Is Accounting a Profession? A Reflective Essay Analysis

This reflective essay addresses the question, "Is accounting a profession?" by exploring the importance of accounting in various contexts, including business, daily life, and national growth. The essay argues that accounting is indeed a significant profession, highlighting the diverse career paths available and the crucial role accountants play in financial analysis, auditing, and ensuring statutory compliance. It examines the responsibilities of accountants, emphasizing their role in managing financial data, making informed decisions, and adhering to ethical standards. The essay differentiates between public and private accounting, discusses specialized areas of work, and emphasizes the ethical significance of the accounting profession, concluding that accounting offers a promising career path for those interested in finance, auditing, tax, or business consulting.

Running Head: AP
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Is Accounting a Profession?
Reflective Essay
(Student Details: )
4/8/2020

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Contents
Reflective Essay.........................................................................................................................2
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Is Accounting a Profession?.......................................................................................................2
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................4

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Introduction
This paper is focused to answer the key question “Is accounting a profession?”. In doing so,
the discussion is going to explain the importance of the topic as well as the relevance of
addressing this question. In order to address this question, my opinion is ‘Yes’. It is because
accounting is a significant profession and there are a lot of career paths in the accounting
field. I believe that accounting is a great profession to be pursued by an ambitious individual.
Accounting is a great career option and important too because an accountant is a professional
who is able to perform essential accounting functions like financial statement analysis or
audits. In my opinion, accountants can either be hired from an accounting firm or a big
company having an internal accounting department. However, accountants can also set up an
individual practice or firm for executing accounting functions from their own (McGuigan &
Kern, 2009). In this way, I am going to reflect on how accounting is a profession in this
competitive world. Deciding to be an accountant is not so much descriptive rather than
deciding to be an engineer, unlike accounting. In the end, I am going to summarise my
findings reiterating the below mentioned key arguments regarding how accounting is a
profession.
Is Accounting a Profession?
According to me, accounting is the measurement, communication, and processing of financial
as well as non-financial info related to economic entities like corporations and businesses
(Principles of Accounting.com, 2020). I consider accounting very important for businesses,
daily human life, and the country’s growth as well. It is because accounting plays an
important role while running any business to track expenditures and income (McGuigan &
Kern, 2009). Accounting is important because it is used to ensure statutory compliance while
providing quantitative financial information to the management, investors, and government. I
have seen that with the help of accounting business entities, investors and the government can
make important business decisions in a real-life context. Thus, the accounting profession is of
high importance for so many fields (IFRS, 2020).
To me, an accountant is a person who is a practitioner of accountancy or accounting. In this
context, accountancy is the measurement, or provision of assurance in relation to financial
data or information which is helpful and essential to managers, tax authorities, investors, and

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decision-makers while allocating resources (Hilton, 2011). It has been observed by me, many
accountants are engaged in the practice of public accounting. Here, public accounting is
typically involved offering audit, consulting and tax services for the general public.
Accounting is a profession where in order to engage in accountancy practice of public
accounting, one should be licensed (Information Age, 2018). In addition to that, the
accountant profession has great responsibility and accountability because they take care of
people’s money and wealth by providing the base for taking the right decisions. In these days,
modern businesses spend huge time as well as money in the recording of financial
transactions. Thus, the role of accounting, as well as accountant in businesses, is quite
significant which cannot be replaced by any other profession or function (Moon, 2015).
In my opinion, accounting is being considered as an important profession because recording
the financial transactions in any institution including government, private or business, can
only be possible with the help of an accountant (Principles of Accounting.com, 2020). On the
contrary, when I evaluated then I found that without accounting, one cannot see and thereby
show the financial health of their business to the shareholders and other stakeholders
(Information Age, 2018). In this context, I realized that accounting is pivotal from so many
aspects of human life. Thus, accounting as a profession plays a crucial role in generating,
preparing, listing and studying the compiled financial statements (McGuigan & Kern, 2009).
I consider accounting as a practice of systematic maintenance of histories of financial records
while summarizing those records for the compilation of the financial statements of an
organization (IFRS, 2020).
As per my observation, many accountants are privately employed by some large or small
companies or sometimes by non-profit organizations (Hilton, 2011). Thus, I can now mention
that in this era accountant can work in fields of product pricing and costing, budgeting, the
inspection of investment alternatives. In some cases, accountancy is beneficial for individuals
to be pursued as they can serve as internal auditors as well (Ehrhardt & Brigham, 2016). An
accountant as an internal auditor often looks at controlling and processes in use by the
employer. The accountant is usually safeguarding organization resources.
In this way, accounting is a great profession because an accountant may serve as financial
managers, in-house tax accountants, and so many other occupations (Doran, 2018). While
working as an in-house tax accountant, he or she can work upon the accounting activities of
an organization which are performed by the employees of an organization (Boud et al., 2017).

