Accounting, data analysis, or...? Help me pick a new profession

June 26, 2023 9:31 AM

I'm in my 40s and have been working for many years as a bookkeeper/general admin in higher ed. I have recently started doing freelance bookkeeping on the side as well. I'm looking to move to a more professional job. What should my career be?

My ideal job includes:

-Flexibility and autonomy, e.g. fully remote or self-employed
-In a reliably employable profession (as much as can be in today's economy)
-Handling data and numbers, and understanding laws and policies, rather than customer service.
-A salary above $60K
-No "office housework." That is, the kind of job that gets help from an admin. I'm tired of being the "office mom."

It seems like the natural step up from bookkeeping is accounting. However, all the good accounting jobs seem to require a CPA, and my undergrad is in the humanities (my state basically requires a business degree for licensure).

Other options I've thought about are data analysis, business administration, and, I suppose, law. Are there other options I should consider? Which of these would be a good path forward? I have partial tuition remission through my job so more education is a possibility, but given my age I want to pick carefully.

posted by epanalepsis to Work & Money (9 answers total)

Why aren’t you expanding your bookkeeping business?

There are plenty of people who do that freelance by stitching together a series of temporary full time roles at even mid sized organisations like covering maternity leave or other longer absences or bridging until somebody can be replaced. Alternatively, build up a portfolio of customers who have ongoing needs that are not full time. That’d be smaller businesses who don’t need anybody full time. Find a combination of those that allows you to meet your income/workload requirements.

In either case, if they want you to do things other than what your contract says that’s simply not a service you offer, you’re happy to refer them to ‘local office admin temp agency’ if they need help with x.
posted by koahiatamadl at 9:58 AM on June 26, 2023 [4 favorites]

Are you open to moving to a state where the CPA license does not require a business degree?
posted by brainwane at 11:10 AM on June 26, 2023

Definitely agreed on expanding your bookkeeping business. You can also use this to look for opportunities with those clients to expand the range of services you offer to include some of that analysis and consulting work. A lot of smaller businesses benefit a lot from having a trustworthy expert bookkeeper but don't have the need for a full-time person doing so. And if you're working in a freelance/consulting capacity, it's going to be a lot easier for you to set boundaries and explain what you are willing/able to do while also clarifying that you're simply not interested in general-purpose HR admin work.

In theory this could be done as a full-time fully-remote job, but that's threading an increasingly fine needle (especially if you do not want to be a catchall HR generalist with non-zero amounts of admin duties). So I think it's worth looking at your freelance business and thinking about how you can grow it to fully support yourself. That includes making sure you can survive a downturn in business, good sales pipeline, etc - and examining your rates to make sure they still make sense if your'e full-time. I don't know if this is you, but I've known a lot of folks who needed to seriously bump their freelance rates when they went full-time, because their relationship to their time changed a lot when it went from "bonus on top of day job" to "my business."
posted by Tomorrowful at 12:01 PM on June 26, 2023

I work in higher education and there is a whole world of financial grants management. Most of the folks in my office don’t have a Bachelor’s or earned their BA while working here.

If you already have experience with bookkeeping it seems like you’d be a great fit for this kind of role. In my experience there is often flexibility around remote work and it’s a normal 40 hour a week 9-5 role.

You might want to search for job titles like grants analyst/manager, contracts analyst/manager, finance manager at universities to see if anything looks like a good fit.
posted by forkisbetter at 1:16 PM on June 26, 2023 [3 favorites]

I recently shifted from academic research (neuroscience) to Institutional Research at my local community college. I LOVE IT! I do all the things you mentioned: fully remote, data analysis of institutional data (which includes a lot of policy and strategy based analysis). Every higher ed institution will have some sort of office for institutional research, and they all seem to be hiring all the time. The only issue is that Im not sure about education requirements for the various positions (I have a PhD), but I think there are typically several occupation levels which include some that dont require a Masters or higher.

Also - as forkisbetter mentioned, everyone needs a good grants manager. I thought about doing that, but I didnt have the experience with spreadsheets etc. Im not sure how much is remote, and you will definitely be dealing with academic researchers as clients.
posted by Illusory contour at 1:22 PM on June 26, 2023 [4 favorites]

I worked for an accounting firm that lined up bookkeepers for some of their mid-sized clients. It worked well for both parties: the companies weren’t quite big enough to hire a FTE bookkeeper, and the accounting firm could work directly with the bookkeepers to ensure entries were aligned to quarterly and year-end requirements. It might be worth calling a few local accounting firms to see if they do something similar.
posted by Silvery Fish at 2:31 PM on June 26, 2023

If you want to become a CPA, you could pursue a Master’s degree. You don’t need a business undergrad major to do so.
posted by Comet Bug at 3:25 PM on June 26, 2023

If you do already have a bachelors, even in the humanities, that should be enough. The CPA is a separate licensing thing. I'm not a CPA, but I know some, and some were English majors. But if you can pass the exams (which will be hard!) then you could get hired on somewhere without having to go back to school.
posted by LizBoBiz at 8:04 AM on June 29, 2023

Response by poster: The CPA licensing requirements differ by state. In my state, a business degree is required.
posted by epanalepsis at 9:15 AM on June 29, 2023