Hey, there, I'm Maiki Lynch and I'm an accountant. And in this series from ACCA, I'm sitting down with some other accountants and people who work in finance to lift the lid on some of the common myths you might have fallen for about this awesome career path. This week we are looking at the lifestyle of a career in accounting and finance. Is it really high stress? Do you have to work all hours? And is it impossible to have a good work- life balance? Let's
find out. This is By All Accounts. Questions about work- life balance are all the rage these days, especially since the COVID pandemic changed the way a lot of us work. And in the finance sector, it's no different. Does a life in finance really have to involve such sacrifice? I found two people working in the sector to ask, can you have a good work-life balance working in finance? First up, Clara Tooth, welcome.
Hi.
And Shaun Fenwick, welcome.
Hello.
So I'd like to start off by asking, is having a good work- life balance, is that important to you? Clara, can I come to you first?
Absolutely. Yes, having a good work- life balance is so important. I would say myself, and I imagine a lot of other accountants feel the same, is we work very hard and we put a lot into our jobs. So I think it's very important to have that balance of when you go home, it's home and it's your time, your enjoyment, all for you. And I think that helps get the best out of you as well. If you're going all the time and you never give yourself a break, you're not going
to be that good at work. You're not going to be working to your best ability. So I think having that balance gets the best out of you and makes you enjoy your job as well. It's good to do something you enjoy and that you love.
Thank you. And, Shaun, can I come to you?
Yeah, sure. Work- life balance for me is very important. I love traveling, going on holidays, seeing friends and family. And we've all been in that position where we're overworked, but that's not sustainable for a long period of time. Yes, in accounting there's times of the month where we are working longer hours, but you need to find a balance, that's the key there, where you are happy to sacrifice some of your time, but your employer is also happy
to sacrifice some of their time. And it's working both ways, so I'm happy to work extra and take some time off, and so does my employer. And it's finding an employer that's able to give you that opportunity to have a comfortable work- life balance. And I think I've found that that's very important to me, for sure. I'm currently finance manager at Brixton Brewery, which is a craft beer company based in South London, in Brixton. What does that entail?
I guess finance manager, I head up the finance team and it's just a small team of us, just myself and a finance assistant. We are a subsidiary of Heineken, so we work very closely with the team at Heineken as well.
That's so exciting. What made you choose that industry?
Well, originally I started as an accountant in practice working for UHY Hacker Young over in Cambridge. And I was halfway through my ACCA journey, having sat I guess six or seven exams at that time. And as an accountant working in accounts and tax, I was on the pathway to becoming a manager and then up to a partner
level, and that was my aspirations at the time. But then for me, practice was very compliance- heavy, so I was working on accounts and tax for clients, but I was quite limited in what extra or added value I could add to those clients. Whereas industry on the other hand, I'm working in a finance team in- house and really getting involved in not just the compliance side of things but the business management, looking at-
So you've had a bit more of a breadth of work, working in industry?
Yeah, exactly. Getting involved in projects and being able to see what I'm adding, if you like. So being able to get really involved in the day- to- day financial side of running this business, but then also the future planning of the business as well. Being able to help other departments within the business and watching the business grow over time and I really value that, I think it's
great. Craft beer is a fun and exciting industry. It's an industry that I've always loved outside of work, so why not? And accountancy is a wonderful career path to take and it does open up a lot of opportunities.
That's fantastic. I'm going to go to Clara-
Yeah, sure.
... and just a little bit about Clara. Where do you work and what do you do?
I'm a manager at a firm called Accounts and Legal, and I'm based in the Manchester office. There's kind of two parts to my role. The first part is I hold a team of 12 people, so it's my job to basically make sure everything gets done, everything gets filed, we don't miss any deadlines, support the team, develop the team, help with training, checking in with them, making sure
they're okay. That's the first side of my role. And then the second side is offering that high- level support and advice for business owners. The team do a lot of the groundwork, they get a lot of the numbers together, and my job is to go and help explain them to business owners and what they mean and how we can make
differences that will impact and change their lives. But yeah, that's my role in short, quite a lot going on.
That is quite a lot going on. Managing 12 people, that's a large team. I would call that quite a large team.
Yes, definitely. I've got four assistant managers and I'm very lucky with all of them. They do a great job of looking after some of the junior members of staff as well.
