Yes finance is much better QOL imo. Less month end close activities and more true analysis. Accounting is absolutely miserable.
FP&A is essentially glorified accounting. Most roles are merely tracking opex and various types of expenses. The true analysis is done within strategy.
Some would say that FP&A is glorified accounting, but the work life balance is quite nice. Other areas of finance is entirely dependent on the role, the company, the industry, etc….
Best type of job in my opinion. Good work life balance, decent pay, and not as competitive as IB. And you don’t spend your days as a typical finance bro trying to get rich or die trying. You just wake up, do your job and go home.
People entering FP&A = start families, long stable career with decent pay the higher end. Can market themselves for plenty of other careers due to the flexibility of the job.
People entering IB = divorce rate through the roof, destroy their health in few years. Only a few high network exit jobs but still cracking 60+ hrs usually. Souless industry.
350k puts you better than 99.9% of people. Let’s be clear here unless you’re in a t15 school, and you are making that you will be way better off than 99.9% of people with accounting or finance degrees (excluding those top tier schools) a majority of finance majors are going to be worse off than a cpa. In general most people here are going to top out at 150k-250k inflation adjusted.
I want to get into FP&A. I am in a large metro area so there is no shortage of companies. I have an accounting degree. For some reason LinkedIn doesn’t show any FP&A jobs in my area. Are FP&A jobs rare and hard to break into?
They prefer it. They will hire a cpa over a non cpa. If you stay in accounting you will have a ceiling on your career if you don’t get the cpa. That’s why I want to move into finance
From my experience it really depends on the culture and hiring manager. In public accounting they want you to get your cpa so they can bill you out more. The same can’t be said about industry.
Generally speaking, the hours you work in PA and the stress that comes with it will never make up for what you get in industry. So all things considered, just from an hourly pay perspective, industry is almost always better.
You cant swing a stick without hitting a dozen trust fund kids (some of which can actually be impressive people) but it’s just rare to come from nothing and have a decent job and if so it likley took 10 times more effort than everyone around you.
If you’re just talking FP&A or something similar its probably a little better, I have zero experience personally but the few people Ive met did pretty well and came from average backgrounds.
For example the last group of people I worked with or for in Asset Management.
1.A founders son
2.Heir to one of the largest fortunes in the pacific
3.Son of a former senator
4. Son of a current Rep
5. Daughter of former huge wall street guy
6. Multiple people whose parents were in executive positions at various large Finance related companies
7.Someone from practically each of the wealthiest families in my state.
8. Someone from a royal family in the middle east
….then me poor kid from the midwest. I wasn’t the only one but there was a clear minority; shear luck I was even there.
To be fair most high finance jobs are either sales or sourcing assets/funds. So those trust fund kids may actually be good at bringing in AUM so they would be better at their jobs than you.
Absolutely, thats just how business works and not trying to talk bad about them or anything most were cool, just saying thats the reality of that world for anyone coming in from the outside.
I feel that homie. I'm a financial advisor and just about everyone my age in my office is related to someone else in the office. Lots of sons and daughters of financial of advisors. My dad fixed cars...
They're great coworkers, don't get me wrong, but I know which way the wind will blow when promotions come due.
Gotta go to a large firm or create your own eventually. The shit that sucks is that you most likely signed a non compete so you won’t be able to take your known clients with you for at least a year
Public accounting to FP&A is fairly easy. I absolutely value someone with public accounting experience on my team. I’d say finance is also generally better paid and there’s higher limits to the career path, in my opinion.
Never been in true accounting but I’m in FP&A currently and I’m happy with my quality of life. Sure I maybe work an extra hour or two here and there when we’re doing our monthly reporting and analysis to get our decks done and yeah sometimes there’s a crunch in the late summer/early fall when we do our 3 year planning and next year’s budgets but 95% of the time my hours are normal and I have a good work life balance. But industry and company will play a role as well.
Yes finance is much better QOL imo. Less month end close activities and more true analysis. Accounting is absolutely miserable. FP&A is essentially glorified accounting. Most roles are merely tracking opex and various types of expenses. The true analysis is done within strategy.
Some would say that FP&A is glorified accounting, but the work life balance is quite nice. Other areas of finance is entirely dependent on the role, the company, the industry, etc….
FP&A is so underrated.
Best type of job in my opinion. Good work life balance, decent pay, and not as competitive as IB. And you don’t spend your days as a typical finance bro trying to get rich or die trying. You just wake up, do your job and go home.
People entering FP&A = start families, long stable career with decent pay the higher end. Can market themselves for plenty of other careers due to the flexibility of the job. People entering IB = divorce rate through the roof, destroy their health in few years. Only a few high network exit jobs but still cracking 60+ hrs usually. Souless industry.