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I am also willing to learn accountancy and key functions of accountancy as it is necessary for
running a business. Being an accountant, I can help people track their income, investment,
and expenditures, in order to ensure legislative compliance. The accounting profession is
useful, for providing investors, management, and thereby government with required financial
information to take business-wise and correct decisions for better outcomes. Being an
accountant, I can work in both private and governmental sectors as a chartered accountant as
well. I have studied and found that an accountant can work at regional, state or national levels
(Ball et al., 2014).
Apart from this, accounting is an important profession because accountants are employed at
the General Accounting Office, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Internal Revenue Service,
Securities, and Exchange Commission and so many other agencies (Principles of
Accounting.com, 2020). From an ethical perspective, accounting requires an individual to
demonstrate ethical practice at the workplace. It is because creditors and investors wholly
rely on financial statements while making their credit and investment decisions. I believe that
financial reporting by an accountant must be dependable and truthful. Therefore, accountants
are required to behave in an ethical manner. Thus, my research about the accounting
profession suggests that in order to have integrity in the financial reporting process, the
accounting profession needs to adopt a code of ethics to which their licensed members must
adhere (Ash & Clayton, 2014). On the other hand, accounting is a respectable profession as
people likely rely upon accountants for financial management in some aspect of their
professional or personal lives. In this way, the general public has the right to expect such
accountants to behave in a completely ethical and trustworthy way. Being an accountant, I
will be entrusting them with financial resources as well as private and confidential
information (Information Age, 2018).
Conclusion
In whole, with the help of a reflective essay, we have identified that accounting is a
respectable and in-demand profession which allows an accountant to help society in various
possible ways. While exploring how accounting is a profession, the essay has differentiated
between private and public accounting. In addition to that, this discussion has also talked
about major areas of service in a public accounting organization. In accounting, I have found
various specialized areas of work in private accounting while writing this reflective essay.
Moreover, there are some key governmental agencies which employ accountants as key

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professionals, they have mentioned in this essay. Most importantly, while researching
throughout the essay, I have successfully understood the ethical significance of the
accounting profession. Besides, I have explored all possible career options and designations
related to accounting for me and others. It has been found that the accounting profession
helps modern businesses to evaluate their performance hence its significance in the digital era
has been increased a lot. The essay has found that accounting is a great profession as it allows
ensuring statutory compliance while creating a budget as well as future projections in any
business or project. In whole, if you are interested in a prosperous future from a personal and
business standpoint, then accounting is a great option as a profession. Therefore, this essay
has allowed me to consider accounting, audits, tax or business consulting for future career
perspective so that I can make a difference in society.

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References
Ash, S.L. & Clayton, P.H., 2014. The articulated learning: An approach to guided reflection
and assessment. Innovative Higher Education, pp.137-54.
Ball, A., Grubnic, S. & Birchall, J., 2014. Sustainability accounting and accountability in the
public sector. Sustainability accounting and accountability, p.176.
Boud, D., Keogh, R. & Walker, D., 2017. Reflection: Turning experience into learning. UK:
Routledge.
Doran, J., 2018. The role of entrepreneurship in stimulating economic growth in developed
and developing countries. Cogent Econmics and Finance, 6(1).
Ehrhardt, M. & Brigham, E., 2016. Corporate finance: A focused approach. UK: Cengage
Learning.
Hilton, R.W., 2011. Managerial Accounting: Creating Value in a Global Business
Environment. 9th ed. new york: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
IFRS, 2020. Resources for the accounting profession. [Online] Available at:
https://www.ifrs.org/accounting-profession/ [Accessed 2020].
Information Age, 2018. How technology is impacting the finance and banking sector.
[Online] Available at: https://www.information-age.com/technology-finance-banking-sector-
123471800/ [Accessed 2019].
McGuigan, N. & Kern, T., 2009. The Reflective accountant: changing student perceptions of
traditional accounting through reflective educational practice. The international journal of
learning, 16(9).
Moon, J.A., 2015. Reflection in learning and professional development: Theory and practice.
London: Routledge.
Principles of Accounting.com, 2020. The Accounting Profession and Careers. [Online]
Available at: https://www.principlesofaccounting.com/chapter-1/accounting-profession/
[Accessed 2020].

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