I find it’s the ability to understand why things are done, and how a set of accounts are put together that show a good accountant.
(I’m talking more industry side here not practice)
You certainly don’t need a degree to become an accountant. I’ve worked alongside both uni graduates and those that started at the bottom and to be fair, some were brilliant with some uni graduates being incredibly poor.
A popular route for industry graduates is starting out in audit > financial accountant > financial controller/director.
A lot I’ve worked with that took this route really don’t do so well in SME’s and stick to the bigger corporates.
Auditors, well, let’s just say the bigger firms usually take people fresh off the street and assign them to the audit team. They’re basically given a checklist of what to check without really knowing what they’re looking for or why. Some of the questions I’ve been asked from the big four audit teams about how I’ve accounted for something are laughable. A good one was ‘why have you prepaid that when you haven’t paid the bill....it doesn’t surprise me that firms like carillon went bust. Some were good apples though.
However, the audit ‘partners’ are the ones who are the sharp knives and earn the big money. Some I’ve dealt with are scarily knowledgeable about accounts and finance in general.
To be honest unless you can translate what you’ve learnt in the classroom to the workplace, I find them a waste of time. I’ve spent thousands on the damn things passing most at the first attempt, and whilst it’s good to have on the CV, most of the things I do and the understanding part have been learnt from experience and not in the classroom. My first boss said experience counts a damn sight more than qualifications. And the more time that’s passed the more I agree with that.