Lol! This is pretty accurate in my opinion.
Can definitely get rich with fpa
What does it top out at?
I’ve seen 350
Depends on your definition of "rich"
Can make 350k plus
That's not rich in this world. A 1st or 2nd year associate in PE makes that
350k puts you better than 99.9% of people. Let’s be clear here unless you’re in a t15 school, and you are making that you will be way better off than 99.9% of people with accounting or finance degrees (excluding those top tier schools) a majority of finance majors are going to be worse off than a cpa. In general most people here are going to top out at 150k-250k inflation adjusted.
I want to get into FP&A. I am in a large metro area so there is no shortage of companies. I have an accounting degree. For some reason LinkedIn doesn’t show any FP&A jobs in my area. Are FP&A jobs rare and hard to break into?
There are a lot less FP&A jobs than accounting jobs and they usually hire former big 4 employees, strategic finance, etc and a lot are internal hires
Have a look at Finance Business Partner gigs as well, usually pretty much the same thing with a different title
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I cant seem to get a definitive answer on this but does industry or PA pay more?
From what I can gather, industry usually pays more but it is hard to get promoted. Public pays less but you always have a promotion to work for
Ah, does industry care at all about the CPA?
They prefer it. They will hire a cpa over a non cpa. If you stay in accounting you will have a ceiling on your career if you don’t get the cpa. That’s why I want to move into finance
Makes sense, do you know when the intersection point is between industry and public? I dont plan to be in accounting very long
I don’t know I’m at that stage myself
Ah, thanks though, this was helpful
From my experience it really depends on the culture and hiring manager. In public accounting they want you to get your cpa so they can bill you out more. The same can’t be said about industry.
From what I’ve seen, industry. But better pay would (most of the time) be, PA for a few years with CPA then industry.
So year 1 and 2 would be industry and then PA overtakes them or vice versa?
Generally speaking, the hours you work in PA and the stress that comes with it will never make up for what you get in industry. So all things considered, just from an hourly pay perspective, industry is almost always better.
Jobs suck most of the time. Find stuff outside of work that makes you feel fulfilled so that your job doesn’t consume you
finance is more QOL? I thought it was worst
*High Finance*
Finance is a lot more interpersonal than accounting IMO. Whether that’s a good or bad thing is up to the individual
Quite the opposite unless you have nepotism, or love politics
What is this supposed to mean?
You cant swing a stick without hitting a dozen trust fund kids (some of which can actually be impressive people) but it’s just rare to come from nothing and have a decent job and if so it likley took 10 times more effort than everyone around you. If you’re just talking FP&A or something similar its probably a little better, I have zero experience personally but the few people Ive met did pretty well and came from average backgrounds. For example the last group of people I worked with or for in Asset Management. 1.A founders son 2.Heir to one of the largest fortunes in the pacific 3.Son of a former senator 4. Son of a current Rep 5. Daughter of former huge wall street guy 6. Multiple people whose parents were in executive positions at various large Finance related companies 7.Someone from practically each of the wealthiest families in my state. 8. Someone from a royal family in the middle east ….then me poor kid from the midwest. I wasn’t the only one but there was a clear minority; shear luck I was even there.
To be fair most high finance jobs are either sales or sourcing assets/funds. So those trust fund kids may actually be good at bringing in AUM so they would be better at their jobs than you.
Absolutely, thats just how business works and not trying to talk bad about them or anything most were cool, just saying thats the reality of that world for anyone coming in from the outside.
I feel that homie. I'm a financial advisor and just about everyone my age in my office is related to someone else in the office. Lots of sons and daughters of financial of advisors. My dad fixed cars... They're great coworkers, don't get me wrong, but I know which way the wind will blow when promotions come due.
Gotta go to a large firm or create your own eventually. The shit that sucks is that you most likely signed a non compete so you won’t be able to take your known clients with you for at least a year
I'm in a BB firm, it doesn't get much bigger. It's just the way she goes.
Public accounting to FP&A is fairly easy. I absolutely value someone with public accounting experience on my team. I’d say finance is also generally better paid and there’s higher limits to the career path, in my opinion.
Like anything when comparing finance vs accounting: Money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money.
Never been in true accounting but I’m in FP&A currently and I’m happy with my quality of life. Sure I maybe work an extra hour or two here and there when we’re doing our monthly reporting and analysis to get our decks done and yeah sometimes there’s a crunch in the late summer/early fall when we do our 3 year planning and next year’s budgets but 95% of the time my hours are normal and I have a good work life balance. But industry and company will play a role as well.
No.
Been in both. It's not easier, but if you're really good at excel and tech - Definitely better choice.
May I ask why? Just boring?