Check out some other articles in accounting:
Many envision accountants as strict number crunchers set up in cubicles with a calculator and stack of invoices. But this evolving career is shifting in both role and focus. Whether assisting in corporate restructuring or creating environmental assessments, accountants are in demand for both their financial and strategic knowledge.
Accountants know the company from the inside out, says Vanda Mulrooney, a senior staff accountant with the public accounting firm Sone & Rovet. In addition to working with numbers, accountants have a deeper understanding of the business, as they must understand the processes and controls in place, business risks and opportunities, and the objectives and goals of the company.
Evidence of their important role can be seen through mega corporations like Torstar Corporation and Rogers Communications Inc., both of which have accountants employed in top-level positions.
Strategizing and restructuring
Steve D'Alessandro, CPA, CGA, from CPA Ontario explains that CPAs possess a solid understanding of efficiency, productivity, and financial risk management in the workplace. This equips them to deal with a wide range of business needs including the development of corporate strategies, critical thinking, analyzing financial information, and tackling complex management issues.
Mulrooney adds that accountants play a large role in corporate restructuring on both a small and large scale. There are different lines of work involved in this: reorganization for tax purposes, due diligence work on acquisitions, windups and amalgamations, the use of trusts, she says. An accountant can recommend the necessary changes with regards to share ownership, share structure, and association rules for related persons or companies.
Given the volatility of our current economy, it's understandable that employees who can both understand and offer tactical guidance promoting financial stability would be highly valued.
D'Alessandro says accountants can create financial models to identify probable outcomes and offer information essential to critical business and financial decisions. They can also lead to more streamlined restructuring processes and help to more quickly achieve outcomes.
Pertaining to acquisition of other companies, it all comes down to: is a company you are purchasing worth what they say they are worth? Mulrooney asks.
Global employment
These skills are not esteemed in Canada alone. Worldwide, accounting is globalizing into a universal community. Whether you're working at a Big 4 firm with opportunities for secondment, (a period of time where you work [internationally] in one of their offices and then come back to Canada), or visiting clients across the world, there are many prospects for accountants to work abroad, says Mulrooney.
GoAbroad.com, an international travel resource, lists several international postings for accountants that include placements in Central America, Africa, and Asia. PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of the Big 4 firms, runs the Early PwC International Challenge that encourages employees to work abroad early in their careers. They not only offer assistance with immigration and compliance requirements, but temporary living arrangements for employees and their dependents as well.
Business Development Manager for CPA Ontario Carmen Jacques explains that the CPA designation is recognized in over 80 countries. Reversely, internationally educated professionals are given access to pursue accounting employment within Canada.
Managing the environment
Working within traditional auditing and professional services firms is not the only route for global involvement. Environmental Management Accounting (EMA) is increasing in both influence and recognition.
Today's young students and qualified accountants are concerned about social issues and the environmental impacts of the clients of firms, says Roger Burritt, professor in accounting and director for the Centre for Accounting, Governance, and Sustainability at the University of South Australia (UniSA). They look to a future in which accountants, through their employers and professional accountancy bodies, take public interest seriously.
EMA is a developing field focused on creating proactive environmental management decisions within businesses. It is designed to modify managerial and production processes to be more environmentally conscious.
Katherine Christ, a PhD scholar at UniSA, shares a perspective similar to Burritt's. With initiatives such as emissions trading and carbon tax schemes, as well as an increasingly complex assortment of environmental regulations, environmental issues are no longer solely concerned with the notion of a corporate conscience; they are synonymous with business strategy and economic survival, she says.
Christ also explains how major accounting companies, including the Big 4, are continually offering clients a range of environmental services such as environmental risk assessment and audit, assistance with regulatory compliance, environmental strategy development and benchmarking.
Implementing change
And EMAs are working to make ecological conservation not only about philanthropy, but about economic growth too.
Environmental management accounting presents one possible way of increasing awareness while being cost-effective and cost-efficient for firms and their clients, says Burritt. New [accounting] graduates can become a driving part of the change towards recognizing social and environmental impacts of business for the benefit of practitioners, academic researchers, policy makers, and future communities.
Christ explains that environmental awareness is an opportunity that can be used for corporations, shareholders, and society as a whole. It is no longer necessary to sacrifice the environment for the sake of corporate economic gain or vice versa, she says.
As the global community deals with the inevitable impacts of climate change, it is encouraging that the focus of entrepreneurial ventures is beginning to incorporate ecological significance.
Excited, enthusiastic, and knowledgeable students are needed to eventually lead the profession to a new dawn where the balance between private and public interest is the primary concern, says Burritt.
Better buckle-up, accountants! Your industry is helping steer the future.
Photo: Saul Herrera/iStock