Careers In Public Accounting

Government accounting is not a common topic taught in college or accountant trade schools

. The fact is, most educational programs teach private-side accounting, which is entirely different beast in the world of finance, money-tracking and expense reconciliation. That said, a student trained in private-side accounting and who wants to become an accountant in government can easily adapt to public accounting. It just takes a bit of adjustment and working with slightly different set of accounting rules.

Fundamental Differences

Public accounting is fundamental geared to track how government money raised generally from taxes is spent once permission is given to a government agency to do so. This spending can occur in the form of labor costs, procurement, contracting and construction. There are a few other special categories but generally almost all government expenses fall into the four, previously-mentioned categories. To track these expenses, government accountants process requested payments to make sure the paperwork follows all necessary rules. They track the expenses and input them into databases so cost reports can be run on a monthly basis and certified. Finally, they perform close-out exercises to account for every dollar provided so that it is either tracked as an expense or returned as a savings. Because of these processes, public accounting has a number of different workload drivers versus that on the private side.

Careers

Traditional public accounting careers generally follow a path of learning government accounting by practice, proving an aptitude in processing paperwork and database input, later moving to a lead capacity in either guiding other accountants or taking on specialized cost projects, and finally reaching the supervisor level. Along the way, a public accountant can utilize his or her experience as a pre-requisite in obtaining a certified public accountant license or CPA designation. Ultimately, a high level accounting supervisor can then either graduate to other financial disciplines as a manager or become an executive financial officer.

Alternatively, a public accountant can also seek a career path in auditing. Auditors examine the accounting and financial work of other government personnel and agencies to find inefficiencies, mistakes, and in some cases fraud. Auditing can lead to both a CPA license as well as a career in financial investigations and forensic accounting. Many auditors also cross-over to law enforcement roles, playing key functions in white collar investigations and crime prevention. Exceptional auditors can also seek roles in private consulting firms, typically brought in to validate agency accounting books or develop new ways of operating.

Conclusion

Public accountants have no shortage of work in government and an accountant salary is a livable income. In fact, during hard times, accounting and auditing work actually increases as public agencies tend to spend more to generate the economy or inefficiencies are rooted out for operational savings. So to become an accountant in public service is not a career dead-end by any means. Careers in accounting for government can lead to long, rewarding roles that contribute not only to a public agency but also the people it serves.

by: Emily Blake

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