Accounting Analytics Master’s Degrees

What kinds of education programs are available (skip ahead to our complete list)?

Accounting analytics is the application of data analytics and big data technologies to the field of accounting. In addition to helping accountants manage typical tasks, accounting analytics enables financial professionals to answer business questions, shape corporate strategy, forecast financial trends, thwart fraud, and more!

Budgeting, planning, data management, auditing—accountants are used to dealing with data. In fact, most professionals utilize two types of analytics:

Descriptive Analytics: By summarizing and interpreting raw data, accountants find answers to what has happened. For example, analysts frequently use sums, averages, and percent changes to calculate sales results, inventory stock, cost per customer, average dollars spent, year-over-year change in sales, etc. These data are used to generate reports (e.g. operations, finance, and sales).

Diagnostic Analytics: Accountants also deploy data analytics and data mining to discover why something happened. They create variance reports to show differences between budgeted amounts and actual income or expenses. They conduct financial audits to pinpoint fraud or errors. They employ tools and software to look for patterns and problems in large data sets.

Some accountants incorporate non-financial data into their analyses, predict financial performance, and advise their company on actions to take.

In order for accountants to act as financial counselors, they may have to master two more forms of analytics. Namely:

Predictive Analytics: Accountants can predict what will happen by analyzing historical data & patterns. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, point-of-sale (POS) software, credit scores, customer relationship management (CRM) systems—these are just a few of the sources that can be tapped to create financial forecasts, project appraisals, trend analyses, budget predictions, etc.

Prescriptive Analytics: Accountants can advise management on what should happen. Using advanced techniques (e.g. machine learning, optimization algorithms, computational modeling, etc.), accountants can analyze the outcomes of “what-if” scenarios, assess the trade-offs, and suggest the best course of action.

Whether you’ll use all of these tactics depends on your job title and your level of seniority.

Accountants use big data technologies to monitor and audit entire populations (i.e. full data sets) on a continuous basis. Transaction activities, vendor payments, payroll processing, healthcare charges—all of these and more can be analyzed and summed up in financial reports.

Internal auditors crunch data from multiple sources (structured and unstructured) to:

Accounting experts who make sense of their financial data, can help their organization by suggesting ways to make money in the future.

For example, some businesses have embraced integrated reporting (IR). Creators of IRs use financial and non-financial data sets to assess an organization’s “strategy, governance, performance, and prospects” and value created over time. By breaking down silos and incorporating outside data, financial planners hope to create a more comprehensive view of the company’s situation.

The upshot of this work? Better corporate decisions on resource allocation, investments in intellectual capital, energy security measures, competitive strategies, and more.

Forensic accountants are expected to act as experts in financial matters related to disputes or litigation. They often look for fraud and illegal activities (e.g. money laundering, insurance claims and personal injury claims), but they can also be involved in situations like bankruptcy, royalty audits, or insolvency.

With the right skills, forensic accountants can quickly identify and track down the source of anomalies in large datasets. This is no easy feat when there are so many disparate sources to analyze!

But it’s not just about the past. These data experts are also involved in their organization’s future—creating risk reduction procedures, finding new ways to deter fraud, advising on the safest investment decisions, etc. This kind of role typically requires advanced predictive and prescriptive skills.

This is where the field of accounting analytics becomes really interesting:

If you’re aspiring to be a CFO, it helps to a) know your analytics stuff and b) be able to explain the rationale for your decisions to a non-technical audience.

Each university will have its own take on the curriculum. For example, some schools have chosen to go with themes of:

Other schools have made a point of focusing on a certain field (e.g. forensic accounting, fraud, financial advising, etc.). You can decide to keep your options open or specialize early—it’s up to you!

Whatever choice you make, be sure that the tools and technologies covered in the curriculum match your career goals. For instance:

You can get even more specific. For example, an auditing degree may include:

The easiest way to assess a curriculum is to look at dream job descriptions and see what skills they require. Don’t forget that “soft skills” such as communication, teamwork, and an understanding of ethics & market issues will also have value to employers.

To drive more qualified analysts into its ranks, KPMG has developed a master’s degree program with Ohio State University, Villanova, University of Mississippi, University of Southern California and more.

Highlights of the program include:

Rutgers’s Accounting Web (RAW) is the university’s center of accounting research. We bring it up because RAW is where you’ll find the Rutgers AICPA Data Analytics Research Initiative (RADAR), a joint project with the AICPA to integrate data analytics into the audit process. RADAR’s research has helped to inform the AICPA Audit Data Analytics Guide.

On RAW, you’ll also find info on recent accounting research in data analytics & text analytics, links to big data development articles in AAA’s Accounting Horizons, and info on upcoming auditing conferences.

Inside Public Accounting (IPA) publishes annual rankings of the 100, 200, and 300 largest accounting firms in the United States. You can also look for jobs at:

We found 6 universities in our directory offering Accounting Analytics programs.

If you represent a university and would like to contact us about editing any of our listings, or adding new programs, please send an email to info@mastersindatascience.org.

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