This is the last of four parts about my career in accounting. Here are the four topics:
My Career in Accounting: The CPA Exam and Licensure
My Career in Accounting: The CMA Exam and the Becker Course
My Career in Accounting: Changes
My Career in Accounting: The State of the Profession
So, what is the state of the profession as I look back over my career in accounting?
Accounting Students
One of the biggest problems the profession has is attracting young people to the profession. The requirement for a fifth year of college, without an additional degree, adds costs and defers starting one’s career. A lot of young people who might make good CPAs find IT more attractive and lucrative. These and other factors have cut the number of young people joining the profession in half in the last 25 years. The firms are finding it hard to staff their practices.
Accounting Firms
The trend to consolidation of CPA firms has been going on for 50 years or longer and continues apace. That’s fine, except there are very few young people interested in starting their own practices or buying practices from retiring CPAs, so the small firms are going away.
CPA firms in years past could only be owned by CPAs. Now, non-CPAs can be owners too. Big corporations can own CPA firms, depending on circumstances and state laws.
Professional Schools of Accountancy
For decades, the profession has hoped to create a model similar to lawyers, where one gets an undergraduate degree and then follows up by going to a grad school. There are professional schools of accountancy is several places in the U.S., but they have never really caught on and I don’t see a trend that would change that.
The Gender Divide
When I entered the accounting profession, it was made up of mostly men. During my preparation for the CPA exam, the course was less than ten percent women. Now, most new CPAs are women. I don’t know that the ratio is, but undergraduate accounting programs are mostly female students.
Inside CPA firms, smaller firms have a majority of female staff, while the bigger firms have more men. The partner ranks lag, but the profession is slowly but surely becoming majority women.
A Career in Accounting?
Given all that, would I recommend a career in accounting to young people? Yes, I would. Most people think the numbers just fall where they may and think that accounting is boring. Neither is true.
The numbers don’t fall where they may. The surprising thing about accounting is the amount of judgement involved. It is as much art as science. Figuring out what reports are meaningful and where the profit levers are in a business is fun. And challenging. Behind those numbers are business models, people, processes and creativity. If it was just numbers, it would be boring. But behind those numbers is a fascinating world. There is a lot that goes on in a business that is non-financial, but in the end, most things get quantified. And there, the accountant is the expert and the person who can best help the owners and managers create success. It’s never boring.
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