Financial Analyst Report: Issues, Communication in Finance Profession

This report delves into the financial analyst profession, focusing on the author's career aspirations and the relevance of finance and data analysis. It explores current challenges such as tax law changes, automation, and cybersecurity. The report examines the importance of effective communication within the discipline, including formal reporting and internal communications, as well as communication with external stakeholders like clients and investors, emphasizing the need to translate complex data into accessible information. The author reflects on the skills required, including analytical abilities, communication, and IT knowledge, and highlights the importance of certifications like CPA and CFA. The report also underscores the ongoing need for accountants to develop strategic advisory skills and adapt to technological advancements, while also addressing the challenges small to medium-sized firms face in attracting top talent. The report concludes with the author's reflections on the skills acquired and the challenges encountered in the field, emphasizing the role of mentors and colleagues in gaining understanding and knowledge of the profession.

Running Head: MANAGEMENT
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Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Current Issues and Concerns of Field........................................................................................3
Reading and Writing within Discipline or Profession...............................................................4
Reading and Writing from Discipline or Profession to Outsiders.............................................5
Conclusion and Reflection.........................................................................................................6
Reference....................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
The discipline chosen by me is related to business and the profession chosen is of
financial analyst. The reason for the choice of financial analysts is because of my subject
finance and data analysis. This profession excites me because I think it to be my future career
goal. Further, the other thing excites me is that I have great interest in doing data analysis,
hence, choice of this profession of financial analyst will help me to analyze data and make
the decisions of business accordingly. More deeply I study my courses and internship, the
more I will be in position to find specific job that I require. I will read different articles
regarding business news such as New York Times and Wall Streets. In order to get more
information about the profession, I might take interview of my professor. The interview will
be related to things that I have learned during lecture. I will also interview employee working
on the business college complex. I will ask in the interview regarding the process of writing
business newspaper by writer regarding business news. Moreover, the top most three
journals, which serves profession or discipline includes “Investment Analysts Journal”,
“Journal of Financial Counselling and Planning” and “Journal of Financial Regulation”. By
going through all these, I will be learning various aspects of discipline and profession.
Currently, I am not enough prepared for meeting reading and writing the demands of
discipline or profession because there are still some confusion in some part of the project,
which will be cleared, once I explore and grasp all the knowledge about the discipline and
profession.
The minimum education required for the financial profession is post-graduation in
finance. The skills required for the financial profession includes formal accounting
profession, interpersonal skills, good communication skills, financial reporting, analytical
ability, IT software knowledge, management experience, innovation capacity and commercial
acumen. Moreover, there are various certification, which one can consider in the finance

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profession such as CPA, CFP, CFA, CIC, FRM and others. These certifications have great
impact on gaining knowledge related to the field interest and also in getting job that one
desires for.
Current Issues and Concerns of Field
The constant changes in system of tax, retaining and hiring staff and understanding
technology impact of the technology on practice are some of the challenges for modern
accounting firm. Following are some of the current issues and concerns of field:
 Continuing Implementation of Tax Cuts and Jobs Acts: The jobs acts and tax cuts
is affecting everything from the entertainment and meals expenses to depreciation.
The expenses of entertainment are no longer deductible but the business-related meals
are (Clikeman). The depreciation of bonus allows business for deducting 100 percent
of depreciation on assets of business such as computers, vehicles and the other
equipment right away for next three years. The businesses are eligible for using
accounting cash method that is often cheaper and simpler compared to accrual
accounting (Andre, Sean and Becky).
 Artificial Intelligence and Automation are taking over the Traditional
Accounting Duties: In current generation, AI is becoming more capable to handle the
complex duties of accounting such as collection of transactions and compiling them
into the tax returns and financial statements. The automation of accounting helps to do
the job more efficiently (Copeland). It can save the time, so that one can focus instead
on the non-repetitive, strategic tasks, for instance financial risk management and
financial planning and analysis. Further, cybersecurity becoming bigger priority. The
information provided by accounting is hot target for the hackers due to its higher
value (Flynn et al.). As the leader of business or accounting profession, the main
responsibility of them is to protect the data that goes well beyond the walls of own

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data of company. This includes data for all the contacts in system including service
providers, employees and clients (Bloomfield et al.).
 Diversification of Skills by Accountants: The technology is reducing the
requirement for the rules-based and traditional accounting skills and it is increasing
the demand for financial strategy and analysis. However, one cannot just roll out of
the bed and start doling out the financial advice to clients (Gillis). The accountants
need to get started by providing more strategic advice to the clients with the help of
simply conducting the survey of where the customer is facing problems and their
business goals and then digging into numbers for finding insights on the way they can
get there. Hence, the firms of accounting needs to be proactive enough in order to
attract top talent (Guthrie, James and Lee). This field faces ongoing shortage of skills,
hence, medium to small-sized practices are required to shift the gears for ensuring that
they retains and attracts next generations of the practitioners. This could be
challenging for the smaller firms that are competing against the larger companies with
the more resources (Henderson et al.). However, there are some of the key tactics,
which smaller companies can use for attracting the top talent that includes
highlighting benefits to work for medium or small practice and developing the
prominent awareness of brand so the company is known to be the attractive place to
work (Canning, Mary and Brendan).
Reading and Writing within Discipline or Profession
The finance professionals should be able to write with the clarity and authority. The
accountants spend too much of the time on crunching numbers and they turn those numbers
into the reports, which explains data points, findings and analyses. One of the most important
uses of the accounting data is communicating meaningful information that allows
management for making good decisions. In order to be effective, the accounting information

