How to Become a Financial Examiner

Recently, we wrote about how to launch a career in accounting, why accounting is so important, and what makes accounting a good career.

Today, we’ll explain how to set yourself up to get one of the best jobs in the accounting industry, the role of financial examiner. 

This is a great career that you’ll want to consider pursuing if you’re interested in accounting, rules and regulations, and investigations, but you don’t want to become a traditional accountant.

In this post, we’ll explain why you should think about becoming a financial examiner, what you’d be responsible for doing in this role, what skills you’ll need to develop to get hired, and how you can increase your chances of achieving a successful lifelong career in the industry.

After you’ve learned everything you need to know about becoming a financial examiner, fill out our information request form to receive additional details about our online Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting, a program that’s designed to provide you with all the skills and abilities you need to succeed in this challenging role.

If you’re ready to get started, submit your application today.

What’s the Difference Between Financial Examiners and Financial Analysts?

Before we drill into additional specifics, let’s clear up one common misconception about financial examiners, which is that some people think they serve the same role as financial analysts, but that’s not true.

Financial examiners are responsible for reviewing an organization’s financial behavior, comparing it to the regulations that govern financial activities, and determining whether or not the organization is following the rules.

Financial analysts do something else entirely, which is to review the organization’s finances and look for opportunities to improve their financial results by changing procedures like cutting costs, increasing revenue, or taking other actions to improve profitability.

While a financial analyst’s job is to improve business results, the financial examiner’s job is to ensure that the organization isn’t doing anything illegal while pursuing those profits.

In this way, the two roles need to work well together, with the analyst suggesting optimum business strategies and the examiner ensuring that those strategies are legal so that the organization can pursue them without fear of fines, fees, or penalties.

Is Becoming a Financial Examiner Really a Good Career Option?

Yes, becoming a financial examiner is an excellent career option. This role provides all sorts of opportunities for developing a lucrative, lifelong career doing interesting and important work.

Three of the most compelling reasons to consider pursuing a career in this field are:

1. Demand for financial examiners is projected to skyrocket, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics reporting that their employment will rise 21% between 2021 and 2031, a rate that’s much faster than the average for all occupations.
2. Financial examiners play an essential role in modern organizations, as they’re responsible for ensuring the organization complies with all the laws regulating how an institution can handle monetary transactions. They’re literally in charge of self-regulation, which is incredibly important to both short-term and long-term organizational success.
3. This is a well-paid role, with the BLS reporting that financial examiners earned an average median annual salary of $81,430 as of May 2021. 

With demand set to rise so quickly over the next decade, this is an excellent time to develop the skills and abilities that will position you to become a leader in the field.

If you’re interested in finances, but you don’t necessarily want to be an accountant, then the role of the financial examiner may be the perfect opportunity for you.

What do Financial Examiners Actually Do?

This is a perfect position for anyone who has an interest in finances, but also in financial laws, regulations, and business strategies.

Serving in this role, you’ll be responsible for reviewing the intersection of an organization’s business strategy and the financial regulations that govern its financial activities so you can help ensure that the organization is maximizing profits without violating any laws.

When it comes to the typical tasks for financial examiners, here’s a list of some of the things you might be asked to handle:

• Providing your organization with clear information, detailed reviews, and advice regarding financial laws, rules, and regulations.
• Recommending corrective actions and policy changes to ensure the organization’s behavior complies with existing regulations.
• Reviewing new regulations and rules to determine how they will impact the operations of your organization.
• Designing guidelines to ensure the organization complies with new regulations and regulatory changes.
• Monitoring the financial condition of banks and other financial institutions by reviewing balance sheets, operating income, and expenses, etc.
• Building and delivering reports outlining an institution’s economic solvency.

If you can’t tell already, this is a challenging, complex job that requires a great deal of expertise in interpreting an organization’s financial behavior, as well as financial regulations themselves. 

What Skills & Abilities are Needed to Become a Successful Financial Examiner?

