{"id":24768,"date":"2015-10-22T11:24:20","date_gmt":"2015-10-22T10:24:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clearbooks.co.uk\/?p=24768"},"modified":"2015-10-22T11:31:02","modified_gmt":"2015-10-22T10:31:02","slug":"10-challenges-of-being-an-accountant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clearbooks.co.uk\/blog\/10-challenges-of-being-an-accountant\/","title":{"rendered":"10 challenges of being an accountant"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We really love what we do here at Clear Books and at the many events we run for accountants, we can always see the passion our accountant partners have for their jobs. That&#8217;s why we went over the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.clearbooks.co.uk\/2015\/10\/19\/the-10-best-things-about-being-an-accountant\/\">10 best things about being an accountant <\/a>a few days ago. But just like any career, there are some downsides &#8211; so in the interests of fairness, now it\u2019s time for the challenges! A career in accountancy might not be for you if any of the following is a dealbreaker:<\/p>\n<p><strong>1. You may find yourself doing the same thing over and over again for a while.<\/strong> This is especially true if you work in one of the bigger accounting firms, where you\u2019ll have to do some repetitive audit work before you can move up.<\/p>\n<p><strong>2. There are cyclical periods of time when you\u2019ll almost certainly have to work overtime.<\/strong> When it comes time to do taxes and other big events in the fiscal year, accountants work up to 80 hours a week.<\/p>\n<p><strong>3. It\u2019s competitive<\/strong>. Most of the people who get into accounting are naturally driven, focused, and intelligent, so that means competition for training and jobs can be intense. It\u2019s definitely not a career you can float into.<\/p>\n<p><strong>4. You have to be able to focus under pressure<\/strong>. Accounting is all about making sure that every detail is just right, and when you\u2019ve been working long hours or are under a tight deadline, it can be hard to keep your focus.<\/p>\n<p><strong>5. The training is never all the way over<\/strong>. Continuing professional development is important in this field, so you\u2019ll have to be prepared to keep studying throughout your career.<\/p>\n<p><strong>6. It\u2019s detail oriented<\/strong>. This can be a good thing if you\u2019re naturally more detail-focused, but it can be really annoying and overwhelming if you\u2019re not \u2026 and there\u2019s not really any way around it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>7. It\u2019s traditionally a hierarchical career.<\/strong> If you go into a traditional accounting position, you\u2019ll normally have to follow a very specific set of steps to move up in the hierarchy. Of course, this is\u00a0changing with modern firms!<\/p>\n<p><strong>8. Deadlines are non-negotiable.<\/strong> Making deadlines is really important, since you or your clients can often get fined if you miss them, so if you\u2019re the type of person who likes to push things up to the last minute (or watch deadlines go by entirely), accounting isn\u2019t the best career for you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>9. It\u2019s hard to watch clients make bad choices after you give them good advice.<\/strong> One of the best parts about being an accountant is that you really get to know the nuts and bolts of a business, which means that you can give your clients really good advice about what they should do. Unfortunately, that doesn\u2019t mean they have to take it \u2026 and it can be hard to watch a client do something you know will hurt their business.<\/p>\n<p><strong>10. There\u2019s a lot of logistical requirements if you run your own business.<\/strong> You\u2019ve got to have your insurance and continuous professional development if you want to work as an accountant, and if you want to be a chartered accountant you\u2019ll also have to pass regular inspections.<\/p>\n<p>OK fellow accountants, time to vent \u2014 what bugs you about the job? Tell us below in the comments!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We really love what we do here at Clear Books and at the many events we run for accountants, we can always see the passion our accountant partners have for their jobs. That&#8217;s why we went over the 10 best [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":24153,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>10 challenges of being an accountant | Clear Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We really love what we do at Clear Books, but all careers have their challenges! 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