differences different depending on the state You're in in terms of licensing if that's if that's something you're looking into if we're in the Private side note if we work for a company then there's a huge range of areas within accounting We've gotten managerial accounting is clearly going to be on the private side Managerial accounting is usually dealing with decision-making. So when we consider managerial accounting It kind of takes a different note when you think about it managerial accounting in terms of accounting as it does In practice if you talk to somebody in business and just say that talk about management They typically will might be thinking of something just basically managing people Managing a group of people is just typically the management skills. Whatever they're managing to do when you think about managerial accounting We're usually often thinking about very more specific kind of topics things that have to do with breaking costs out and doing variant variable Analysis breaking costs out to variable costs and fixed costs and trying to do do these kind of analysis that are pretty standardized Oftentimes we're thinking about cost analysis In terms of production companies when we're thinking about managerial accounting. So when you when you consider the Concept of managerial accounting that's really more specific than just management oftentimes It's really if you if you want to study managerial accounting It's more specific than you might think if you're just considering just management meaning it's typically going to deal with this Variance analysis and dealing with production models and and how to make decisions and how to measure Things not so much with the creation of the financial statements not so much With the debits and credits you're really using that information in order to kind of trying to try to measure how How different companies are doing if you're working within the accounting department? Of course you it depends on the size of the company But if you're working at a large company, then you may have very a broad range of area areas You can specialize in meaning you can be in the accounts payable department working just on Tracking who the company owes and managing your cash flow in terms of how to pay the bills in the most efficient way You can be working in an accounts receivable which you're really focused on managing the clients that are paying Invoicing the clients making sure that they're paying on time and managing You know when those payments are received and keep it on on track of that We could be working in payroll, which is a whole a whole specialty in and of itself depending on the size of the company Payroll might be done internally meaning a company a large company might have their own payroll processing But more and more the payroll is oftentimes being exported to external payroll depending on the size of the company Because it because of the complexity, but whether it be internal or external the payroll itself is something that's really becoming specialized the payroll Rules are gonna change from country to country and within state to state And of course we have so many withholding rules and different kind of rules in that the payroll department is is integrated in many ways with human resources and Therefore the the human resources department and the payroll are kind of working together a lot of times So there's some overlap Within within that area. So you want to see if you're going into human resources to rent the payroll Do you want to deal with the numbers and calculating payroll with the journal entries to record payroll? Or do you want to be dealing with more with the the policy standpoints in terms of human resources? What are the hiring firing policies and dealing with? The clients that the customers or the employees that are going in and out of the company So there's a there's a lot of different other specialty projects. We could be working in just the budgeting department Within a company. You also want to think about when you're working within a company What that company does and you're probably gonna end up specializing in terms of industry So we could break out the industries in terms of a service company someone that doesn't have inventory and then merchandising companies that purchase and sell inventory and Manufacturing when you're thinking about the accounting within a particular industry. Those are really important You want it? You're probably gonna end up specializing in one of those areas either by making a conscious decision before You you look for a job and say I want to work in a service company I want to work for this particular company, which is a service company or a merchandising company or a Manufacturing company and then pursue that job and and look for it whether it be in in private accounting or in public accounting you could look public accounting firms that specialize in in these particular areas in service companies or in merchandising companies or in Manufacturing companies and those are gonna be a lot different because if if you're tracking inventory That's gonna be a specialty in and of itself So if you're talking about someone like Amazon a merchandising company a lot of their time It's gonna be tracking that process of purchasing and selling those goods as opposed to if you're working for a service company Like Disney or you know Disney resorts or something like that. Then you're not geared towards The the the merchandise so much as you're geared towards the experience completely different completely different thing If you're dealing with manufacturing That's a that's a whole different area in that we have to deal with the processing of the inventory the making of the inventory Meaning we're gonna deal with the the the raw materials to the work in process to the end goods to the finished goods and Within manufacturing even within there