Finance vs Marketing – Which is Better? Many students think that Finance and accounting stem from the same domain of expertise. But ask an accountant or a finance guy who has been working in a corporate for a long time, they would tell you how different they are in their nature, scope of work and areas of expertise.

In this article, we will look at both of these domains and investigate how different they are. Yes, they’re related. And to be good in finance, you need to know the basic accounting. But that doesn’t mean both are the same things.

We discuss the following in this indepth article –

• Finance vs Accounting – Overview
• Finance and Accounting Outlook
• Finance vs Accounting Degree
• Primary tasks of Finance and Accounting
• Work life balance in Finance and Accounting
• Finance vs Accounting – Salary
• Finance vs Accounting – Pros and cons

We will give you examples and share some facts about both of these. Hang tight and read on. Let’s get started.

Finance vs Accounting – Overview

Finance vs Accounting – Outlook

First let’s understand finance and accounting from a high level. In layman’s language, finance is the science of planning the distribution of assets within the company. Accounting, on the other hand is the art of summarizing, reporting and recording the finance-related transactions. Now, let’s go deep and try to understand what finance and accounting are all about.

Finance Career Outlook

Finance can be divided into two main functions.

• The first is to ensure that the operation of the business is done properly. For that the business needs to source funds.
• The second function of finance is how the funds would be distributed for the maximum return on investments for business once the funds are sourced.

But that’s not it. There are many more things in finance that finance executives and professionals have to pay heed to. For example, people who are involved in finding out which projects are best for clients to invest into, are performing financial analyses on regular basis.

Many professionals are also engaged in valuing the companies and finding out which companies to buy for expansion. Finance is a complex domain and there are many sub-domains inherent within it. So you need to find out which sub-domain you like and choose to expand your career in the same sub-domain. You can go into corporate finance, project finance, investment analyses, equity research, financial analysis, valuation, risk management and so on and so forth.

Accounting Career Outlook

• On the other hand, accounting professionals get busy in recording, reporting and summarizing the entire gamut of financial transactions through journal, ledger, trail balance, balance sheet, cash-flows, income statement and so on and so forth.
• The main goal of an accountant is to represent the accurate financial picture of a company. On the basis of which the firm makes amendments and take care of the internal operations.

Take for example that you want to improve upon an area of your life. What would you do? You would start tracking the area you want to improve upon and record everything you do or don’t do. And then finally you come to the conclusion where you are in that area so that from there you can change your direction. The main purpose of accounting is similar. It’s important for a company to be profitable not only in reality, but also in paper. By means of accounting, the company understands how much liabilities they have, how much assets they own, how much taxes they need to pay and how profitable the company is.

Finance vs Accounting Degrees

In finance, there are hundred streams you can go into. Depending on your goal, here’s what you should do.

• First complete your Bachelor’s degree in Finance or Accounting and then if you want to be in a managerial position in a big corporate, go for MBA in Finance from a reputed institute.
• With an MBA degree in Finance, you can also go for Investment Banking, but in that case, you need to have mettle for analyses and valuation also.
• Other than MBA, you can also go for core courses, like CFA, FRM, CQF, Actuary and so many other core domain courses. They are internationally recognized and if you really want to pursue a career in these core domains, having a certification will pave your way.

In case of accounting, it’s more of a narrow path. But that doesn’t mean you can’t make your mark in this field.

• Accounting is the foundation of finance. Thus you can pursue a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting or Finance and then can choose to go in accounting instead of finance.
• The best two courses you should opt for are CA and CPA. Both are globally recognized and would add tremendous value to you as professionals.

Finance vs Accounting – Primary tasks

Let’s look at the primary tasks of finance and then we will see the primary tasks of accounting.

Primary tasks of finance professionals

You may have already understood that finance is a vast field and thus here we’re presenting the general functions of finance professionals. According to the core field you’re in, you need to perform various actions over and above these functions below –

• One of the most important functions of finance is to source funds. For operating a business on day-to-day basis and for producing products and services, organizations need to invest huge amount in the research, in procuring the raw materials, in hiring right human resources and in the processes which make the transition from raw materials to finished goods. So the organizations need to find ways to source funds from various sources. And finance professionals take the charge to source funds from various sources. They may go to financial institutions and ask for loan or they can conduct IPO and gather the money from public.

• Sourcing of funds is important. But distribution of these funds is equally important. You need to know where to put money so that you can get maximum return on investment within few years. The main motto of finance professionals would be the perpetuity of business. To ensure that they should invest money into building organization’s core competency. Once the core competency is built, then the rest would be much easier to handle.

• Now let’s talk about the third most important function. Let’s say that the organization has already invested a ton of money into building their new product line. And it successfully attracted a lot of customers. As a result, the firm has made a huge profit. The question is what the firm would do with the profit! Would the firm reinvest into the business to improve its processes or the profit would be shared among shareholders? This is an important decision to make and this decision has to be made by finance professionals in the organization.

