Event Recap – Accounting Avenues
[4-minute read]
Last Wednesday, Accsoc hosted a informative event where we sat down with different service lines within the accounting industry as well as several accounting bodies to discuss what each role does, and to answer student’s questions. Here is a summary from the event!
Teaching and Research – Victoria Clout
Could you give us a broad overview of what your service line does?
Breakdown of Role: 40% academics job e.g. lecturing, teaching tutorials and 40% research e.g. analysis and regression on market trends. 20% service to the academic community e.g. peer receiving journal articles.
What are some common tasks you do in your role?
- Normal day to day – 2 hr lecture followed by meetings with research assistants and coworkers.
- Analysis and regressions on market trends
What do you enjoy most about your role?
- The autonomy – have a lot of control and independence in what you choose to do
- Really cater to what you want to do.
Where do you think your industry is going?
- Artificial intelligence will help accounting researchers.
- AI will be the new calculator for identifying patterns in Big Data.
- Not necessarily will replace academic jobs – AI will more so act as a calculator and help out with teaching
Interesting facts or common misconceptions?
- Academics are doing research and it is a big part of academic life
- A misconception about research is that you spend many hours going through data and existing papers
How do you ideate/approach research topics?
- Talking with people at ASX and what issues they face to write research papers
Common career path into teaching and research? Do you go into industry?
- Career path has changed dramatically people used to go into the industry first
- Now, it is after completing a PhD and finish all of their studies before securing their first academic lecturer position
- Roughly 7 years of preparation between going into role
Honors and PhD pathway
- Social activities and drinks – the social networking is very important
- WAM cut off for Honors degree – very good for differentiating students in the market
Audit and Assurance
Could you give us a broad overview of what your service line does?
- Mainly do financial statement audits – large role of many audit companies (most common type of audit)
- Compliance audits are also performed
- Regulatory audits e.g. medicare
What are some common tasks you do in your role?
- Liaising with different people – there is alot of social interaction when working as an auditor to gather information
- Audit work and procedures – a lot of spreadsheets and calculations
- Community engagement – internal events
What do you enjoy most about your role?
- Nice interplay between challenge and intrinsically rewarding
- Diversity of the role – exposure to different clients
- There is room to grow both soft and hard skills in the audit industry
Where do you think your industry is going?
- Audit to a level of reasonable assurance (human)
- When AI becomes involved might be able to increase the level of assurance to closer to absolute assurance
- Looks after digital and innovation in audit – EY has this division
Work life balance
- Keep an open minded communication – has extracurricular activities e.g. sports and debating
- Rolling dice around busy season (start of FY)
Tips:
- Accounting firms do hold your hand along the way and you don’t need to have an accounting major to work in accounting
- Excel, PPT and Word – these applications are very important and worth the time investment
- Ultrix, Blue Prism – quite a few audit firms are using these softwares and applications
Taxation
Could you give us a broad overview of what your service line does?
- Visiting clients and dealing with their tax affairs
- A lot of liaison with the ATO
- Assists clients with their accounting and payroll system and to compile their financial reporting
- Preparing clients tax returns
What do you enjoy most about your role?
- Helping clients to resolve their taxation issues
- The challenges of the role are also rewarding e.g. helping clients set up their accounting and payroll system
Where do you think your industry is going?
- The future of taxation is quite unpredictable – tax laws change constantly and reading and keeping up to date with new changes is very important to stay knowledgeable and relevant
Misconception about the tax industry?
- Tax return centered which is part of the role but there are also other aspects of the role e.g. payroll systems etc
Anything interesting?
- Something interesting and unexpected was the heavy liaison with the ATO
Up to date with changes in tax law:
- A lot of reading and attending podcasts and seminars to keep up to date
- Covid 19 – really keeping up to date with all the changes in the tax industry
Restructuring and Risk
Could you give us a broad overview of what your service line does?
- Formal side to restructuring and receivership – looks at ways to avoid bankruptcy and how to keep the business afloat
What are some common tasks you do in your role?
- Liaising with stakeholders e.g. directors
- Talking to auditors and looking at financial records – especially if there is an audit opinion where insolvency was an issue
What do you enjoy most about your role?
- Strong sense of achievement when achieving a good outcome for creditors and receivers
- Solving challenging problems
- The most rewarding part of their role is the good outcome for clients and their businesses
Where do you think your industry is going?
- Restructuring may be overutilized in the future
What are some pros and cons to specialising in the field of insolvency and how would you suggest students prepare themselves to handle these situations?
- Pros: learn a lot e.g. mining industry
- Pros: close knit industry and get to network with clients and people
- Cons: can be asked to travel interstate and be prepared to go to the clients rather than they come to you (can be a pro – good to get out)
- Cons: also need to have thick skin -might need to have difficult conversations with clients
Qualifications:
- All do their CA before starting in restructuring
- ARITA course to be completed after – association most practitioners are apart of.
Thank you to everyone who attended our event and we hope everyone found this little recap of the event useful!
We highly recommend everyone who is interested in learning more about the industry or developing invaluable skills to attend our future events!