As an accountant, you might have decided on your career path or your current job may have put you on the career path you're currently managing. For the rest of us, we might be considering the accounting career path to follow. Should it be audit, tax, or finance? We discussed them below.
Should you take the Audit pathway?
The audit pathway is a broad accounting career path. It covers financial reporting, taxation, risk management, corporate governance, and sustainability. However, in large firms, this pathway might be separated and allowed for specialization. If you are interested in auditing, your knowledge of maths should be at least average, and you should be good with analytics. Some audit roles may require knowledge of data analysis.
Also working as an internal auditor in a company or an audit firm can allow you to own a practice firm. More so, as an internal auditor, it allows you to understand every area of a business operation. The ICAN certification is capable of helping you to grow in this field.
Tax pathway, What you should know?
Tax is a specialized field in accounting. This pathway offers you the opportunity to become a tax professional with sound knowledge of tax laws and computation of tax liabilities for individuals, small companies, multinationals, and the oil and gas businesses. If you have a passion for acquiring new knowledge from time to time, this might be for you. This is because almost every year, there will be an adjustment to the tax law, and you will need to understand these changes to help you practice the profession.
Tax pathway also allows the accountant to own a tax practice immediately he/she has the Chartered Institute of Taxation Nigeria (CITN) certification.
The Finance pathway, your road to CFO
The finance profession is broader than audit. Economists and other related fields can also play into it. There are many pathways there with the main goal of becoming a chief executive officer (CFO). Treasury management, risk management, research and investment analyst, senior finance and accounting roles in companies can also lead to a CFO.
If you're currently writing the ICAN or ACCA exam and you are interested in the finance pathway, then you shouldn't close your eyes to strategic business reporting, strategic financial management, and taxation.
In final words, the accounting career pathway for audit, tax, and finance can be achieved. You need to decide why you want to follow any of these paths. Note that all pathways can make you live a comfortable lifestyle but you have to be patient and pursue growth and development.
Post a Comment