"Your career as an ACA". - Making your 1st Move out of practice into the Tech/Fintech World.

Your career as an ACA

Making your 1st Move out of practice into the Tech/Fintech World as an Audit Manager

There are always commonalities within people’s motivations and the choices they make and the move you see the most is the choice to leave practice and venture into the world of industry.?This move will of course allow any budding accountant, access to the more commercially significant workings of the many businesses they have been auditing during their career in practice.

In this series of articles, I will try to lay out from my own experience, what you will learn when you engage in a particular path and where that path may lead long term.

We will also explore some of the things that fill candidates with anxieties and try to give reassurance and clarity to them.

Contents of this Article:

1. When is the best time to leave practice?
2. Audit Manager Intro.
3. Financial and Group Accounting Manager
4. Group / Finance Manager
5. Fp&A analyst or Manager
6. Internal Audit.
7. Questions and Anxieties common during someone’s search.
8. CV writing Tips.
9. Conclusion.

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When is the best time to leave practice?

There are generally 3 key times when Audit trained Aca’s may choose to leave practice, Newly qualified, Manager Level or Senior Manager. During this series we will explore all 3.?This month we’ll focus on:

Audit Managers

The benefits of leaving practice at Manager level are primarily that you have:

• Acquired further management experience within a reputable and well-known institution.?
• You will most likely have specialised in some form of accounting or industry which can be used to leverage into that same industry outside of practice.?
• A stamp of credibility and performance that you managed to be promoted within a competitive org.

As an Audit manager it’s prudent to leverage your specialism into that relevant industry space to gain most value, but it’s not essential when making your choice.?The number of roles that are available to Managers when they come into the market are far fewer and less frequent in their availability and you will sometimes be competing against some of your peers who’ve been in industry for 2/3 years by now.

The most common roles you see in the market for managers are financial reporting focussed at their core, but they can have a healthy amount of budgeting, forecasting and partnering in them as well.

Roles such as:

• Group Finance Manager
• Finance Manager
• Group Reporting Manager
• Technical Accounting Manager

Fp&A Analyst or Manager are possible but very rare.?Candidates who end up in those roles generally, know someone in that company already who gave them “a chance” in that role, or the candidate had acquired an exotic or interesting secondment that was Fp&A focussed in practice.

Gaining a Financial Controller role is again possible, but only in a very isolated capacity as the partnering and commercial aspects of the role are very important and someone straight from practice doesn’t necessarily understand the commercial side just yet in their career.

But which role to choose?

Financial and Group Accounting Manager

Moving into a Financial or Group accounting role is a very strong option for any ACA who likes the idea of giving themselves the smoothest path towards becoming a Financial Controller.?The technical skills you will develop are highly valued within Industry and are essential to the smooth running of any function.?Later in your career these skills will help accelerate you passed many of your peers.

The more “commercial”, operational business partnering and Fp&A Elements to your career can be developed in these roles even at an early stage but require the candidate to have a certain level of self-determination to go looking for them internally and “to put their hand up to ask for more”.

• You’ll gain core technical skills, Audit, Stats, Month end. Highly desirable in finance.
• Process and controls improvement are some of the achievements you can acquire.
• Business partnering and Fp&A are possible but not essential parts of the day to day.

Possible Career directions as a result of this role:

• Financial controller is most the common. This role would encompass reviewing all work across the function, more operational involvement and some solid Fp&A involvement, with obvious team management.
• Fp&A Manager is possible but unlikely, as you would compete against candidates with far more budgeting and forecasting exp from an Fp&A Pathway.?But if have picked up commercial experience indirectly in your role and you’re a naturally analytical person with excellent comms, there is always a chance.

Group / Finance Manager

Moving into a Group Finance Manager or Finance Manager role can be very common for an Audit Manager.?Post Series B businesses up to Listed accommodate these roles. If you like the idea of developing your budgeting, forecasting and operational partnering early in your career then this could be an interesting route.?The roles tend to have a good broad mix of responsibility that still give you access towards a Controller of Commercial specialist pathway.

• You will gain Month end, budgeting, forecasting and operational partnering.
• You may also gain Audit and stats experience.
• Process improvement and controls achievements will be something to acquire in this role.
• Fp&A experience will be part of this role indirectly.
• You can learn to support operational teams.

Possible Career directions as a result of this role:

• Financial controller is most the common. This role would encompass reviewing all work across the function, more operational involvement and some solid Fp&A involvement, with obvious team management.
• Finance Business Partner could be a next step although you may gain less overall career capital from this type of move.
• Financial analyst or Fp&A Analyst are both possible if you have managed to take on some analytical projects or complex modelling already, by asking for more in your current role.

