Tax accountants are increasingly relied upon for organizational strategy as technology helps them step away from data entry

The accounting field is changing quickly. As you can read in our article about the future of accounting, accounting “grunt work” and data entry are on the decline. Accountants today need to be ready with a new set of skills compared to accountants of the past.

The role of a tax accountant, for example, is undergoing a fundamental shift in focus due to the rise of cloud computing and the ability to process massive amounts of data with less effort. These technological advancements are helping distinguish the role of the tax accountant as a lead business strategist within an organization.

“Tax accounting will continue to shift more toward an advisory role in a business, says Michael Donohoe, an associate professor of accounting in the online master’s in accounting program (iMSA) and PwC Faculty Fellow at the University of Illinois’ Gies College of Business, “Data entry work will likely become more of a thing of the past with clients entering data themselves through a cloud-based service. We’ll also see tax accounting and data analytics merge in a way that allow accountants to focus more on planning, efficiency, and organizational structure.”

Donohoe is a leading expert on tax accounting strategy, including how competition affects firms’ decision to become an S-corp vs. a C-corp (for example). With their time freeing up thanks to from more automated processes, tax accountants can spend their time considering strategies associated with answers to questions like these.

Donohoe and fellow colleagues have pioneered research on how competition from tax-advantaged firms influences the behavior of tax-disadvantaged firms, specifically when it comes to organizational form choice. This research is important to the fundamentals of a firm’s strategy. With their time freeing up thanks to automated processes, tax accountants can spend their time considering the strategies associated with these types of issues.

Donohoe posits that tax accountants can and should be more focused on advising organizational-level strategy, like helping advise on organizational form choice. If you plan on becoming an accountant, CPA, or leading a business — or you already are doing one of these things — Michael’s research on organizational form is well worth your time.

It’s part of the reason that continued learning is important in the field of accounting. Degrees like the online masters in accounting (iMSA) are important for professionals to consider. Below, we’ve included the answers to some basic questions you might have, particularly if you haven’t heard Professor Donohoe discuss the topic:

Should your firm be an Scorporation or a C-corporation?

Before making a decision like this, it is important to understand the basics. What’s the difference between an S-corp and a C-corp?

What is an S-Corporation?

S-corps are pass-through tax entities. They file an informational federal return (Form 1120S), but no income tax is paid at the entity level. The profits and losses of the business instead “pass-through” the business and are reported on the owners’ personal tax returns. Any tax due is paid at the individual level by the owners.

What is a C-Corporation?

C-corps are separately taxable entities. They file a corporate tax return (Form 1120) and pay taxes at the corporate level. They also face the possibility of double taxation if corporate income is distributed to business owners as dividends (which are considered personal income). Tax on corporate income is paid first at the corporate level and again at the individual level on dividends.

What should you consider as an accountant deciding organizational form?

Donohoe has plenty of thoughts on this, but he is informed by his research on how competition affects the entity’s choices within an industry. As a tax accountant or business leader, this is another way of getting into the mind of your competitors to understand their current or future behavior.

Donohoe has clear, simple advice for anyone deciding on whether their firm should be an S Corp or a C Corp.

“Tax is not the only thing that matters in organizational form. When I talk to my students in the online masters in accounting program, we talk about tax factors — sure — but we also spend a lot of time discussing non-tax factors related to this decision. Things like a future IPO can dramatically change the approach a business should take regarding organizational form choice.”

These are the sorts of topics that are important for today’s tax accounting classes. Tax accountants, and accountancy in general, will continue to become important strategic advisors within business organizations. Organizational form is just one example of this foray into strategic decision making for accountants. So long, data entry!

When you think about the FBI, you might imagine stereotypical “feds” from movies busting down doors and arresting dangerous mobsters. You might also imagine agents infiltrating terrorist organizations in daring undercover operations. One thing that might not come to mind: accountants!

In truth, accountants with specialized expertise have played a central role in the FBI’s work since its inception. More than a third of the Bureau’s first employees were bank examiners, and today 15% of the FBI’s staff are forensic accountants.

Becoming a forensic accountant is an impactful and rewarding way to use your accounting skills. It’s also a demanding career path that requires higher-than-usual levels of expertise. And it’s not just the FBI that’s hiring: intelligence agencies all over the world like Britain’s MI6, Israel’s Mossad, India’s CBI, and Australia’s AUSTRAC recruit qualified candidates for these jobs. If you want to make the cut, here’s what you need to know:

What do FBI Forensic Accountants do?

In recent decades, the FBI has taken on savings and loan scandals, the war on terror, and the rise of increasingly complex financial crimes. During this time, accounting experts have become increasingly important to the Bureau’s operations. Their expertise is vital to investigations of cyber-crime, organized crime, public corruption, and even counterintelligence and counterterrorism.

