Accounting Graduate Jobs & Graduate Accounting Schemes.

In this section we take an indepth look into Graduate Accounting Jobs & Accountancy Graduate Schemes. We'll discuss the different types of accountancy graduate jobs, graduate trainee accountant salaries and rewards, accountancy graduate schemes qualifications and much more.

What is Accountancy?

Accountancy is crucial to the management of businesses around the globe. Accountants provide financial information and advice to organisations. Information reported includes:
• Organisation Performance – including profit or loss.
• Taxation.
• Investment opportunities.
• Risk management.
• Strategic business advice and forecasting.

Who uses Accounts & Financial Statements?

It’s not just the employers who use Accounts. Here’s a few other groups and reasons as to why they use them:
1) Business owners. Crucial to the success of any business.
2) Business managers. Accounts often define their bonuses.
3) Investors. Accounts determine not only whether they will or will not invest, but the value of the investment.
4) The bank. Particularly when assessing loaning money to the business.
5) HMRC. For legal and tax reasons.
6) Suppliers. Suppliers might check the financial statements of the business before they even begin to make any agreements to trade with them.
7) Employees. Current and future employees may want to see the strength of the company.

Management Accountants versus Chartered Accountants.

Management Accountants are very similar to Chartered Accountants. The major difference is this.

A Management accountant manages the accounts in a given company. A Chartered Accountant will report the Accounts externally to a company. They often have several clients as opposed to just one. In practice the job role can be very similar.

In terms of the qualifications, there divide is shown below:

Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA).

The ACCA qualification is concentrated on professional practice and uniquely covers:
 External audit and assurance.
 Taxation of corporate and non- corporate entities.
 Law.
With focus on:
 Information systems.
 Financial accounting and reporting.

Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA).

The CIMA qualification is concentrated on business and uniquely covers:
 Operations.
 Change Management.
 Relationship and Project Management.
 Marketing.
With focus on:
 Business decisions.
 Applied management accounting techniques.
 Stronger emphasis on application and analysis of knowledge.
 Human Resource Management.

What are the job titles for Accounting Graduate Jobs?

Here are a few accounting job titles. You might like to further research some of these. There are links to useful sites at the bottom of this article.

Management Accountant. Chartered Accountant. Actuary. Auditor. Economist. Financial Analyst. Tax Adviser. Accountant Technician. Chartered Certified Accountant.

Duties in Accounting Graduate Jobs.

There’s a whole host of duties as a graduate accountant. It’s not just looking at Excel. These will vary from position and specialism. Here are some of the common projects.
• Production of weekly, monthly reports.
• Assisting with the year-end statutory accounts.
• Budgeting and forecasting.
• Variance Analysis.
• Producing balance sheet reconciliations.
• maintaining nominal accounting records.
• Banking and cash-flow reporting.
• Maintain the debtors/creditors ledger.
• Preparing VAT returns.
• Assisting with the management accounts.
• Presentation and Communication of reports, forecasts and advice.

Requirements for Accounting Graduate Jobs.

For many of the schemes employers ask for a 2:1 degree grade or above. The subject often doesn’t matter. Especially with large Accountancy Companies. They have thorough training schemes and therefore are happy to train graduates from a basic level.

There’s a lot of competition to get on Accountancy Graduate Schemes. Therefore there are many skills that will shine through.

Strong Maths skills. A Levels in Maths are often helpful. A GCSE in Maths is pretty much essential.
Strong Analytic Skills. Analytics is a big part of working in Accuntancy. It’s not just above providing figures, but alos guidance and advice.

Strong Communication Skills. Accountants need to work and communicate with all types of people. That could be internal staff, business owners and managers, banks, government and tax authorities and suppliers.

Where are the Accounting Graduate Jobs located?

Accounting Graduate Jobs are located all across the UK and the World. As common to many sectors, London is a real hub. Many of the largest Accountancy firms have Head Offices in London. However, even the largest companies will offer places in other locations. You’ll also find smaller/medium size Accountancies in every city and most towns.

What are the salaries of Accounting Graduate Jobs?

A career in Accounting can be very well paid. Especially once you qualify as an Accountant. This takes 3 – 4 years usually. In London, you can expect a starting salary of around £25,000 as an average for graduates.
According to CIMA part-qualified students are earning on average £31,432 in basic salary.With £1,512 in bonus payments, totalling £32,944.
You can expect to be earning £45,000 according to the ICAEW upon qualification.

What are the Rewards & Benefits of Accounting Graduate Jobs?

Accountancies often treat their staff well. Benefits are above many other graduate sector jobs. Benefits can include and are not limited to:

• Pension scheme with company contribution.
• Holiday allowance. Often 20 -25 days per year.
• Interest-free season ticket loan.
• Personal accident insurance and life assurance.

Often bigger companies will also offer:

• Cycle to work schemes.
• Health checks and private healthcare.
• Annual travel insurance.
• Lunch allowance.
• Staff discounts (e.g. computing devices, gym membership, travel).
• Extra holidays & Time off in-lieu.

What Qualifications do Graduate Accounting schemes work towards?

This is dependent upon the type of Accountancy the graduate is pursuing. Here is a selection of the most popular, with links to further information.
CIMA - Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.
ACCA - The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants.
ACA - Association of Consulting Actuaries.
AAT - Association of Accounting Technicians.
AIA or AFA - Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.

Who are the large Graduate Accountancy Employers?

Ernst and Young, PwC, Deloitte and KPMG are often termed as the the ‘Big Four’. They take on thousands of graduates every year. Competition for places on these are very high.

Websites with more information on Accounting Graduate Jobs.

Accountancy Students - the online accounting community