• The last but not the least part of the finance functions is communicating the decision made to the senior/top management professionals to get their nod. Many people say that finance professionals don’t need to be good at soft skills. But the truth is financial professionals need to be equally versed in spoken and written English as they need to create multiple reports and convey their decisions on investment, reinvestment, sharing profits, capital budgeting and many such important decisions to the top management.

Primary tasks of accounting professionals

There are four most important functions which make accounting different than any other domain.

• In Finance, the idea is to distribution of assets (current plus fixed) in appropriate manner. Accounting comes after that. It helps the organization measure the contributions of resources in different area of business. Doing this helps the business gain clarity about whether to change the resource allocation or go on with the same arrangements.

• Organizations also need to pay to its creditors. These are the liabilities of the organization. As an accountant, you need to make sure that these payments made/ paid in advance/ payment due are properly measured.

• Organizations have many contracts to fulfil. Accounting determines whether the contracts are being fulfilled or not.

• Disclose the information to public and Government so as to maintain the transparency of the business and to ensure an accurate picture of the financial position of the organization.

Finance vs Accounting – Work life balance

Finance domain has varied sub-domains. And in each sub-domain work life balance is different. For example, if you are an equity research professional, you will get enough time to relax in the weekend, get home at night and spend the weekend time with your family. But let’s say you’re investment banking professional. In that case, you may not get time even for yourself; leave the chances of spending time with your near ones. So according to the domain in finance, work life balance varies.

In case of accounting professionals, work life balance is mostly maintained. Except at the end of financial year and at the time of tax payment, most of the times, accounting professionals maintain a good work life balance.

Finance vs Accounting Salary

Let’s dive in the salary curve and the job opportunities of each of the domain.

First, let’s talk about finance professionals.

According to Payscale.com, the median salary of finance professionals is US $84,800 per annum.

source: Payscale.com

Let’s have a look at the salary of finance professionals as per the experience –

source: Payscale.com

However, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. 2014-15, it was found that the mean annual salary of finance professionals is US $69,184 and growth is terrific. It’s predicted that in 2022, the growth of salary for finance professionals would be 16%.

Now, let’s have a look at the accounting professionals.

According to US News, the median annual salary of an accountant is around US $65,940 per annum. The 75^th Percentile is US $87,530 per annum and 25^th Percentile is US $51,130 per annum.

source: money.usnews.com

Let’s have a look at how the salary of an accountant has changed over the years –

source: money.usnews.com

If we compare the salary of accountant over last 8 years (from 2006 to 2014), we will see that the salary has increased by US $13,420 per annum which is by no means is a small number. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. (2014-15), the salary of accounting professionals would increase around 13% in 2022. And from the above graph, we can say, the claim is appropriate.

Let’s look at the comparison of accounting with other best jobs in terms of salary –

source: money.usnews.com

From the above graph, it’s clear that the salary of accountant is much less than the salary of finance professionals.

Finance vs Accounting – Pros and cons

Finance

Pros of Finance Career

• Finance has many sub-domains. Thus if any student wants to pursue finance, she doesn’t need to get stuck in one narrow avenue of work and she can explore as much as she can. So if you want to pursue a career in investment banking and later find it demanding, you can switch to equity research profile.
• Finance needs technical skills. If you can learn few important technical skills like financial analysis, valuation, financial modelling, VBA, Quantitative Finance, your success as professionals would be much higher than those who have acquired only basic skills.
• If you stay in finance domain for a longer period of time, you will be paid much more than accounting domain.

Cons of Finance Career

• As finance has so many sub-domains, it sometimes gets difficult for students to decide what to choose and what to leave behind. We can call it analysis-paralysis.
• If you work in general finance, you will not get compensated well. The only way to earn more in finance domain is to specialize.

Accounting

Pros of Accounting Career

• The best part of accounting is its work-life balance. Rarely there is any pressure and if you’re good in accounting, you don’t need to worry about the security of the job.
• Even if the scope of accounting is narrow, still you can specialize in auditing, taxation or pure financial accounting and can ensure better pay as a result.

Cons of Accounting Career

• The domain is very narrow and rarely do you have any opportunity to specialize in something broader. That doesn’t mean you can’t do much in accounting. But people who are in love with repetitive work enjoy working in this profession.
• The compensation in this domain is not up-to the mark. But if you can complete CA (only 2% of entire applicants pass the exam), you will definitely have better prospects.

Other comparisons that you may like

• Accounting vs Engineering
• Finance vs Economics
• Finance vs Marketing
• Finance vs Consulting

The post Finance vs Accounting – Which is Better? appeared first on Free Investment Banking Tutorials | WallStreetMojo.