Financial examiners face an extremely difficult challenge each day since their job is to strike a balance between what’s best for the organization’s finances and what’s allowed under current laws and future financial regulatory updates.

Doing what’s best for the bottom line doesn’t always align with what the organization is legally allowed to do and that’s why financial examiners have to be absolute experts in several critical skill areas.

According to Indeed.com, here’s a list of some of the most important skills you’ll have to develop to become a successful financial examiner:

1. Financial Literacy Skills – First, you’ll need to understand finances in detail, including financial situations, financial behavior of organizations, and financial activities. Without a solid grasp of financial literacy, you’d be lost as a financial examiner, since your role requires understanding what’s happening, reviewing the behavior to ensure it complies and suggesting strategic changes where they’re needed.
2. Traditional Accounting Skills – To understand whether or not your organization is following financial regulations, you’ll need traditional accounting skills so you can figure out what exactly the organization is doing. You’ll have to develop key accounting skills like knowledge of accounting principles and best practices, cost analyses and reductions, cash flow management, and general ledgers, etc., to be successful in this role.
3. Analytical Skills – Successful financial examiners must be capable of reviewing and analyzing data to determine the health of an organization, while also using the data to help understand how that organization has been behaving, and whether or not it’s in line with financial regulations governing its activities. 
4. Problem-Solving Skills – Anytime that you uncover an issue where the organization is NOT following financial regulations, you’re going to need to develop a recommendation for solving that problem by reigning in its activities and ensuring it gets back into compliance, so creative problem-solving skills will be critical to your success.
5. Communications Skills – Financial examiners can’t just be number crunchers, as they’re responsible for understanding how numbers are arrived at, including ensuring that everything is happening in line with financial regulations. You’ll need to be able to clearly communicate why the economic activity is in line with, or violating, the rules regulating it, and you’ll have to be capable of presenting your findings and suggestions to senior leadership at the organization. In short, communications skills will be critical to your success in this industry.

These are difficult skills to develop, but one way to build them and hone your expertise across all of them is to complete a B.S. Degree in Accounting, which will provide you with the foundational knowledge and training you need to leverage each of these effectively.

Finishing an accounting program will help you convince hiring managers that you’re ready to complete the work required of a financial examiner, while also ensuring that you’re able to deliver real value in the role from your first day on the job.

Do I Really Need a Degree to Get a Job as a Financial Examiner?

Yes, you probably will need a degree to get a job as a financial examiner.

Why? Because the BLS states that financial examiners typically need a bachelor’s degree that includes some coursework in accounting.

This is critically important since the job requires traditional accounting skills and the best way to pick those up is to study them in an accredited accounting degree program.

While you may be able to get an entry-level position as a financial examiner without a degree, your odds of getting a good job in the field are likely to be much higher should you first complete an accounting-related degree.

Keep in mind that completing a B.S. in Accounting won’t just improve your marketability for available positions, but will also help ensure that you’re prepared for the complex work you’re likely to face when working in the industry.

How Will an Accounting Program Help Prepare Me for a Career as a Financial Examiner?

Above, we reviewed the general skills you’ll need to develop to become a successful financial examiner, but you’re also going to need to build some extremely specific, niche skills to succeed in this difficult role.

First, as we briefly outlined above, you’ll need to become an expert in traditional accounting tasks, including:

• Organizing, maintaining, reviewing, and interpreting financial records, statements, and activities.
• Preparing, analyzing, and confirming the accuracy of financial records.
• Understanding tax regulations and tax policies so you can ensure that taxes are paid properly and on time.
• Identifying ways to increase revenue and value, reduce costs, and improve the bottom line.

Next, you’ll need to understand how modern organizations work, including what different business units do and how they interact with each other since one of the primary roles of your job will be reviewing the organization’s behavior to determine what each team is doing, and whether or not their behavior is in compliance with financial regulations.

CSU Global’s B.S. in Accounting program is the perfect place to develop these skills, as we provide detailed information on organizational management issues, like:

• Business intelligence
• Economics
• Finance
• Leadership
• Legal compliance and ethics
• Marketing.
• Qualitative decision making

This background knowledge will be critical for helping you determine whether or not an organization is following applicable financial regulations so that you can determine what advice to provide if any changes are needed.