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should make sense and it should be understood, otherwise, there will be no real significance
(Hoyle et al.). The businesses use templates for the internal reports in order to communicate
information in matter that is familiar as well as easy to use by the management such as
departments gets actual versus the budgeted report each month in similar format that
facilitates understanding and analysis. The identification of intended audience for the
communication depends on the information that needs to be shared such as regarding change
in policy or sharing some other important information (Morris, Michael and Shirley). The
tone being used in these documents is formal that can be through e-mail, face-to-face and
other forms. The designing and formatting of document can be in formal letter regarding any
issues. The claims that can be find in this communication form may be to discuss on-going
performance of finance department, the target needs to achieve, the resources required and
others (Richins et al.). The sort of evidence that can be found this communication form can
be the differences between defined and real performance and the way it can be rectified. The
evidences identified in this communication can be by the help of comparing current
performance by the expected performance and if there are any discrepancies then steps are
taken for removing those discrepancies by communicating effectively.
Reading and Writing from Discipline or Profession to Outsiders
The ability for clearly presenting and explaining the research is important, whether
writing memoranda for client, analysis of the business performance for client or report on the
financial analysis for the non-accountants. The finance professionals’ time-to-time
communicates with their data points, analysis and findings. These communications help the
investors, partners, clients and the other businesses for understanding business and findings
of particular company (Schaltegger, Stefan and Roger). The professionals of finance translate
the complex data into simple terms, which can easily understand by non-technical people.
The professionals write with the precision, purpose as well as in concise language. The

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communication takes form of reports, letters, memoranda and papers. The accountants need
to keep in mind about their audience. The style and tone of the in-house email to the
colleague will be entirely different from the letter to the client (Guthrie, James and Lee).
The means by which primary audience can be identified for the communication is to
find the ultimate benefit holder of the information. The sort of tone being used in these kinds
of documents is formal. The designing and formatting of documents given to the outsiders
includes charts, graph, table, different fonts, images and others. These reports claims the
performance of company over specific period of time. The evidences that can be in this
communication form can be in the form of annual report that includes income statement and
balance-sheet. The evidence can be identified by the investors through accessing financial
reports on the official website of the company and doing comparison of present performance
of company with the past performance (Stivers, Bonnie and Emmanuel).
Conclusion and Reflection
I have learned that the finance professionals develop adequate skills of
communication for making their work relatable to the laymen. These professionals determine
the way company effectively meets the goal and accomplishes the overall mission given
resources at hand. Further, I have learned that reading and writing within the discipline or
profession amongst each other are done in formal way to the internal organizational staff to
communicate regarding the difference between actual and budgeted performance and the
measures required to remove those differences. However, comparison to this reading and
writing within discipline or profession to others are done in formal way to the stakeholders of
company, who are interested in knowing company’s performance for taking decisions.
The things that needs to be learned for participating in this writing form includes the
way these information are presented that can be understood by looking at the templates of

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internal and external communication. I can learn to write and read in this communication
form with the confidence, when I have learned all the basics of this profession in the
complete way. Lastly, the biggest challenges that came across, while entering this field was
that earlier I was having limited knowledge of the discipline and profession, however,
understanding of the difficulty and technicality of the profession possessed great challenge to
me. In this concern, the teacher and colleagues has helped me a lot in gaining understanding
level.

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Reference
Andre, Sean M., and Becky L. Smith. "Enhancing the undergraduate accounting curriculum
to augment core competencies." Advances in Accounting Education 15 (2014): 59-78.
Bloomfield, Matthew J., et al. "The effect of regulatory harmonization on cross‐border labor
migration: Evidence from the accounting profession." Journal of Accounting Research 55.1
(2017): 35-78.
Canning, Mary, and Brendan O'Dwyer. "Institutional work and regulatory change in the
accounting profession." Accounting, Organizations and Society 54 (2016): 1-21.
Clikeman, Paul M. Called to Account: Financial frauds that shaped the accounting
profession. Routledge, 2019.
Copeland, Mary Kay. "The importance of ethics and ethical leadership in the accounting
profession." Research on professional responsibility and ethics in accounting 19.1 (2015):
61-98.
Flynn, Antoinette, Emily Kate Earlie, and Christine Cross. "Gender equality in the
accounting profession: one size fits all." Gender in Management: An International
Journal (2015).
Gillis, Paul. The Big Four and the development of the accounting profession in China.
Emerald Group Publishing, 2014.
Guthrie, James, and Lee D. Parker. "Whither the accounting profession, accountants and
accounting researchers? Commentary and projections." Accounting, Auditing &
Accountability Journal (2016).
Henderson, Scott, et al. Issues in financial accounting. Pearson Higher Education AU, 2015.

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Hoyle, Joe Ben, Thomas Schaefer, and Timothy Doupnik. Advanced accounting. McGraw
Hill, 2015.
Morris, Michael, and Shirley Maxey. "The importance of English language competency in
the academic success of international accounting students." Journal of Education for
Business 89.4 (2014): 178-185.
Richins, Greg, et al. "Big Data analytics: Opportunity or threat for the accounting
profession?." Journal of Information Systems 31.3 (2017): 63-79.
Schaltegger, Stefan, and Roger Burritt. Contemporary environmental accounting: issues,
concepts and practice. Routledge, 2017.
Stivers, Bonnie P., and Emmanuel Onifade. "STUDENT PERCEPTIONS OF
INTRODUCTORY ACCOUNTING AND THE ACCOUNTING PROFESSION." Academy
of Educational Leadership Journal 18.3 (2014).