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Financial Analyst or Accountant

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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 weightingsFMVA® CertificationJoin 350,600+ students who work for companies like Amazon, J.P. Morgan, and Ferrari FMVA Financial Modeling Certification 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.

FMVA® CertificationJoin 350,600+ students who work for companies like Amazon, J.P. Morgan, and Ferrari FMVA Financial Modeling Certification

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® DesignationFinancial Modeling CertificationFinancial Modeling Certification - earn your certificate as a Financial Modeling and Valuation Analyst (FMVA)® for careers in investment banking, FP&A,. 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 answersKnowledgeCFI self-study guides are a great way to improve technical knowledge of finance, accounting, financial modeling, valuation, trading, economics, and more. for you to discover:

What is financial modeling?What is Financial ModelingFinancial modeling is performed in Excel to forecast a company's financial performance. Overview of what is financial modeling, how & why to build a model.
How do you build a DCF model?DCF Model Training Free GuideA DCF model is a specific type of financial model used to value a business. The model is simply a forecast of a company’s unlevered free cash flow
What is sensitivity analysis?What is Sensitivity Analysis?Sensitivity Analysis is a tool used in financial modeling to analyze how the different values for a set of independent variables affect a dependent variable
How do you value a business?Valuation MethodsWhen valuing a company as a going concern there are three main valuation methods used: DCF analysis, comparable companies, and precedent transactions. These methods of valuation are used in investment banking, equity research, private equity, corporate development, mergers & acquisitions, leveraged buyouts and finance