Accountant Salary (Is Accounting A Good Career )

In this video, I'm going to go over a lot of the important questions you might have about the career of accounting

Things like what accounting is, what accountants do, their job satisfaction, salary, how to become one, their job outlook, and the best places to live if you go into this field

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So let's get right into it. First of all, let's talk about exactly what accountants do

Now, according to Google, this is the first definition that pops up right here

but that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I'll just have it pop up on the screen

So it's a lot of words, and to be fair, there are many different types of accountants

so it's really difficult to say exactly what accountants do in a few words

But basically, accountants are going to examine and prepare financial records. They're also going to make sure that taxes are paid legally, but properly and on time

And lastly, they are going to. to assess the financial operations of a company to make sure everything runs efficiently

And if you're not sure whether you want to become an accountant or not, check out my free six steps to finding your dream career guide below

It'll be linked in the description. Next, we're going to talk about some of the different work environments that you might be in

if you became an accountant. So when most people think of accountants, they think that all they do is taxes

because if you've interacted with an accountant, that's probably what they've done for you

But actually, accountants work in many other different settings that may or may not have anything to do with taxes. So for instance, about 25% of accountants work

in accounting, tax preparation, bookkeeping, and payroll services. 9% work in finance and insurance

8% work for the government, 7% work for management of companies and enterprises, and 5% are

self-employed. Most accountants, of course, work in offices, but over the last few years

many of them have been working from home. Most accountants also work in teams, but some of them

work on their own as well. Next, we're going to be talking about job

satisfaction and this is an area that's very important if you're considering becoming an accountant

So according to career explorer.com, accounting is one of the least happy careers in the

United States It gets a score of 2 out of 5 stars which is in the bottom 6 of careers According to payscale when it comes to meaning accounting comes in a little bit low at about 38

But when it comes to satisfaction, it's actually pretty good at about 71%

So you definitely are seeing some mixed results depending on the sources that you look at when it comes to becoming an accountant

So this is definitely one of those careers where you want to look into it

Make sure you have a very good idea of what you're getting yourself into before you come

commit to it. But one of the positives of becoming an accountant is there's so many different

directions that you can go because it's such a vast career. So if you become a certain type of

accountant and you don't like your job, there are likely many different subspecialties that

you can jump to relatively easily, and chances are you're going to find one that you enjoy more

One thing that can significantly impact how happy you are is going to be the company that you

work for. So for instance, accountants that work for Google rated it at about 4.5 out of five stars

whereas accountants that worked for this random place called EC Ortiz and Co-LLP rated it at 3.1 out of 5

So definitely check out Glassdoor.com if you're thinking of working for a particular business

and see how happy accountants that work at that business are. Next, we're going to talk about how to become an accountant

Accountants typically have at least a bachelor's level degree and it's usually going to be in the major of accounting

Now, one thing that's great about getting an accounting degree is you can work as an accountant

or you can actually work in finance as well. Whereas if you got a finance degree

it's not necessarily as easy to work as an accountant. So accounting is a more flexible degree than finance

since those two get compared quite a bit. There are also some colleges out there that offer specialized degrees

such as forensics accounting or tax accounting. Now, it is possible to become an accountant

with just an associate level degree. Usually you'll get kind of an entry-level job

and you'll learn on the job and work your way up. But for the most part, most accountants do have at least a bachelor

level degree. So numbers wise, 57% of accountants have bachelor's degrees, 23% have master's degrees

and 3% have doctorates. So that's a total of 83% of accountants having at least a bachelor level

degree Most of them who have less than a bachelor were likely grandfathered in and that option is no longer available Next we going to be talking about the pay in the United States According to BLS accountants and auditors make about per year

If you can compare this to all financial-related occupations, it's about on par, about $73,000

And if you can compare it to all occupations, it's $41,000, so it's much higher

Accountants that work in finance and insurance make around $78,000 a year on average

So that's one of the higher paying specialties. And the ones who work for the government make about 72,000, so it's a little bit lower

Most accountants do work full time. And a lot of them work even more than full time at certain parts of the year

So of course, tax season is going to be a busy time of the year for people who do tax accounting, for instance

And according to Glassdoor, accounts make about $70,000 a year. So that does seem to match up pretty well

And business-related occupations in general do make pretty good money about $2.6 million over a lifetime

compared to the average of all majors and all occupations making about 2.4 million

And then business majors who go into business and financial related occupations make about 2.8 million over a lifetime

The highest paid occupations for business related majors in general are going to be technology or management related

So technology makes about 3 million over a lifetime and management makes around 3.3 million

So combining your accounting related skills with some really valuable technology related skills or leadership skills like Python

SQL, et cetera, might be a good way to go. Next, we're going to be talking about the job outlook for accountants

And according to BLS, there are 1.3 million accounting jobs in the United States

and it's growing at about 7%, which is as fast as average. You can compare this to all other occupations, which are growing at about 8%

and financial-related occupations, which are growing below average, at about 5%. Now, as economies become more and more globalized

a.k.a. countries are doing more and more business with each other, there's going to be a higher need

for accountants that specialize in international trade. So there's expected to be really good demand in the

future because there's going to need to be more and more accountants who are good at that

Many different countries trade and do business with the United States, so accountants in the U.S

especially are likely going to experience a lot more demand Now when it comes to the risk of automation this is one that you hear about quite a bit when it comes to accountants They have about a 50 risk

according to Will Robots Take My Job.com, and about 65% according to polling from accountants

And I do believe that there are some lower level jobs that are definitely going to be automated

However, jobs that require a lot of problem solving or they require you to be very familiar with tax law

are not going to be automated very easily, in my opinion. I talked about this extensively in the video

where I talked about whether an accounting degree was worth it or not. So you can check that video out if you want to hear more

about my opinion on whether it's going to be automated. Now, I'm going to have some of the knowledge

that you would need to know pop up on the screen right now. You can pause it if you want to see that

I'm going to have some of the skills you might need to know, pop up on the screen. I'm also going to have some of the abilities

you might need to know pop up on the screen. Some of the personality characteristics

that might be good for you. I'll have that pop up on the screen as well. well. And then I'm going to have some of the tasks that you might be doing on a day-to-day

basis pop up on the screen. Some of the technology-related skills you might need to know

Some of the tools that you might need to use. Some of the work activities that you would

regularly be doing. And some of the certifications that you might do, some of them are more

general. And then some of them are going to be specializations. And finally, let's talk about

some of the best places to live in the United States if you are an accountant. When it comes to

employment, the five best states to live are going to be California, New York, Texas, Florida, and

Pennsylvania. And when it comes to how much you would get paid, five of the better states are going to be

the District of Columbia, aka Washington, D.C., New York, New Jersey, California, and Massachusetts

And then when you add everything altogether, according to Zipia.com, the five best are going to be

Washington, D.C., New York, Connecticut, Delaware, and Rhode Island, with Washington, D.C. being number one

The five worst states to live as an accountant would be Wyoming, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and North Dakota, with North Dakota being the worst

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Any thoughts, comments, criticisms, et cetera that you have on the video. And I will see you next time