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Fp&A Analyst or Manager

Many ACAs wish to go into this more analytical pathway as their 1st move, as they want a big change from the backward-looking audit work they’ve been doing in practice.?Moving into a role where you’re leveraging your budgeting and forecasting early on as well as doing more analytical work can be very attractive to many young accountants, but the long-term limitations of this path need to be clearly stated as this can become quite a specialised pathway, limiting candidates later career choices.

To contextualise this, candidates may find if they change their minds and wish to become a more mainstream Finance director it can be exceedingly hard to cross back into this path as your previous experience will be very specialised in one area.

• You will gain Month end, budgeting, forecasting and operational partnering from a company perspective.
• Process improvement and controls achievements will be something to acquire in this role.
• You can learn to support M&A transactions if you’re in a company that’s engaged upon them.
• You can take on numerous analytical projects to improve your modelling.
• You can learn about data visualization tools that are at the cutting edge of analytics.

Possible Career directions as a result of this role:

• Finance Business Partner would be a natural next step as you will probably have had some contact with this type of role already.
• Fp&A Manager/Director would be a logical next step, where the candidate will work on increasing their closeness to decision making or improve their team management.
• Financial Modeller is a possible direction if you so wish to specialise in that niche area.

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Internal Audit

Internal audit whilst looking and feeling like a role not too dissimilar than External audit and therefore not a significant career change can add some highly desirable commercial and technical skill sets into an accountants CV.

• You’ll Gain a Full Understanding How the Business Works
• You’ll Improve Your Analytic Abilities
• You’ll learn how to be a genuine Finance Business Partner.

An audit plan goes well beyond finance, of course, to include operations, strategy, marketing, and IT, as well as other areas of the business. Internal auditors need to grasp cybersecurity and data protection and many other IT concepts.

Possible Career directions as a result of this role:

• Finance Business Partner – you can transition into this quite comfortably; however, you would need to prove your core finance skill, so a relatively early exit is advisable to give you a greater chance.
• Continuation into larger and larger companies managing a team of internal auditors.
• Joining a specialist audit consultancy practice.
• Going back into a Top 6 practice at a more senior level.

Questions Commonly asked and Anxieties usually shared:

• Is this the most important move of your career?

All moves in your career are important in some way, but you will not be “type cast” or “Pidgeon holed” if you make a move early in your career that you later regret into industry.?Candidates transition in an out of different parts of the function all the time.?It’s much easier to transition early in your career.?If you decide you’re in the wrong part of the function after 5-10 years, then that’s a different story!

• Can you only reach FD/CFO from a certain pathway?

You can become an FD or a CFO from any pathway, however some are faster and more mainstream than others.?As your career develops, you’ll also understand more about what an FD or a CFO actually does, reassuring yourself of how you can get there too.

• How long should I stay in my role before I progress?

When you’re early on in your career you are usually very keen to progress quickly and gain access to what you perceive to be more important, or more commercial leadership positions.?I would always council ACA’s to complete 18 Months to 3 years in all their early roles, as understanding and being competent when delivering the basics are very important for later in your career.

Also, on a side note – The concept of being “Jumpy” is something that isn’t communicated to the candidate directly, but it’s something that’s commented on intensely by the top companies when looking at candidate’s CV’s.?The candidate may perceive themselves to be an ambitious and progressive fast riser, but the best companies in London cannot see that through a CV, all they see Is someone who leaves early, doesn’t want to be part of any company’s mission or journey and seems to be signing up to companies purely for their own ends.

If your CV starts to reflect this, then it will affect your career in ways you won’t be able to overtly perceive, you simply won’t be approached by the best companies as much and you will lose access to the best jobs.

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Writing your CV

I see many Audit Managers CV’s and many can look the same. They will all have an excellent academic background and a Practice that is well known. So, it is important to provide detail on the key financial challenges you faced with each client and where possible, highlight the value that you added rather than just saying I audited X or Y.?

Be willing to let your personality come across on your C.V. and mention the extracurricular activities you participate in.

There is no need in Finance to produce a CV that is hugely focussed on clever formatting, colourful graphics or any such art related paraphernalia.?This is a technical career, so your CV should reflect that.?Simple formatting, simple presentation, but laden with interesting detail as to what you delivered and why you’re an interesting prospect to an employer.

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I hope this was of some small use.

Remember these thoughts are my own based off my 7 years recruiting in Qualified finance.

If you want career advice or help with your search, drop me your CV.

[email protected]

Or message me on Linkedin -?Simon Bennett .