Is accounting part of the financial industry?
Is auditing and tax accounting part the "financial industry"? Or is it its own thing like consulting?
Trending Content
| +96 | Are you “less ambitious” for having long term goals outside of NYC | 24 | 1d | |
| +45 | Interviews Are So Fake | 28 | 56m | |
| +33 | 2024 UK Election - Tories finished? | 21 | 4h | |
| +29 | Being Christian in investment banking | 14 | 1d | |
| +25 | Non-Competes Banned | 24 | 12m | |
| How do I become Sigma | 14 | 42m | ||
| +19 | Moelis has the cutest Analysts? | 4 | 1d | |
| +18 | Best NYC neighborhood for single 30M | 12 | 2d | |
| +17 | ADHD ! | 4 | 52m | |
| +16 | Underage intern, drinking? | 7 | 1d |
Career Resources
Sure. But, you get put in the basement with a red stapler.
It is a professional service.. alongside legal counsel, consulting, etc. Definitely not "finance" but rather its own thing under another umbrella.
Same goes for corporate finance which is financial management, not "finance".
What? Corporate finance goes up to the CFO. Is the CFO not in finance either?
"financial management".. last time I heard a CFO is a manager.. of the finances of a company?
Capital markets and investments aren't the only financial functions
Sure, there's m&a advisory, brokerage, market making, insurance..
Is theaccountingmajor part of the business school?
No. Accounting is a business service like operations consulting, legal services, HR, etc.
Financial services is a different thing altogether. It deals with securities products and their management, on both the supply and demand sides. Completely unrelated fields - one is rooted in the application of academic theory to risk management and investment return, the other is about learning a set of rules and helping businesses thrive while adhering to them.
I would say accounting is like the golf of the finance industry, some say it's included as a sport, others don't think it's a sport.
I would say both finance and accounting are different degrees, so in theory they are different. However, most "accounting" isn't really accounting; real accounting is ledgers, budgets, t-accounts. What most accounting majors do is audit/tax. That's a different avenue all together.
I prefer to think of us as the bowlers, you're too generous.
Only thing i know is that's accountants sure do like to say they are in finance lol, so they are probably not in finance.
Every large company's Finance department is gonna be staffed by - yep, you guessed it, accountants, many of whom are gonna be former auditors or tax... professionals? Taxmen? Tax...idermists?
Whatever. Point is, accounting is part of finance. Yeah it ain't sexy, but neither is operations at a BB. Or, for that matter, being in the office at 2AM on a Saturday because you're running a fire drill for a bitch ass MD that wants some pitch deck materials to review on Sunday night. It's work, and work sucks.
Major disagree from me. No company I’ve worked at has had even a noticeable minority of accountants in the firms financial division. I spent time in the finance arm of a F100, and you’d be more likely to find a philosophy major than an accountant by any measure. There are accountants in financial services and financial groups for sure, many of whom are successful, but to say they’re a majority is a stretch IMO. What happens then to all the finance majors? The math majors? The MIS and “international business” majors? The MBA crowd? The vast majority of those people do not end up in a front office role.
Like most things, depends who you ask. In a nutshell, here in Europe at least, you have management accountants (working in industry) who do a lot of internal modelling, valuation and M&A work, and you have the guys in practice who do audits and take care of external reporting. You get a mix of traditional bookkeeping and financial modelling and advisory.
That said, at least on the SME front here, a lot of financial advisory work is done by chartered accountants. Accountants don't underwrite, sell debt securities or raise funds, but we advise on capital structure, perform due diligence on deals, value assets/companies etc.
I don't know what you want to call it, clients usually don't care as long as the work gets done, but I'd place accountancy in professional services (need a professional license/royal charter etc. to call yourself an accountant), and bankers/insurance etc within financial services (have their own regulatory bodies but no professional qualifications needed).
Second everything here.. Management accounting in europe/uk is essentially the same as FP&A and the overall internal finance function in US parlance.
external accounting firms provide a professional service, internal finance functions manages and coordinates the budgets/reporting/cash etc and "finance" provides financing, investment services, insurance services and agency services to clients.
Accounting department is where dreams go to die...
There are lots of different avenues within accounting... none of which are true financial services. Lots of public accounting roles are a blend of accounting and consulting, it's more of a professional services job than anything. Industry accounting is awful, from what I've heard.
This thread is hilarious, but could be meaner. Keep going.
s/ Accountant
I'd say that they're different. Accounting is backwards looking about about understanding what happened, while finance is more forward looking and about making investments in a broad sense (investing in a stock, or a company investing in SG&A). There's obviously a lot of finance that does involve looking at what happened, but in general its about making investments. Under this definition, FP&A is finance but accounting isn't because FP&A people help their companies understand how to invest in the business.
FP&A is very technical and involves forecasting which can fall under "finance" decision making but they do not make investment decisions, they simply follow each department's budget and estimates and consolidate. I don't see how "FP&A people help their companies understand how to invest in the business".
I call them finance because those forecasts are used by management to make decisions on where to invest/spend money during the budgeting process.
I'd say that a large chunk of the finance world doesn't actually make investment decisions, they just provide information/advice on what decisions should be made (ie investment banking or sell-side research)
Well, in general you have to have an understanding of "accounting" if you want to work in finance, but you don't have to know much about finance in accounting. A square is a rectangle, but a rectangle isn't a square.
Eaque sed error laborum est velit praesentium officia. Ab sit eum fugiat possimus dignissimos consequatur aut. Sint est eveniet illo molestiae maiores maxime cum exercitationem. Deleniti blanditiis consequatur nam sed necessitatibus. Fuga tenetur possimus temporibus rerum voluptates perferendis.
Nobis perferendis ea culpa cum. Voluptates fugit et libero minima consequuntur voluptates dolorem laudantium. Est porro quo magnam repellat corrupti dolorem placeat repudiandae. Voluptate eos illum omnis minima. Ut non esse esse facilis sit nostrum neque animi. Dolore sapiente debitis quia velit vero neque consequatur sapiente. Minus perferendis doloribus et sunt est eveniet accusamus sunt.
Blanditiis vero quasi quia distinctio et. Id fugiat sit dignissimos quod sit assumenda minima. Voluptas laboriosam sed excepturi sequi voluptatem natus numquam. Perferendis non consequuntur voluptatibus. Aut corporis consequatur nisi maiores porro.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...
Non odio deserunt voluptatibus beatae et fugiat ipsam. Sed eum voluptate et earum excepturi. Quidem ut sed illum provident voluptatem.
Iure laborum illo quasi minus labore laborum magnam. Enim porro eaque consequatur. Minus unde nobis hic et eum veniam aspernatur. Voluptatem ut magnam sunt. Ad quisquam magni veniam tenetur repudiandae iusto quaerat. Sunt blanditiis minus quis culpa natus. Animi qui ullam possimus enim optio natus.
Qui dolor libero porro ullam alias voluptates facilis. Non natus veniam et non. Ipsum qui pariatur nisi et totam. Dicta quas accusamus et dolorum.
Et ut provident eos et. Quia dolorem accusantium aut dolores eum occaecati. Labore est hic nam adipisci. Repellat necessitatibus nisi molestiae. Est commodi nam nam possimus rerum velit non. Ipsum alias aliquid impedit deserunt dolor porro.