Career Advice In Singapore

The Company Secretary is a senior corporate officer with wide-ranging responsibilities. In today's world, he serves as a focal point for communication with the board of directors, senior management and the company's shareholders, and occupies a key advisory role in the administration of critical corporate legal matters.

He is often confident and counsellor to the Chief Executive Officer and other members of senior management, especially on corporate governance affairs pertaining to businesses and company law.

Job Scope
Under the Companies Act, every company is required to have a Company Secretary. He need not be professionally qualified, possess a law degree, or be a practicing member of Icpas, but must be able to perform these functions competently:

• Maintain minute books, update statutory and corporate registers and records
• Submit annual returns and attend to all company matters in compliance with the Companies Act and statutory reporting and file with the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (Acra) and other regulatory bodies
• E-file and update information on the Acra website
• Organise director's meetings, board and shareholder's meetings, and take minutes of such meetings
• Act as a link between the shareholders and directors of the company
• Ensure that the company and its directors comply with the Singapore Companies Act
• Set up Singapore and offshore companies
• Supervise the application of Emplyment passes

Personal Qualities

• Have in-depth understanding of the Companies Act, and general understanding of legal and financial matters
• Able to explain complex matters simply to the layman
• Have a good judegment to give advice to decision makers
• Possess good presentation skills
• Good command of spoken and written English, with fluency in spoken and written Mandarin an advantage
• Possess initiative, a pleasant personality and be a team player

Entry Requirements

• Qualified Accountant with local CPA membership or
• Qualified lawyer or
• Chartered Secretary ( Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators ( ICSA),UK)

Career Opportunities
In public practice, you may start out in the Company Secretary role as an assistant. You can advance through the ranks to become a Manager, Senior Manager and ultimately Director.

You can also move into Commerce and the industry as an in-house Company Secretary or an external Company Secretarial Consultant or work in the trust and wealth management industry to incorporate underlying companies and maintain clients' statutory registers and records.

Job Scope
You carry out a systematic and independent review of a company's accounting records and financial statements. You can be in External Auditing or Internal Auditing.

External Auditing
There are three aspects of external audit work - statutory audit, management of audit activities and consultancy. As an External Auditor, you visit your clients' offices and conduct an examination of the clients' financial accounts inaccordance with Singapore Standards of Auditing.

Among your duties in conducting statutory audit under the Companies Act, you may be required to:

• Understand clients' businesses
• Interview the clients' staff regarding financial and financial-related matters
• Check the clients' accounting books, records and financial statements
• Analyse financial records to ensure that they comply with established standards
• Review clients' accounting systems and recommend improvements to these practices
• Give an audit report on whether the client's accounts present true and fair view of the company's financial position

You may be involved in non-statutory audit which includes your have to:

• Conduct due diligence review for mergers and acquisitions and take-overs and assist in management buy-outs
• Work with lawyers in providing forensic accounting and fraud investigation services

Internal Auditing
There are four aspects of internal audit work - audit of sub-systems, operational audit and management audit, internal audit participation in projects, and management of audit activities.

As an internal auditor, you are responsible for checking your company's accounting system. Your duties include have to:

• Review and assess the strengths and weaknesses of your company's internal control system
• Assist External Auditors in statutory audit
• Report breaches to senior management and recommends improvements to your company's procedures

Personal Qualities

• Qualities listed for an Accountant apply
• Inquiring mind that detects and questions possible irregularities

Entry Requirements

• Requirements listed for an Accountant apply
• Knowledge of computerised accounting systems is an advantage

Career Opportunities

You can specialise as an information Technology Auditor or Computer Audit Specialist, Certified Fraud Examiner and Business Valuation Specialist. You can also move into commerce and the Industry as ab Accountant, Finance Manager, Financial Controller and Finance Director.

An Accountant is a generic description used to address a person trained to be one. The Accountant, in simple terms, is responsible for compiling the income and expenditure to financial reports for the organisations to meet government and regulatory authority requirements.

Other titles, such as Business Analyst, Controller, Financial Analyst, Finance Manager and Financial Controller, Operations Controller are used either to indicate the person's position and seniority in an organisation, or used as an attempt to describe his role, responsibilities and area of specialisation, or both.

Higher up the hierachy of the profession, the use of different titles is necessary to reflect the increasingly macro level of responsibilities.

Job Scope
This can be broadly grouped into two categories - financial accounting and management accounting.

Financial Accounting
Financial Accounting focuses mainly on satisfying the historical information needs of external decision-makers such as stakeholders,bankers,pressure groups and governments. This is done by recording and preparing financial statements such as balance sheets, the profit and loss accounts, and cash flow records. Such data is produced mainly for corporate governance,accountablity and compliance.

Depending on qualifications, competency and seniority, your responsibilities might include your having to :

• interpret accounts using trend and ratio analyses
• Project and forecast financial statements
• Manage the company's cash flow
• Keep financial records and prepare year-end financial statements for shareholders if the organisation is an international one, then the Financial Accountant is also required to provide meaningful reports that meet the governance of both local and international accounting standards

Management Accounting
Management accounting applies to the principles of accounting and financial management to add value to stakeholders. It provides management with current and projected strategic, tactical and operational information for planning, decision-making and control.

The team will work with the Business Services function to communicate this information clearly and concisely to other areas of the Group. The team will also undertake any supplementary work in response to questions where necessary, and to develop and improve the suite of reports over time.




