Like many industries, accountants can often be specialized.
For example, when we look at the trade industry, you don’t exactly want to hire a plumber to put in a new light socket for you… may not end well.
Or you don’t want to go see a podiatrist for your nose job.
They’re all deemed tradies and they’re all deemed doctors, but it’s all about finding which one fits for you.
And accountants are not the same; a lot are multi-skilled or work within a company that offers the variance, it’s important to discuss your needs to find your perfect fit! After all, we don’t want to be walking around in uncomfortable shoes forever do we?
Types of accounting include:
- Financial Accounting
This is your more traditional accountant, the one that follows your financial transactions as closely as your prep grade buddy followed you when you were in year 6. This includes your incoming, outgoing and liabilities to then having the ability to determine the financial position of the company. After school they then grew up to be the people in university that would go through 3 pens in one lecture noting down everything the lecturer said, detailed and meticulous.
- Management Accounting
We like to think of this type of accounting as those teachers, specifically, math teachers who just LOVE report writing time and the feeling of completing beautifully color coordinated graphs and charts. They specialize in tracking a company’s financial position, using past indicators to also predict the future. They use these graphs, charts, and reports to make predictions to put your company on a path for financial security in line with your business objectives.
- Tax Accounting
Now I like to think of the tax accountant as the one to play by the rules. The taxation laws are their best friends and they know them like the back of their hand. Now their job is to minimize your tax liability but to make sure you’re doing it by the book. These are the ones that could have been lawyers in another life.
- Forensic Accounting
Now this accountant was the one that loved playing Cluedo as a kid and always wanted to grow up to be a crime-fighting superhero or detective until they realized their laser vision just wasn’t coming through. So they went to the next best thing to being a superhero, a forensic accountant! They can sniff out anything dodgy a mile away! Using their superpower of analyzing financial evidence they detect for fraud and embezzlement. They often analyze information for use in legal proceedings.
- Social Accounting
The one at school that always had a bag full of Tupperware containing their lunch, without an ounce of glad wrap to be seen. One of the newer branches of accounting. This is the discipline measuring a business’ social and environmental performance by incorporating their impact of these factors in conjunction with traditional accounting methods. This has become key for many businesses as it is often a selling point as these factors become ever so increasingly important in today’s society. It’s old with a new twist!
And so the list goes on!
Hopefully, you don’t have to kiss too many frogs before finding your Prince Charming who has the perfect glass slipper just for you! 