Can you tell us a little bit about how you got there? I presume you've been there for a little while. Can you tell us a little bit about how you got that role?
Absolutely. If we go all the way back to 2015, I'd just left high school, didn't really know what I wanted to do. I was pretty good at maths, knew I wanted something that was numbers focused, and just fell into an accountancy apprenticeship really. And it was luck and I told myself I'll give myself a month and if I hate it, I'll go to college and if I like it,
I'll stick it out. Six years down the line I'd just qualified, and that was about two and a half years ago now, so eight and a half years in total. And I've basically just worked my way up bit by bit by bit. Started off as a trainee, then a semi- senior, senior, senior, assistant manager, portfolio holder, and now to manager and client and team responsibility.
That's an incredibly quick journey.
Yes.
Congratulations. You came into that straight from school?
Yeah, 16, straight out of high school.
Wow, wow.
And if I was to go back in time, I'd definitely do it again because it was a lot of fun.
You talked about becoming qualified, so you are a qualified accountant. How did your exams go? Was it all smooth sailing all the way through?
I started off with my AAT, that took around three and a half years, and it was okay. It was challenging. There was things, there was exams that were difficult, but it was okay and I got through them all first time. I then moved on to my ACCA and it was hard work. I didn't have too much confidence in myself back then, I didn't think I'd pass many or if any. But I really got my head down, I worked really hard,
and I managed to pass them all first time. So it was definitely worth it, but it was by no means easy and it was very rewarding at the end.
Yeah, that's after the journey for a lot of people that step up from a foundation qualification to your charter qualification can sometimes feel like a step up. I presume you were working at the same time as studying?
Yep. I would work four days a week and then I'd get one day week study leave as part of the apprenticeship. And on that day I'd go to college and then you'd have to study in evenings and weekends as well. It was a lot of hard work, especially the closer you get to exams, it's every evening and every weekend.
And do you feel it was worth it?
Definitely. If I went back in time, I'd definitely do it all again.
Do you remember how you celebrated when you did qualify, when you got that charter status, the letters after your name, do you remember what you did or if you celebrated?
We got our results at midnight, so I think the day that I qualified I didn't particularly sleep at all that night. I just think I was so over the moon. Yeah, I didn't do anything big or crazy. But yeah, I was just really happy, and lots of celebrations with family and friends. Long time coming, it felt like by the time I got there, but it was a really, really good feeling in the moment.
Shaun, can I come back to you because I didn't actually touch upon where you are in your studies or if you're qualified. Where are you in your journey at the moment?
Yeah, sure. My journey started very similarly to Clara's, although I stayed at school and did my A- levels, so studied maths in the first year of my A- levels, and maths was always a strong point of mine. So naturally I thought, " Let's start a career in accountancy." I started as an apprentice, working for a company called Bidwells at the time.
They had a client accounting team and that was in their agricultural division, so I worked with lots of landowners, contract farmers, and as you can imagine, it was a box full of receipts and manually-
Are they all there?
Yeah, exactly. My first role in accounting was very junior as well, and then decided, okay, I want to become a chartered accountant. So I was weighing up my options and decided what do I want to have this accountancy qualification and I want to be an all- rounded accountant, if
you like. Hence, why I chose ACCA. Started my journey with ACCA also under an apprenticeship scheme, so I was working four days a week, one day out at college. I was sitting exams once every quarter at that time was getting first- time passes for the first year or
two whilst I was under the apprenticeship program. And then I decided, move away from being an accountant, let's go and work in an industry such as craft beer, which is where I'm now. And at that point I no longer got the study support, so I was studying myself in the evenings and on the weekends. And that was difficult, that was really tough. I did fail a couple of
exams, but resat them, got through them eventually. And recently, in December, I sat my last exam. I'm waiting on the results so I'm not, well, could be fully qualified, I might not be, we'll wait and see.
That's really exciting. That's it, so you're waiting on the message to come through. Will you be staying up on Sunday night?
Absolutely, yep. It's always a difficult one. It's like do I stay up and hope for the best or do I go to sleep and just check it in the morning? But if you do that, you're going to have a sleepless night. But if I stay awake I might have a sleepless night, who knows, so yeah.
Will you let us know how you get on?
Yeah, definitely. For sure. Yeah, it's been a long wait, it's a six- week wait for the results.