According to the FBI website, forensic accountants at the agency investigate a wide range of financial crimes, including corporate fraud, financial institution fraud, healthcare fraud, mortgage fraud, and securities/commodities fraud. This requires them to identify suspicious activities and package these financial facts for law enforcement and judicial counterparts. This may include providing expert testimony in a courtroom.

Forensic accountants work side by side with FBI agents on cases, and in the words of one FBI section chief, “they do everything an agent does except for executing arrest warrants and carrying a gun.” It’s an extremely important position requiring a high level of performance. It’s no surprise that the Bureau looks to hire candidates with high levels of qualification.

What qualifications do FBI Forensic Accountants have?

Due to the complex and challenging nature of the financial crimes they investigate, FBI forensic accountants are more qualified than typical accountants. At a minimum, the FBI requires a bachelor’s and/or master’s degree in accounting, or a bachelor’s degree with 24 semester hours in accounting (six of which may be in business law).

That’s just the beginning. The Bureau strongly prefers candidates to have professional certification in at least one of the following:

• Certified Public Accountant (CPA)
• Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE)
• Certified in Financial Forensics (CFF)

Specialized accounting expertise can also give your application an edge. Additional preference is given to candidates with experience in fields like public accounting, government accounting, financial services, and corporate accounting.

There are also certain types of training that only the Bureau can provide. Once hired, forensic accountants take part in an intensive five-week training program at the FBI Academy to develop their investigative abilities. Skills taught include financial investigative techniques, interviewing strategies, and search warrant execution.

Getting your education FBI-ready

Forensic accountants are more important than ever, and the FBI is actively recruiting top-quality professionals. In their words, they’re hiring candidates at “all stages of career and specialized experience.”

If you’re just starting out in your accounting career, or you’re a mid-career accounting veteran looking to elevate your game to the highest possible level, forensic accounting could be a part of your future. If you’re worried that your résumé isn’t quite FBI-ready (or MI6-ready, or AUSTRAC-ready), consider an online master’s in accounting program to help boost your credentials and knowledge in the field.

The economy is changing at a dizzying pace, but one rule is constant: money makes the world go ‘round. In fact, macro trends such as globalization and increasingly complicated regulations are making financial accounting skills more in demand than ever.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects that accountant and auditor jobs will grow 10% over the next decade. That’s significantly faster than the rate of growth for other job categories. However, the growing complexity of the financial world is putting pressure on accountants to boost their skills. The BLS notes that advanced degrees are giving applicants an advantage.

If you’re wondering what the future of accounting jobs might hold for you, read on to learn about intriguing emerging jobs in this fast-changing field. If you want to burnish your accounting credentials, the University of Illinois online iMSA program on Coursera can help you take your career to the next level.

International Accountant

As the economy becomes increasingly globalized, a growing number of companies’ business crosses borders. That’s where international accountants come in, with specialized expertise in foreign transactions as well as translations of different international accounting standards. In addition to a graduate degree, proficiencies in foreign languages can provide a competitive advantage in this growing field.

Financial Consultant

In a business world increasingly obsessed with “lean” organizational structures, more and more companies are avoiding hiring full-time accountants in favor of financial consultants. These specialists provide accounting expertise on a part-time or per-project basis. For accountants with the right expertise and credentials, financial consulting offers flexible hours and the chance to work with a wide variety of clients in need of help on challenging projects.

Environmental Accountant

Organizations of every size are realizing that what’s good for the planet is also good for their bottom line. Benefits include cost savings, a reduced regulatory risk profile, and good publicity. Environmental accountants are responsible for providing guidance at the intersection of the environment and business. Potential responsibilities include determining compliance costs for environmental regulations, identifying cost-saving environmental initiatives, and developing environmental management systems (EMS).

Forensic Accountant

Forensic accountants are the detectives of the financial world, with responsibility for “following the money” in cases of corporate fraud, public corruption, and organized crime. They identify suspicious entities and transactions, track the flow of money from criminal activities, work with law enforcement officers. Often, they testify in court as experts. Demand for Forensic Accountants has grown along with the increasing prevalence of complex financial crimes. The FBI is actively recruiting accounting candidates with advanced degrees and certifications.

Sports Accountant

Sports is a massive business, and the way franchises are managed has been revolutionized by the use of advanced analytics. The role of data isn’t limited to analyzing player performance: sports accountants play an important role at helping teams plan their budgets, negotiate salaries, and make trades against a backdrop of complex salary caps. If you’re a sports fan, this is one of the most fun accounting jobs imaginable. As you might imagine, the competition for these roles is nearly as fierce as the competition on the court.

