Based on my entire time at uni and now with a few months under my belt working as a FA in an FP&A team, it's safe to say someone in finance that wants to transition to accounting is rare...
I wanted to ask the forum... does my logic make sense? and am I justified? TBH, I'll preface by stating I'm not exactly clear what certain roles in accounting really involve. I have a lunch meeting lined up with someone on the accounting team to learn more but I'd love to get the forums opinion on this.
So FP&A is great, the hours aren't too bad, exposure to leadership in the company is amazing, relationships built with team budget leaders are a cool bonus, exposure to acquisition vetting makes me feel like I'm some ibanker, understanding the business intimately, being on a team that is looked at for "truth" in the financial sense, comp is great, growth opportunities are better(path to CFO, biz ops is more likely compared to acctg, biz dev, corp strategy, etc. All the "cool" roles that drive the business is much more within reach than if I was in acctg (just imo, please straighten me out if I'm wrong).
Reason I've grown more fond of the idea of working on the accounting team is it just seems "easier." Now don't get me wrong, I'm not implying anything, I just really like their work-life balance. Everyone is out by 4 or 5, they don't have to deal with the stress of presenting to the c-suite, no prepping of decks, no staying in till the A.M. prepping for the board meeting, the comp definitely seems comparable as well. Each role has a very specific title which leads me to believe each person has a very focused role(AP, revenue, etc.) as well which would allow me to preserve my bandwidth for my side gig.
So for someone not interested in moving to "bigger better" roles like strategy/biz ops/corp dev, wants to maintain same comp and comp potential, want consistent and predictable work schedule, doesn't want to deal with presenting and building decks, have more free time to work on my personal investments... Accounting is starting to make sense. Am I missing something?
Appreciate any help guys!
Grass is always greener... give it a few months in accounting and I bet you will be bored out of your mind.
Yup.
I've spent four years working FP&A for a Health System and sitting directly next to our accounting team, and I would honestly rather jump in front of a bus than move to accounting.
MAYBE the controller position, since I do interact with her regarding some of our financing aspects (my role really blends FP&A and some forward-looking treasury management, no day-to-day TM stuff).
That being said, there does seem to be a much more clear career path on the accounting side...staff accountant, manager, controller...On the FP&A Island, its little ole me...
I agree, if all goes well after further research, if I did transition, it'd be mid next year possibly. Also definitely a concern that I just may not fully understand what it truly means to be on that team. Meeting with a couple people will help that I'm sure.
Being bored at work sort of sounds great. What really prompted this sudden change for me is I've got a ton on my plate outside of work but still enjoy coming in and the company is great. My salaried career aspirations have ceased. I'd like to progress thru the comp as I would as a FA but a title is of no concern to me anymore and I don't enjoy being called in to work weekends(not too common but still) too.
I don't know if I'm comfortable about bringing up typical comp and its trajectory for them... Would anyone be able to give me more insight on this? My main question would be in general, do corp accountants make as much as FP&A FAs?
I’m answering this from my perspective as a staff accountant 3 years out of undergrad, reporting to the controller at a privately-held company in the consumer goods industry with ~$500m in annual sales.
While certain accounting tasks are mind-numbingly boring (bank reconciliations being the prime example), as long as you are on the core general ledger accounting team and not stuck in payables/receivables/sales audit/etc., and don't let yourself get pigeonholed into doing accruals/deferrals/other boring stuff all day, things will be at least somewhat interesting. In my role I deal with things like inventory valuation (packaging capitalization, revaluing products with precious metals to market cost, etc.), reserve estimates, revenue deferrals, and gross-to-net sales analysis. I pretty much never feel bored because I’m always jumping between different projects. This might not be the case at larger companies.
With that said, I’d definitely agree that most of the advantages of FP&A you listed are not present in accounting. I’m thinking about transferring to an FP&A position or doing some sort of rotation to broaden my experience. An additional challenge is that (at least at my company) they almost always hire individuals with public accounting backgrounds (usually Big 4) for higher-level positions.
In terms of stress, I’m not sure how it would compare to corporate finance but accounting can definitely be stressful around quarterly and annual financial closes when you need to close the GL but don’t have all the information you need so you are forced to make estimates and hope they are close to accurate.
I know that the accounting group at my company works more than the FP&A group, although it definitely varies from group to group. It does sound like you are confused, or perhaps just suffering from the "grass is always greener" phenomena. There are pros and cons to any job, and your current job has a lot of pros that you are overlooking. Accounting is extremely repetitive and getting lost in the accruals, journal entries, monthly closes, etc. makes it extremely hard to move into other areas and gets mind numbingly boring after a month or two.
If you move to accounting your going to miss the exposure, responsibilities, and even stress of your current role.
@12thman, thanks for the post. It does seem you're interests align more with FP&A, in particular a mid sized private. That's where I'm working and the amount of things going on within the scope of my role is massive compared to some friends that are in much bigger companies.
Thanks for the insight. It's just that the "benefits" I've listed hold no merit to me anymore. The boring stuff, I'm sure it's boring, but that's what I think I need. For instance, building an stock redistribution model for a potential acquisition is interesting yes, but I don't enjoy all the things that come with it. In particular the spotlight/exposure/that level of responsibility. It's massively interesting but again, I'm actually not looking for that. If I did transition to that department(corp acctg), I have no intentions of moving around...
I've gone and met the two managers within our corp acctg team and they have confirmed my observations as you guys have so thanks for all of that. It feels better knowing this moving forward. One thing I haven't had the chance to understand is comp... Can anyone speak on the differences between comps for FP&A vs Corp Acctg?
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