Hi iAmGoingToPass,
I was in a similar position and can share my experience – I also work for a firm within the financial services industry (one that does business with Genworth actually, but I won't mention the name here). I was working as a Staff Accountant, primarily focusing on revenue accounting, at my firm when I decided to pursue the CPA. While studying for my first exam, I ended up moving into a Financial Analyst position within my firm. This was two and a half years ago, I've been a senior FA for almost a year now. Aside from getting my CPA license, taking on the FA position was the best career decision I've made. Although, I think it's worth a mention that I never had any intention of going into audit/tax altogether, and I don't know what your career background is, so my perspective may be different from yours and my observations somewhat limited.
I think the FA role is great because it gives you a big-picture, high-level view of the business (which is something you rarely get at the staff level in industry, IMO) – you become familiar with what really drives the financials, and you end up understanding the business better than most employees at the firm. It has been a very dynamic role for me – constantly switching gears between budgeting/forecasting/modeling, standard reporting, process improvement projects, and ad-hoc reporting/modeling. Not to mention, most FA roles involve substantial interaction with senior management, which I think is awesome in numerous ways.
As far as the accounting aspect goes, building a comprehensive business plan for a firm usually requires an understanding of how things are accounted for. IMO, if you're going to forecast financial statements, you need to understand the accounting behind the numbers presented, otherwise your forecasts may not make sense. I still do quite a bit of true (and pretty complex) accounting in my role. I post journal entries on a monthly basis, so I can't say I've lost my exposure to the accounting side as a result of the move.
I'm in CA, so I can only tell you what I know to be the work requirements in my state. In general, FA experience counts as long as you're working under a CPA. My controller is an active CPA and ultimately leads both the finance and accounting departments, so I didn't have any issues with the work experience portion. But, as Smith said, the work experience part will depend on what state you're in.
Big 4 experience is certainly awesome and coveted in the finance and accounting world, and it is an amazing learning/growth opportunity. I have to admit that sometimes I wish I had a Big 4 brand name on my resume just because it instantly opens so many doors. However, in my experience, working in a broad corporate finance role within industry has been the next best thing because of the high level of exposure you're able to get at a relatively low level within the firm. Not having Big 4 experience is not the end of the world, especially if you're able to position yourself in a good spot elsewhere.
I hope this somewhat helps, best of luck!
FAR - 81 (07/24/2012)
BEC - 92 (10/06/2012)
AUD - 92 (11/29/2012)
REG - 88 (02/28/2013)
Ethics - 90
California Licensed CPA - 12/2013
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