Yes. If you pass, what are you going to do, what's the celebration that's been planned? Are you going to work on Monday?
I haven't got any plans yet. I will be working on Monday. I think it'll be the weekend after where celebrations will begin. We'll see, friends and family, just probably go out for a meal and some drinks and yeah, we'll be in full celebration mode, for sure, hopefully.
Clara, I'm going to come back to you. So in your current role, how do you feel your work- life balance is and can you tell us just a little bit about your work- life balance that you have?
Yeah, absolutely. In terms of work- life balance in my role, there definitely is a balance. My job is nine- to- five, although it isn't always nine- to- five. There are definitely times where sometimes I have to stay late and things are due and that's that. But on the flip side, there is a lot of rewards to that kind of job. For example, where I work at moment we've implemented something called Friyays, and that's where you get to do a
full day week and take Friday off. So we do longer four- hour days and then a full Friday off. Every Saturday and Sunday is off so the weekends are mine. I do not work on weekends or bank holidays, that is my time. And things like Christmas I get completely off, finish on the 22nd, went back on the 2nd of Jan. And for me I think that's quite a good work- life balance. When I take time off, that time is mine.
And don't get me wrong, sometimes I do have to work a little bit late and get something done, but there's quite a lot of flexibility. We also have things like flexitime, so I'm not very good at starting work at eight o'clock in the morning, so I will start at 9: 30 and work until a little bit later. But other members of the team, they like to be in early and home early and that's quite nice, you can just fit it around whatever suits you and your lifestyle, and yeah! Friyays are good!
Friyay sounds great! Friyay and a little bit of flexi sounds incredible. Shaun, how's your workplace in terms of work- life balance?
For me it's great. I think everyone has their own work- life meaning. For me it's just being able to have the time available to see friends and families, go on
holiday, et cetera, and not being overworked. In the world of accounting now there's so many systems that you can implement to streamline your work, so for me it's all about working smart and not harder, and how can I do that to make sure that I've got the most
amount of free time possible, really. We do work 9: 00 until 5:00 but there's no commitment to work any extra hours in the evenings or the weekends, so that's my own time. We have a good annual leave allowance so I can get those holiday trips in. We can also work wherever, whenever. So we can work remotely, whether that's at home, or if you want to book a long weekend somewhere and you want to work-
As well.
... in a different country, you can, you just need a laptop and that's great.
Lovely. And so I think accounting and finance, it does have that reputation, particularly at the beginning but also when you are qualified and you are more senior, of being quite hours- heavy. Have you found that to be the case?
In a previous role there was quite a big focus on billable hours or chargeable hours. Especially in the role that I was in at the time it was very much, " Right, I just need to sit and work." But throughout my time in that role the company shifted its mentality from billable, chargeable hours to valuable hours, if you like. And it was about getting the work done to a high standard and it was up to you to decide
how many hours you were working. And if you were excelling and you were putting in the effort, you would be rewarded for that, which I think was great. So that mindset has changed definitely.
Do you think that happened during the pandemic or do you think the pandemic gave any changes to the way we work?
For me it happened before the pandemic.
Before?
Yeah. The pandemic helped. The pandemic has introduced this idea of a four- day working week. There's a lot of research to suggest that actually you can do the same amount of work in fewer hours, and I think that's great. And I think accountancy is one of those roles where that's evident, you can really demonstrate that.
I think from my perspective, I do think there probably was once a time where people were working late and you had to work a lot of hours, but in practice I think there's been a very big change in the last, say, five years or so, where technology's come in and we've shifted from everything being, " Oh my gosh, the client's given me something a day before deadline," to it
being a lot more electronic. So I feel like you can get ahead of things a lot more and plan better and prepare better, and I found that that's reduced that need almost for excessive working because it's not like you've got 10 people who all need everything doing tomorrow, you actually have ... You're able to do things easier and
earlier and quicker. You'll hear a lot of accountants talk about this time of year, tax return season, and everyone's working crazy. Well, actually, the way things are going I've found each year it's eased off a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more. And we do just seem to be getting into a better system almost. And I think that is allowing also better work- life balance
and taking quite a lot of stress off. Compared to, when I think back to when I first started, the amount of things you'd have to get done in a short period of time due to things outside of your control aren't exactly the same now, you do have a lot more control and a lot more ability to reduce that stress.
