Corporate Accounting and Finance

The financial accounting process culminates in the preparation of financial documents that help answer the following questions about a firm’s financial success: What is the financial position of a company on a given day? How well did a firm do during a given period? To answer these questions, and to satisfy the reporting responsibility of management, accountants prepare a single set of general-purpose financial statements that should fairly, clearly and completely present the economic facts of the enterprise. In preparing financial statements, accountants are confronted with the potential dangers of bias, misinterpretation, inexactness and ambiguity.

To become a financial accountant, you need a strong understanding of finance as well as accounting. (People who work in financial accounting don’t need to be CPAs since they aren’t public accountants.) Management accountants often start out as junior internal auditors or trainees for other accounting positions. As they advance in their organizations, they may rise to accounting manager, controller, chief cost accountant, budget director or manager of internal auditing. Many senior corporate executives have a background in accounting, internal auditing or finance.

Abbott, Langer Association Surveys compiled overall compensation figures within the accounting field in 2005. According to its report, the median annual income (salaries plus cash bonuses and cash profit sharing) for accountants (financial analysis/planning) was $49,366. Accounting managers (financial analysis/planning) earned $83,876. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) expects the employment of accountants and auditors to increase by 18 percent between 2006 and 2016.