We bet you think you know everything there is to know about accountants, but guess what? There’s a ton we just know you don’t! We know finding facts and figures about accountants can be time-consuming and frustrating, so we put together this list of the top 101 facts, notes, and statistics so you can easily reference them and refer back to them any time in the future. This space is constantly changing, so if you see a fact that is not up-to-date, feel free to let us know. And if you know a stat that we should add, let us know that too!
Accountants who have passed their professional associations' certification exams can use titles like Chartered Accountant, Chartered Certified Accountant, or Certified Public Accountant.
The first written text in history, more than 5,000 years ago, is believed to belong to an accountant who was making records of supplies. It read, “A total of 29,086 measures of barley were received over the course of 37 months. Signed, Kushim.”
Walter E. Diemer was an accountant and the inventor of bubble-gum. He was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he was working as an accountant at Fleer in 1926, when the company president sought to cut costs by making their own gum base.
Upon joining the United States Treasury Department Intelligence Unit in 1920, the accountant, Frank J. Wilson would earn a reputation throughout prohibition as a thorough investigator of tax returns and income. After reviewing approximately two million documents, he yielded the much-needed information to break Al Capone’s case.
Surprisingly, PricewaterhouseCoopers is the accounting firm in charge of tallying the votes.
On 9 January 1799, British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger introduced income tax to help cover the cost of his country’s wars with France.
On 9 January 1799, British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger introduced income tax to help cover the cost of his country’s wars with France.
A possible reason for this is that John Cleese’s father wanted him to be an accountant; he was due to start work for Grace, Derbyshire & Todd Chartered Accountants in Bristol.
These are thought to be the earliest documented records of goods received and traded.
He published the first book on double entry accounting in 1494. Leonardo da Vinci was one of his students.
20. The first Certified Public Accountant (CPA) Board examination was administered in New York in 1896.
21. Employment of Accountants is projected to grow 11% from 2014 to 2024, faster than the average for all occupations.
22. Staff accountants with 1-3 years of experience are expected to see a compensation increase of 4.1%, with an average starting salary of $50,000 to $64,250.
23. Contrary to popular beliefs, accountants use basic arithmetic and simple equations while computers do most of the math.
Accountants analyze and interpret results.
Nike was created as part of his MBA project.
Among the top five industries employing these professionals are the government and the manufacturing industry. Accounting and related services top the list, employing 26 percent of accountants.
Accountemps did a survey indicating that seven of 10 accountants would choose accounting all over again if they had a chance to pick their profession anew.
Working with numbers, making recommendations, learning new technologies, and working with people are other top pleasures of the job.
The top 10 percent of accountants pocketed more than $115,950, while the bottom 10 percent earned less than $40,850.
Rounding out the top-five list are New York, New Jersey, Maryland and Massachusetts.
Prime example: more than 2,000 accounting special agents work for the FBI.
After the 2017 Best Picture mistake, new protocols have been established.
The Royal Charter introduced the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS) in the year 1854, and this is still one of the leading institutes for advanced accountancy courses.
The Romans were one of the first people to have announced public expenditure for Emperor Augustus.
Her clients included wealthy women and people who worked in the business and fashion industry—she certainly knew the value of niching up.
Over time, "accomptant" gradually changed both in pronunciation and in spelling to its present-day form.
In this book, he notes that one "should not go to sleep until the debits equal the credits.”
In fact, it has only been used since the 1970s.
The Accounting Hall of Fame, now hosted by the American Accounting Association, honors those who have made significant contributions to the profession.
The examination was proctored in New York on December 15,1896.
Because of CPA requirements, it took him 15 years to become a CPA after graduating college.
For instance, public accountants are employed by government agencies, private individuals and large-scale businesses. These people deal with auditing and taxes, along with accounting.
While some of them teach higher education courses, others take up work in other sectors, such as health care, risk management and assurance services. Many accountants prefer to specialise in certain areas, which is why you’ll see that certain accountants specialise in things like chartered management accountancy.
In 1934 the SEC was formed. All publicly-traded companies were required to file periodic reports with the Commission which had been? certified by members of the accounting profession.
