The reality is that there isn't one "right" career path, but understanding your options can help you make the right decision for your career.
Every week, our consultants talk to many finance professionals including accountants and auditors, many of them from Big 4 backgrounds, who want to pivot into Financial Planning & Analysis.
- “How do I move from accounting to FP&A when I don’t have FP&A experience?”
- “I’m in Big 4. How do I transition into an in-house finance or internal audit role?”
- “If I stay in accounting, how can I develop my career path?”
- “Do I need qualification like a CPA or an MBA?”
It’s a conversation we’re having with candidates every week.
The finance function is changing and so is the requirement for its talent. That explains the shift in the talent trend: accountants want to move into FP&A; big 4 consultants want to move to commercial companies.
Why are finance professionals making the move?
We have talked to enough accountants considering this shift and seen the same three reasons surface.
1. They want to work on what happens next, not what already happened.
Accounting looks into the past: accuracy, compliance, closing the books correctly. FP&A looks into the future: budgeting, forecasting, scenario planning, telling the business what to do about the numbers rather than just reporting them. For accountants who’ve mastered the close and want more say in strategy, that shift from historian to advisor is the whole appeal.
2. FP&A sits closer to the CFO and closer to leadership pay.
The path from accounting through FP&A into finance leadership, or the CFO seat itself, has become one of the clearest ladders in corporate finance. In Japan specifically, FP&A supports management decision-making through financial data, and as Japanese companies have globalized, more of them are establishing it as a standalone specialist function rather than folding it into corporate planning or accounting. That standalone status matters. It makes FP&A a visible, well-defined destination rather than a vague aspiration.
3. The market is short on FP&A and audit talent. Companies are willing to paying for them.
Employers in Japan are seeking finance professionals skilled in digital transformation, ERP upgrades, and commercial finance, with proficiency in SAP, Power BI, and data storytelling alongside strong business partnering skills, but tight labor markets and a shortage of bilingual mid-career talent remain key barriers. On compensation, an FP&A Manager role in Japan benchmarks at roughly ¥14M, a meaningful step up the ladder for someone moving out of a pure accounting track.
For Big 4 staff specifically, the move often is about industry. Professionals from diverse financial backgrounds, including consulting firms, are increasingly transitioning into FP&A roles inside operating companies, trading the audit floor for a seat inside the business they used to audit.
The success rate: better than most transitions, but not automatic
There’s no single published “success rate” for this move. But the qualitative evidence, and our own placement experience, points to a consistent pattern: this is an achievable finance-to-finance transitions, precisely because so much of the underlying skill set already overlaps.
Accounting expertise is not only transferable but often forms a strong foundation for FP&A thanks to deep knowledge of the income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement, month-end close expertise, data reconciliation skills, and budgeting experience all carry over directly. That’s a genuine head start most lateral career pivots don’t get.
What determines whether someone can move is their positioning and preparation. One hiring manager who has run FP&A interviews put it plainly: of the accounting professionals who applied for a senior financial analyst role citing that accounting work had become monotonous and FP&A was in high demand, almost none could clearly articulate the transferable skills between the two functions or what they’d actually done to prepare for the shift. Interest isn’t preparation. The candidates who convert are the ones who can specifically name what they’ve already done that looks like FP&A even if their title never said so.
In Japan, interviewers are listening for the same signal in Japanese. Success in an FP&A interview hinges on a “convincing rationale”, not just enthusiasm for the role, but a concrete picture of how the candidate’s experience will contribute to the specific business, since what’s valued differs by job posting and requires matching your own experience against it. In other words: generic passion doesn’t clear the bar. Specificity does.
The real challenges start after the offer, not before it
The harder part of this transition isn’t getting hired. It’s the first six months in the seat.
1. The pace and ambiguity are different.
While accounting runs on structure with close calendars, checklists, sign-offs, FP&A runs on speed and judgment calls with incomplete information. Professionals who’ve made the jump describe exactly this whiplash: coming from accounting’s rigid structure, many feel lost in FP&A’s fast, fluid, and often ambiguous environment, having to move from structured teams to managing tasks solo, sometimes across time zones, where decisions happen fast and you need to keep up.
2. Tooling is a second learning curve on top of the first.
FP&A runs on tools that are completely new to many accountants moving in, and the volume of data itself can feel overwhelming. Modern FP&A leans on BI tools and modeling software more than Excel in many cases.
3. Storytelling is a muscle accountants haven't had to use.
Numbers accuracy earns trust in accounting. In FP&A, the number is only step one. You then have to explain it to people in a way that is clear and easy to understand, so that the organization can make the important business decisions.
4. In Japan, add a fourth: language and cross-border reporting.
A large share of FP&A roles here sit inside foreign-owned or globalizing companies, reporting up to overseas headquarters. Management reporting often needs to be delivered to leadership and overseas headquarters in English, and bilingual roles involving Japanese documentation and reporting typically require JLPT N2 or N1. For accountants who’ve built their careers entirely in Japanese-language statutory work, that’s a real, often underestimated barrier.
Accounting function remains as important as ever
That said, despite the shift of moving from accounting to FP&A, accounting function is still very important. Recent analysis of Japan’s labor data found that out of roughly 950,000 finance and accounting professionals in the country, there are less than 5,000 active bilingual accountants. Accounting managers, tax specialists, and consolidation accountants who can prepare reports in English and work within global accounting standards are especially sought after by listed and foreign-affiliated companies in Japan – the same companies driving the FP&A hiring boom this article opened with.
One can definitely develop a meaning career within accounting function. For example, the financial controller role is widely regarded as a direct springboard to the CFO seat. It is often described as the CFO’s right hand in financial leadership. It’s a path built entirely on deep accounting expertise, not a pivot away from it. And the compensation reflects that: financial controller sits near the top of Japan’s finance and accounting salary bands, just below CFO.
Put simply: FP&A and accounting aren’t competing tracks. One is not the “upgrade” of the other. Japan needs more of both and for finance professionals who build genuine depth in accounting, the ceiling is just as high.
If you’re an accounting professional in Japan weighing this move, or a hiring leader trying to build out an FP&A function with the right mix of technical grounding and business fluency, we’d welcome the conversation. This is exactly the kind of transition we help people navigate — not as a placement, but as a career decision worth getting right.
Want to hear this directly from people who've done it?
On September 17, Trusted Partners is hosting Career Transition in Finance — an interactive panel discussion with finance professionals who have successfully transitioned their careers. Expect real stories, plenty of room for questions, and time to network with fellow finance professionals and connect with our speakers after the session.
