busterbluth

Connections and networking play a bigger role in finance than accounting if you want to be successful.

Valores

A buddy of mine is a CPA.  He complains about the work, finds it boring.  I tell him he’s got a 200 yard drive down the middle of the fairway and that ain’t bad.  It’s definitely a safe bet, being a CPA.  You probably are not going to reach the green in two on a par five but your going to get there in regulation.  Better than a lot of hackers who got a finance job and got burnt out making cold calls for ….enter your favorite wire house here… and now sell plumbing parts at Home Depot.  
Finance is a stock, a exotic call option, an ipo.  Accounting is senior secured bond with no call option.  Different strokes for Diff….

grharmeyer

I’d rather kill myself then be an accountant(again).

malbec

hey greenman,post up your salary with your 2.1% year over year salary increase and then get back to us on accounting vs. finance.

Howd

i sense some bromance going on here.

profil

Finance is an umbrella term because there are so many job functions within the industry. It’s the equivalent in saying, “I work in Science”.

LPoulin133

Iteracom, you and I disagree on a lot of things a lot of the time.  But I always respect your opinion, and you don’t put other people down for disagreeing with you.  That’s why I like you.

dreampak

Thats fine you disagree. In fact I applaud you for not being a dbag in your reply like many other new folks here. Thats the point of a forum, people sharing their points of view.
I can agree about your argument that on average, finance doesnt pay that well. the truth is there are a lot more back office functions then there are rainmakers so obviously the average pay will skew downward much more. Just look at total average salaries and you’ll see even engineers will have much higher starting averages vs finance.
but 1 thing you need to think about is that people don’t generally go into finance thinking oh yes I’m going to work in the back office. there are not enough jobs for everyone to be on the revenue generating side and so therefore people end up taking back office jobs, or finance jobs in small mid size companies.
I also do agree on the whole there should b much less finance folks. But again its the fundamental problem where people only see the huge potential payout of landing that awesome job . it’s the same reason why people spend money buying the big payout lottery tickets even though the chances of landing it are slim to none. people buy the tickets shooting for the top and it’s generally the same with finance. I say generally because there are people who want to do back office, and some smartass will probably use it as an argumentjust for the sake of argument

sabre

the only real upside for being in accounting is stable employment and if you end up making partner of a large practice and then you make the big bucks.
The downside is the work makes you hate your life, long tedious hours doing dull work, your salary and bonus both suck, and you may be looked down upon as not good enough to do finance.

IAmNeil

TLDR version for both of these posts: Unless you’re the cream of the crop, accounting will probably be a more secure and financially rewarding career for most people.  Both the entry and exit opportunities in public accounting are better–especially if you can land at a Big Four accounting firm.