Be a Financial Analyst or Accountant?
You can decide if you want to be a financial analyst or accountant by considering the follow question: do you care more about studying the past, or predicting the future? Accountants are focused on recording what happened in the past (preparing financial statements), whereas financial analysts are tasked with not only analyzing the past but also trying to predict the future performance of a business.
Analyst Certification FMVA™ Program
Below is a break down of subject weightings in the FMVA™ financial analyst program. As you can see there is a heavy focus on financial modeling, finance, Excel, business valuation, budgeting/forecasting, PowerPoint presentations, accounting and business strategy.
A well rounded financial analyst possesses all of the above skills!
Additional Questions & Answers
CFI is the global institution behind the financial modeling and valuation analyst FMVA Designation. CFI is on a mission to enable anyone to be a great financial analyst and have a great career path. In order to help you advance your career, CFI has compiled many resources to assist you along the path.
In order to become a great financial analyst, here are some more questions and answers for you to discover:
- What is financial modeling?
- How do you build a DCF model?
- What is sensitivity analysis?
- How do you value a business?