Do you think you can achieve a good work- life balance working in accounting and finance?
I think you definitely can achieve it. And the way that my view on it is, like I said earlier, sometimes you do still have to work late, but you do get that back. So that's where the balance comes, is there is a little bit of give but you do take it back for yourself and you do get to enjoy your life and your lifestyle. I feel very lucky, blessed, grateful, all of it, with the lifestyle that I'm able to
have. I'm 24, I qualified at 22, and that's pretty young for an accountant. In the summer, so just in August '23, I managed to buy my first home on my own and that was an absolutely amazing achievement for me. And I feel very grateful that I was firstly given the opportunity as a 16- year- old to be allowed to become an accountant and work my way up and have all this, and I feel so blessed that when
I book time off I can go on holiday. It's very lucky to be able to have a long- term career and know that you're always safe and you're always going to have a nice, steady income, and that will then give you the opportunities to do what you want
to do with your life outside of work. And enjoy yourself because we all get up every day, we come to work, when we go home we should be able to do what we want to and what makes us happy. But it is opened a lot of things personally as well. I'm able to do what I want and it's great, I feel very blessed.
Well, congratulations, particularly on you house purchase.
Thank you.
You've worked so hard for and it's just really inspiring to hear, so thank you for sharing that with us.
Well, my house definitely isn't a mansion by any means, but I've got my own!
Give it time, the second one.
Yeah, I've got some bricks and mortar, it's great.
Shaun, coming to you, just the same questioning from me. What lifestyle has this career path allowed you to have?
It's introduced me to a lot of interesting people, opened up a lot of opportunities. Also, for me, I work in craft beer, which is a really fun, exciting industry. We have a taproom, so it means going out to the taproom and drinking loads of free beer, which is brilliant, so that's
Friday evening sorted. And I'm very fortunate enough to be in a position where I can go on a number of holidays every year, explore the world, live in an amazing city. I live in London, which is brilliant. And likewise, I'm very excited what the future holds. There's so many different routes you can take and which I can still take. There's so many skills that I can learn and I
haven't learned. Accountancy is this never- ending cycle, which you can just keep getting the next opportunity, or fighting for the next opportunity.
Do you think, Shaun, that you can achieve or that you have achieved a good work- life balance?
Yeah, definitely. In my role, I'm responsible for managing my own workload as well. For me, I've been in other roles prior to being an accountant, where I'm customer- facing, for example. I need to be present. I need to be there from this hour to that hour. In accountancy it is up to me to pick up the work when I can and to get it done when I
need to get it done. That will enable me to juggle my own workload and to achieve a healthy work- life balance.
Absolutely. That flexibility is-
The flexibility is key, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. So, so key. What advice would you give someone perhaps who is considering a career in accounting and finance?
Speak to another accountant or more than one other accountant. Accountancy's such a big, big industry, so try to speak to as many people as you can in the industry to decide what route you want to take. With accountancy, there are so many transferable skills that you pick up.
So if you do start your career in accounting and change your mind, that's not a bad thing, you'll definitely use what you've learned with ACCA in any career I feel. Definitely do your research first and then just go for it, I think.
I love that, just go for it. Clara, same to you?
My advice would be just do it, literally go for it. If you don't like it, that's fine, at least you tried. And I would say it's hard at the beginning, so there might be times where you feel like giving up, but just persevere through because by the time you come out the other side, the lifestyle you can have and the opportunities that
you can have are amazing. So as much as when it feels hard in the moment, just remember that it'll all be worthwhile.
That's it from this episode of By All Accounts. Thank you Shaun and Clara for chatting with me today. And good news, we've heard from Shaun that he did pass that last exam and is qualified. Massive congratulations from all of us at ACCA. For a link to watch the video version of this podcast, check out the show notes.
With skills in accountancy and finance you can work in any business anywhere and turn your passion into an exciting and rewarding career with an ACCA qualification. You can sign up to find out more by heading to accaglobal. com/ beyouanywhere. That link is also in the show notes. See you next week. I'm Maiki Lynch and this has been By All Accounts. By All Accounts is a Fresh Air
Production for ACCA. Its lead producer is Eva Higginbotham and its executive producer is Annie Day, with support from Sarah Moore. Yohan Forbes is the videographer.