Greetings all,

My name is Nick and I am a Financial Analyst at Bloomberg. I am in the process of finishing up the necessary courses to be eligible to obtain my CPA and I will begin preparing for the exam with hopes of taking it in 2011. I have a BA in Economics and I was wondering how it would be possible for me to transition into the field of accounting. If anyone has any advice or has faced a similar dilemma, your advice would be greatly appreciated!

Regards,

Nick

Hi Champ10684,

I am a CPA thinking hard about a transition into Finance.  I am just too tired of how detail-oriented the job is. 

My question is - why are you interested in switching gears from Finance to Accounting?  Is Finance super detail oriented?  What likes/ dislikes do you have in the world of Finance?

You can definitely transition into the Accounting field - you just need to land an accounting job; preferably in public accounting because the experience is invaluable (I have years of experience in private and public).  This is the time CPA firms are looking for help as the busy season is fast approaching.  It may be a bit difficult to land a position due to your apparent lack of accounting expereince, but trust me; through personal observation, accounting jobs have been filled by people with no accounting background, but w/ heavy finance experience.

CACPAGUY,

I work in equity research and I research US Companies pension obligations, income statement items that typically arent disclosed on the face of the income statement like R&D expenditures...stock based comp etc. I also research non-face balance sheet items such as debt liabilties, derivative liablities, goodwill, inventory etc. My job is to provide more detail to the companies financial disclosures and this information is reported to every bloomberg client worldwide. Attention to detail is the most important part of this job. Working in ER is basically like being a glorified accountant. If you don't like the detail...look into fixed income or asset management and I cant promise you they are any better. What I don't like about finance is the volitality of the job market. There are thousands of CFA charterholders world wide out of work and there will always be a demand for CPAs for auditing and tax services. This industry is cut-throat and you can make lots of money, but everyday could be your last day on the job. My cousin was an energy trader at Goldmans with less than a year of experience, went to an ivy league school, and his bonus alone from his first year payed off all of loans (do the math..it was taxed at 40% and his loans were close to 200k). He made millions and millions for the company over 3 years...made one bad trade and got canned. Now he needs to scrap to pay 4,000 a month for his studio in NYC. This is not the lifestyle I want and I would much prefer stability over volalitily. I would like to get my CPA and get my CFP so I can use my finance background after tax season. At this point, I would be willing to work for free if a CPA firm would take me on in the Philadelphia area. Hope this was helpful.