You could be in a process cost or a job cost system meaning we could be processing something like oil or something like that to gasoline which is just a Process that will just be a process cost system or we might be working in something that has custom jobs We make custom things like custom guitars or something like that in which case we would we would be doing things by job Construction is another kind of industry in and of itself that tracks things by job typically and has its own revenue recognition Principles and its own bidding process You might work in the in the government's accounting which has fund accounting And so you're gonna you would need to specialize in that area because that's a whole different Set of rules in terms of how do you track things through different funds? How do you format the financial statements when revenue recognition isn't at least the stated goal? even though all all organizations are basically fueled by You know revenue and some or at least cash flows in some way or another So you could work in government accounting. You could work in nonprofit accounting, which has its own its own set of rules so There's gonna be a lot of different once you once you decide to get into the an accounting field still not narrow enough and If you're if you're in the accounting field as a student Then your your goal is this you can either try to narrow down what you're gonna do within accounting before you look for work or You can just look for work find a job with your basic accounting skills And wherever that job happens to land you if you start working for a manufacturing company You will probably start to specialize within manufacturing and whether you stay with that company or you move somewhere else You will probably have picked up a specific amount of skills Related to a particular company Just remember that when you go into a company if you go into a large company whether it be private or whether it be a Company that's a public accounting firm There's usually more upward momentum that you have more opportunity to move up and and make increases in salary and whatnot But it's also a case where you you could very well end up specializing in particular areas Meaning you may not see the big picture as much because you're gonna be you're gonna be focusing in on your You're a cog in the in the big wheel trying to do a big project and therefore you may not see as much of the entire picture If you're someone that likes to see the big picture Then you may enjoy more working for a mid-sized company or or a CPA firm that works at mid-sized or small clients And then you get to work with the entire the entire process oftentimes But there's going to be limitations in terms of upward mobility because the company is just not as big and And you want to be you want to be able to be able to take those skills those general skills and put them To good use either within the company or somewhere else So just keep in mind the size of the company as well It's going to be a a big factor in terms of the types of opportunities a smaller company is not going to have as many Departments and as a as a large company not going to have as many internal controls as a large company You're you know a couple individuals within the accounting department are going to be doing a lot more Things just because of the size and the ability of the company to be able to to to process that information So when you're when you're looking for the accounting firms You got to kind of keep all this all this stuff in the back of your mind as you're looking for a job within accounting Do I want to be in public accounting private accounting? Do I want to work in taxation? Do I want to work for a particular industry? Do I want to work at a big company where I can have advancement and deal with the bureaucracy of Advancing up within within a big company and dealing with all the all that goes with that Or do I want to work in a small company and be more of a generalist and be a Picking up all the information I can in terms of of general knowledge and be able to see the big picture Although not as much detail within the big picture in terms of what these smaller companies are going to need for example a Non-publicly-traded company is not going to have as many regulatory requirements as a company That's on the public stock exchange. There's just not as many Requirements that are there you're not going to see some of those things although you'll be working with with a bigger picture of the company If you work at a large company, then they're gonna be they're gonna have more requirements They're gonna have to deal with more regulations But again, you're not gonna be dealing with all that because you're gonna be dealing with your particular thing your particular Project within that bigger picture So those are some things to consider if you're thinking of if it's an essay question that has to do with accounting Opportunities remember that you can basically start by breaking out the financial accounting versus managerial accounting and then go from there Focus on finance the financial accounting dealing with the creation of the financial statements often a public accounting firm and then managerial accounting dealing with those managerial decision-making processes And and and the decision-making processes in order to make better business decisions Remember financial accounting is going to be geared towards the creation of the financial statements to managerial accounting is going to be geared towards the decision-making then you can also break out from public accounting and Private accounting meaning do you work for a public CPA firm dealing with audits reviews compilations? taxation and Advising different companies or do you work within a company within the creation or the generation of the of the data? Compiling the financial data putting it together into a system