Management accounting is an integral part of management, requiring you to identify, generate, present, interpret and use information to :

• Formulate business strategies
• Plan and control investories and company projects
• Make efficient use of resources and strategic, business and budget decisions
• Inprove performance and enhance value to shareholders and stakeholders
• Safeguard tangible and intangible assets
• Practise corporate governance and internal control

Your responsibilities might also require you to:

• Prepare and interpret budget reports
• Maintain, analyse and present to management the records of actual production costs against expected costs
• Work out the costs, margins and prices of products and services, monitor sales results and make recommendations to management
• Carry out feasibility studies on decisions to make or buy, lease or purchase, and so on
• Handle financial modelling
• Manage working capital
• Assess the impact of changes in cost, sales volume and other factors on profits
• Ensure checks and balances in the financial system
• Produce the monthly management packs provided to the business for investment
• Under the area of risk management, you will develop an appropriate control framework around management reporting to minimise the risk of mistatement.

This Management Accountant is a team player within the various business units in the organisation as the information gathered and reports generated enables key decision makers to formulate their business strategies.

These two categories are equally important.They are performed seperately but in tandem. In both areas, you can expect to work long hours, especially at the end of the financial year, during the tax season, and when monthly management reports need to be prepared.

You may also be required to travel extensively.

In addition to financial accounting and management accounting, there is also other areas of specialisation. These include:

• Company secretarial practices
• Corporate finance
• Corporate recovery, restructuring and insolvency
• Management consultancy
• Internal and External audit
• Public sector accounting, including taxation matters
• Education

The scope of work in public sector accounting is similar to that in the private sector. The difference is that you are working for the Government, and there are additional non-financial considerations such as social responsibilites, community services and care for the underprivileged that must be factored into any project undertaken.

Under education, you may have to:

• tutor aspiring accountants and business students in higher instituition or a private education provider
• Carry out research in accounting, management or business fields
• Present research papers at conferences and conduct workshops on those fields of research.

Personal Qualities
Accountants, including specialists, need to gain the confidence and trust of employers, clients and the public. You should:

• Be honest, reliable and trustworthy
• Be diligent, independent and committed
• Take pride in being meticulous and detailed in work
• Have a strong business acumen
• Be good at communicating, analysing and problem solving
• Have good organising and computing skills
• Have good interpersonal skills
• Be good with facts and figures
• Be able to work under pressure
• Be resourceful, with an inquisitive mind
• Demonstrate a strategic mind and the abilitiy to think outside of the box, and
• Have excellent written and verbal communication skills

Entry Requirements
For lower positions:

• Diploma in Accountancy, Business or Business Administration, or equivalent
• Partially completed Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) or Chartered Insitute of Management Accountants (CIMA) qualifications
• Diploma in Accounting and Finance or Certified Accounting Technicians qualifications issued by the Acca Board
• Certificate in Business Accounting issued by Cima Board
• Proficiency in Microsoft applications would be an advantage.

For higher positions, at least one of the following:

• Recognised local or overseas degree in Accountancy
• Professional accounting qualification such as the one offered by the: Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, Chartered Institute of Management Accountants and Institute of Chartered Accountants England and Wales
• Membership in the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Singapore ( Icpas), the local professional accounting body: Non-practicing Certified Public Accountant(CPA) status is available to all members of accounting qualifications recognised by Icpas, such as Cima, subject to completing a pre-admission course, Practicing CPA status is available only to someone who intends to set up his own practise. A Practicing License must be obtained from the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority, upon completing the Icpas pre-admission course. An interview might be required
• Knowledge of Enterprise Resource Planning software is desirable, such as SAP, Oracle, Peoplesoft, JD Edwards and Great Plains
• Knowledge of software used by small companies is also useful, such as AccPac, Simply Accounting, MYOB, PeachTree

The Company Secretarial and Corporate Restructuring and Insolvency functions can also be performed by a person with a law degree or a Chartered Secretary (Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators, UK) professional qualification.

Career Opportunities
You can become a Financial Analyst, Cost Analyst, Tax Accountant, Cost Accountant, Management Accountant, Finance manager, Financial Controller, Group Financial Controller, Vice President- Accounting and Finance, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Executive Officer or Management Consultant.

If you specialise in education - as an academic in institutes of Higher Learning - you can rise to become a Professor and even the Chancellor of a university. You can also move into executive education, either as an educator or businessperson or both.

In 2007, accounting standards - or lack of it- hogged the headlines as far as charitable organisations went. The furore was sparked off two years ago when the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) was found to have extravagant practices and lack of governance.

Hot on the heels of the NKF troubles was another scandal that erupted within the Youth Challenge charity in the same year. An inquiry by the Commissioner of Charities discovered that Youth Challenge too was lacking in governance and internal controls.

Given the greater scrutiny on the need for sterling accounting standards - not just in Singapore bu globally - the demand for good accountants has never been more important.

In the public sector, job opportunities are available at the Auditor - General's Office, the inland Revenue Authority of Singapore and other statutory boards.

Singapore's "Big Four" accounting firms - PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deliotte Touche Tohmatsu, Ernst & Young and KPMG- also traditionally employ a large number of graduate accountants every year.

The work of an accountant includes setting budgets, handling corporate recovery and insolvency, managing assets, and dispensing tax and investment advice.

An accountant can have any of these qualifications - an ACA, CPA, FCPA, FCA or CIMA. What these terms describe is the type of affliliation with the respective accounting body. For instance, chartered accountants belong to an organisation that received a Royal Charter bestowed by Queen Elizabeth II.

In Singapore, the accountanct profession is supported by the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (Acra), which keeps a register of public accountantds and public accounting firms.




The Institute of Certified Public Accounts of Singapore ( Icpas), the local Certified Public Accountant society, promotes the interests of the accountancy profession. It also conducts training and professional development courses for its members through its training arm, the Singapore Accountancy Academy.

A good accountant should have an analytical mind and be able to adapt to constant change and development. He should also be patient and meticulous, and be committed to continually upgrade his skills and knowledge, in order to keep abreast of local business and taxation laws.