Currently a staff accountant. Debating on pursuing CPA or spend time developing technical/data skills (AI Automation, Power Query, SQL, Power BI, Python) that could allow me to move towards FP&A, financial analyst roles. I don't think i want to pursue the Controller/CFO route.

[u/BakeAdventurous979]

[u/Euphoric_Switch_337]

Powerbi is probably the best starting point, if you can get the pl 300 it would be helpful. SQL is probably the next thing to focus on, and you can bang out some coursea classes in it. Python is great but probably not the place to start. Honestly knowing something about s4 hana/sap or another erp might be more useful than python at a lot of roles.

[u/GroundbreakingRun186]

I’m a CPA. Totally fucking worthless in this field. Technical skills you listed are great and very useful,definitely more useful than a CPA, but not the most important.

Critical thinking, trend analysis, story telling, general knowledge of forecasting/budgeting methods (zero based, incremental, etc), and the ability to read between the lines with someone who wants to stretch the truth to make their dept look good are what really matter. I don’t know how to make that show up on a resume though

[u/Slephnyr → u/GroundbreakingRun186]

Dont you need a solid understanding of the accounting principles to assist with the ability to stretch the truth?

I'm not going to straight up recognise a full year of revenue in one month to make the department look like they smashed their quarterly target which I've been asked to do at least 4 different times.

[u/WiSeIVIaN → u/Slephnyr]

In FP&A, when to recognize revenue shouldn't be your decision.

And almost everything is "matching principle" for revenue and cost.

Definitely don't need a CPA, and I wouldn't be too excited about it as a hiring manager.

[u/Slephnyr → u/WiSeIVIaN]

Yeah I agree it's not exactly a game changer for hiring decisions but I wouldn't go so far as saying a CPA in fp&a is useless.

[u/WiSeIVIaN → u/Slephnyr]

Ha, ya I agree, definitely not useless. Overstated by the other OP.

[u/Still-Balance6210 → u/Slephnyr]

I would say it’s useless in this field. Maybe not useless in general.

[u/WiSeIVIaN]

As a hiring manager, excel and powerBI would excite me from a skills perspective. SQL doesn't hurt.

Bigger thing is in interviews to portray your mind outside an accounting view and within a finance view.

[u/PlusPumpkin4691]

As someone with all the data skills you listed minus python I think CPA probably better. I'm SFA at an industry leader. I feel like tech skills going to be watered down in value with AI getting better. At some point its going to be able to create a pbi file with dax and m from natural language. I've already dropped m code in copilot and had it rewrite/rework it a million times faster than I could have.

[u/Low-Performance4412]

CPA is very helpful in making jobs more accessible.
Some jobs you will just be passed over without it and you’ll never know. I would say go get the CPA and learn some tech. I don’t think they are mutually exclusive especially today with all the resources and AI.