A Degree for the Future of Accounting

Accounting careers are so much more than they used to be!. These emerging career paths offer fascinating work, good pay, and long-term growth opportunities. As such, the level of competition is significantly higher for them compared to traditional accounting jobs. With Coursera, you can apply for an affordable, fully online master’s degree in accounting from the University of Illinois. Illinois boasts one of the top three accounting programs in the country.

The evolving field of accounting presents new opportunities for data-savvy students

Data science is changing the skills required to be a successful modern-day accountant. The University of Illinois’ online MSA program (iMSA) helps those interested in an accounting or finance career master new tools and capitalize on the exciting opportunities created by this evolution.

Accounting is rapidly changing as it transitions from measurement and process to playing an exciting and integral role in the world’s top organizations. Accountants are now expected to function as critical decision-makers, leveraging data science tools to inform company direction and overall strategy.

As new technologies enable accountants to expand their impact across organizations, these jobs are expected to grow 10 percent by 2026 — faster than the average for all occupations. The focus is not necessarily to turn accountants into data scientists, but to instead provide them with the ability to work more effectively with highly technical colleagues.

“The analogy is language,” says Robert Brunner, Associate Dean for Innovation and Chief Disruption Officer at Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who is leading a campus-wide effort to integrate data science across curricula. “You could get by speaking English working in a foreign country, but you’d be more productive if you spoke the language.”

By 2020, nearly 60 percent of employers believe data science and analytics skills will be necessary for finance and accounting managers, according to a 2016 survey. Aspiring and current accountants must learn these new tools in order to future-proof themselves and adapt to a changing field. “It’s critically important to realize artificial intelligence and automation are coming,” says Brunner. “You really run the risk of being replaced, or at a minimum having some of your job automated, if you don’t adapt.”

The master’s in accounting program from the University of Illinois is ranked among the top three accounting programs in the U.S., and it is an affordable way to prepare for the ongoing evolution in accounting and finance. Better yet, the online program — the iMSA — provides students the flexibility to prepare for the future while maintaining their current employment and apply their recent learnings to their job.

The iMSA specifically emphasizes the application of data science to help businesses uncover valuable insights, identify process improvements to increase efficiency, and better manage organizational risk. “Data is disrupting entire industries,” says Brunner. “You can see that we are just at the beginning of this new path, [and data science] is going to be critical going forward.”

Already, the university is hearing from employers about the value the MSA and iMSA programs provide. “Companies are now telling people to do the master’s program and the data science track within it when, before, they were unsure whether it was worth it at all,” Brunner says.

MSA students can anticipate incredible career opportunities upon graduation, as companies are struggling to find talent with the right blend of accounting and technical skills. In fact, CFOs cited hiring among their top three concerns in a recent Deloitte study. “Data science empowers professionals to have a lot more input in the decision-making processes,” says Vinod Bakthavachalam, a senior data scientist at Coursera. “By using data, you can justify and drive better decisions.”

Auditors, for example, can shift from a sample-based model to continuous monitoring of large datasets, thereby decreasing the margin of error and allowing them to make more precise recommendations. Accountants who work as investment advisers can use big data to find behavioral patterns that inform investment decisions, while automation through machine learning can be applied to a wide array of repetitive daily tasks.

A former Illinois student, for example, reported back to Professor Brunner that he was able to automate a large-scale text analysis process that formerly took weeks of human labor using the skills he gained in the iMSA program. In the future, similar projects will take mere days or even hours.

To those familiar with the accounting world, it is no surprise that Illinois is leading the charge to innovate within accounting. The Gies Business Department of Accountancy is one of the largest suppliers of leaders in the accounting profession, and it has consistently been at the forefront of curriculum innovation, design, and advancement. Its focus on data science within accounting is a continuation of this legacy.

iMSA students build expertise in the fundamentals of accounting, such as financial reporting, audit and control, and US federal taxation. They supplement these core studies with classes like data analytics in accountancy and statistical analyses in accountancy. These courses provide the ability to apply domain knowledge and data science tools to practical business applications.

The focus isn’t on producing fully-trained computer scientists, but on giving students exposure to the most important areas. One accounting student took two data science courses as part of her elective choices and then successfully participated in a hackathon with computer science majors, according to Brunner. “She was quite amazed she was able to hold her own with people for whom this is their chosen career,” he says.  

The academic rigor and faculty interactions of the iMSA are the same as what students expect from on-campus programs, but the iMSA caters to learners who need flexibility and convenience in order to balance work and other obligations with academic life.

Starting at $22,000, the cost of the degree is extremely low when you consider the growing importance of the skills developed through the program. “We are trying to future-proof the students we train so they can work in the way the world is now, but also in the way the world will be in the next five to ten years,” says Brunner.