Often labelled as the most boring job ever, accounting is an important profession which organises personal and impersonal finances to make sure clients make the correct economic decisions. Tim Spencer who graduated with a first from Warwick university in mathematics, is head of an accounting business that helps advise small companies financial decisions. He described his job as “logical” in this interview:
Q: What is your favourite part about your job?
A: Building good client relationships and helping them make financial decisions which influence the success of their business. I enjoy helping a range of small businesses from local communities to larger companies, including some showbiz clients.
Q:What skills does your job involve using?
A: Numeracy, which is using numbers and calculations. For example, I would be calculating a businesses’ profits and then the tax they might then have to pay on that. At then I use percentages to perform checks for an analytical review that my calculations/my result is consistent with what I would expect. That’s how I check my work. So if someone had a tax liability which was much higher than I expected it requires a bit more checking that the calculations are correct.
Q: What pathway did you take to get into accounting?
A: I did a degree in maths, but you don’t need to do a degree to become an accountant. A lot of my colleagues had studied other subjects including, for example: History or politics. But you do need to be numerate, so if you struggled at maths at maths, accountancy would not be a good choice. And then in my first job I joined on a three year training contract where I would both perform work for my employer and also go to college to study to become a chartered accountant. And I had to do about thirteen exams over three years as well as work experience to qualify.
Q: What advice would you give to anyone who wants to be an accountant?
A: I would say: research and apply for an apprenticeship. An internship is where you go and do work experience over the summer holidays where you will get a greater insight into what it is like to work in the accountancy business. The second bit of advice is: when applying for an accountancy training contract, apply to as many firms as possible because it is quite popular the greater number of applications you perform, the more likely you are to get that first offer/job. I would say that becoming an accountant gives a great opportunity to learn how businesses operate and the skills you learn in passing you accountancy exams you can use in a great variety of trades not just as an accountant so it is a great experience improving your skillset to train as a chartered accountant.