Remember, your job won’t just be to call out violations of regulations, but will also require that you’re capable of giving advice about what the organization should do to maximize its economic returns while remaining in compliance or getting back in compliance with those regulations.

Without detailed training in these complex areas, you may find yourself hard-pressed to convince a hiring manager to employ you for the role of financial examiner, and even if you were able to get hired, you might have trouble providing any real value.

If you’re serious about breaking into this excellent, but challenging industry, then we certainly suggest getting your degree in Accounting, or a closely related field, before applying for available positions. 

What Else Can I Do to Increase My Odds of Success?

Because this is such a competitive industry, just earning a degree may not be enough to get a job as a financial examiner.

Instead, you may need to think of getting your B.S. as just the first step in a potentially long process that includes additional training and certifications which could help improve your marketability for related roles.

This is especially true if your career goals include landing a job in management or leadership, which may require completing a graduate degree, like CSU Global’s online Master’s program in Professional Accounting.

This program will enhance your traditional accounting skills, while also improving your leadership skills, teamwork skills, planning skills, and communications skills, all of which are critical to achieving good results as a financial examiner.

Next, you may also want to think about completing a relevant certification program, or even multiple certifications, which are useful for developing additional niche skills and improving your resume.

Some relevant certifications for financial examiners include:

• Certified Financial Examiner (CFE Designation). 
• Certified Fraud Examiner.
• Certified Regulatory Compliance Manager (CRCM).

While it may require a great deal of additional time to complete a Master’s program or any of these certification programs, there could be a significant benefit to adding these credentials to your resume.

What’s obvious, however, is that completing a B.S. in Accounting is one of the most important steps in the process of preparing yourself to achieve a successful career as a financial examiner, even if it is only the first stepping stone in the process.

Should I Get My Degree Online?

Yes, whatever academic programs you decide to complete, we suggest pursuing them online rather than on-campus, since online programs offer so much more freedom than in-person programs.

To maximize your flexibility and freedom, think about studying with us at CSU Global, where our online programs offer several excellent benefits, including:

• No requirements to show up at set times or in physical locations.
• Monthly class starts.
• Accelerated courses.

We developed our online programs specifically to support the needs of busy, working professionals, so if you’ve already got other responsibilities, you’ll gain a great deal of freedom by choosing to study online with us.

Why Should I Choose to Study Accounting at CSU Global?

Our 100% online B.S. Degree in Accounting program has been designed to give you everything you need to launch a successful career as a financial examiner.

The program is regionally accredited by the Higher Learning Commission, ACBSP Accredited by the Council of Business Schools and Programs, and is endorsed by the Institute of Management Accountants. These prominent designations ensure that your degree will be respected by hiring managers looking for skilled financial examiners.

Our program is also widely regarded as being one of the best in the industry, having recently won several top accounting program rankings, including:

• A #2 ranking for Best Online Bachelor’s in Accounting Degrees by Great Business Schools.
• A #2 ranking for Best Online Accounting Degrees from College Choice.

90% of our graduates report working in the field, with three of the top job titles being accountant, bookkeeper, and staff accountant, and our alumni’s average estimated starting salary is reported to be $67,310.

CSU Global itself is also widely regarded to be an industry leader in higher education, and we recently won several excellent rankings, including:

• A #1 ranking for Best Online Colleges in Colorado from Best Colleges.
• A #1 ranking for Best Online Colleges & Schools in Colorado from Best Accredited Colleges.
• A #10 ranking for Best Online Colleges for ROI from OnlineU.

Finally, we provide all students with affordable tuition rates, and Tuition Guarantee to ensure that your rate won’t increase from enrollment through graduation.

For additional details about our fully-accredited online Degree in Accounting, please give us a call at (800) 462-7845, or fill out our Information Request Form.

Ready to get started today? Apply now!