The ICAS was founded in 1854 by Royal Charter, making it the oldest professional body of chartered accountants. The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland is the world’s first professional body of Chartered Accountants. They act as a thought leader and voice of the professional business community.
The exam is notoriously difficult – the average pass rate in 2014 was 49%. Don’t let this discourage you though, retaking the exam is common. In fact, 42% of the people that took the exam in 2014 had taken the exam before.
The amount of jobs in the field is expected to grow by 13% through 2022. To put that into perspective, the average job growth rate between now and 2024 is 7% across all occupations.
However, when compared to the finance industry, which typically has a female employment rate of 17 to 23%, accounting is more evenly balanced.
Some of the benefits cloud technology provides include improved service offerings and client collaboration. These tools enable businesses to save time and dedicate themselves to parts of their job that require interaction with their clients and managing and empowering internal teams.
On the other hand, 40% of businesses claim that they can add up to 40 hours every year.
Bookkeepers used to work with actual books, but now everything is done with software. Maybe you knew this before starting your accounting program, or maybe it was a surprise, but using computers and software programs is a huge part of learning and doing accounting work.
What most people don’t realize is that when you study accounting, you still have to take general education classes, including English, writing, humanities, law, ethics, and social science.
Anyone who works in accounting will be a member of one of these bodies.
Starting in 2018, the accounting software market has been expanding at an 8.6% YOY rate, with North America being the largest contributor to this growth, in revenue terms. The migration to cloud services and the integration of accounting software with mobile devices were the main reasons for these impressive accounting software statistics.
Close to half of all accountants would like to automate small tasks such as email and diary management, data entry, and number crunching. An additional 18% would also like to automate the interaction with their clients to process simple requests. Additionally, automation would not only save accountants’ time, but it will also decrease staff turnover, which tends to become high with tedious, repetitive tasks.
Robotic process automation has enabled accountants to discover areas of redundancy and increase their efficiency. As a result, larger companies that use AI have increased their efficiency and can offer higher-level services, and have in that way started outpacing smaller accounting businesses.
As the latest accounting statistics report, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been employing accountants since its foundation back in 1908.
In the 2018 Sage accounting stats, most accounting professionals admitted that clients are more demanding compared to five years ago. More than two-thirds of the participants (67%) agreed that the profession has never been as competitive as now, with the accounting job requirements growing by the year.
A survey by AccountancyAge in 2017 discovered that most self-employed contractors don’t use any professional bookkeeping help. About 18% responded that they get some assistance, while 7% use specialist accountants. An interesting detail in these bookkeeping statistics is that 2% of all participants said family and friends help them with accounting. Still, the job outlook for accountants has continuously been positive.
Flexibility, upward mobility, and stress level are among the factors considered in the ranking process. The U.S. News bookkeeping industry statistics also show that accounting has high upward mobility and an average stress level. Flexibility-wise, it offers above-average work vs. life balance and an alternative working schedule. Accountants stateside further have good prospects to get promotions, make more money, and improve.
In its 2016 study, Wasp Barcode discovered that most SMBs outsource task preparation and payroll when it comes to accounting tasks. According to the same bookkeeping industry statistics, these are followed by auditing (48%) and tax planning (30%). Last on the list come personal finances with 16% and bookkeeping with 14%. So, it’s good to have these figures in mind when trying to calculate your accountant job outlook.
Flexibility, upward mobility, and stress level are among the factors considered in the ranking process. The U.S. News bookkeeping industry statistics also show that accounting has high upward mobility and an average stress level. Flexibility-wise, it offers above-average work vs. life balance and an alternative working schedule. Accountants stateside further have good prospects to get promotions, make more money, and improve.
Sources:
Wikipedia, Crowther Chartered Accountants, Boox, UWorld, Learnsignal, Visually, ECPI, Blog, Robert Half, Renaix, XY Bean Counters, NASBA, Remote Quality Bookkeeping, BJM, BT Partners, Northants Accounting, Blackmanterry, Transparent Career, WP ERP, City College, Syndeo Group, Discover Audit, Capital Counselor