From commerce back to public practice

Published 28 July 2026 · North Sydney · Prime People

Where we stand: Prime People sits inside an accounting group and recruits for firms, so we have a clear interest in you making this move. There is a section below on when not to.

The objection is the portfolio, not the tax

Sit in on the conversation after a commercial candidate's interview and the doubt is almost never "they will not understand Division 7A". It is some version of: they have had one thing to think about for six years, and here they will have thirty, all interrupting each other.

That is a real difference and it is worth taking seriously rather than dismissing. In a commercial role you hold one business continuously. You know its seasonality, its awkward customers, why the March numbers always look odd. Depth accumulates and context switching is rare. In practice you might touch six unrelated clients before lunch, each with a different structure, a different history and a different owner who thinks their question is the urgent one, and you record the whole day in six-minute units against a utilisation target.

The technical content of practice is learnable and firms teach it constantly. The rhythm is the thing that takes a season to absorb, and it is the thing that occasionally does not take at all. Anyone telling you otherwise is selling something.

The good news is that this is answerable with evidence, and we cover how below.

What transfers, and what does not

The left column is what you should be leading with and almost nobody does. Most commercial CVs arriving at a firm are written to apologise for the right column.

The best accountants are problem solvers

This is worth saying directly, because it is the reason the move works at all.

Firms do not actually run on technical knowledge. Technical knowledge is a commodity: it is written down, it is searchable, it changes every year, and every firm has a process for keeping people current because it has to. What firms are short of is people who can work out what a client is really asking, notice the thing that does not fit, and say the difficult sentence out loud.

Six years running a finance function builds exactly that. You have had to explain a variance to someone who did not want to hear it. You have had to make a decision with incomplete information and a deadline. You have had to tell a managing director that the thing they want to do will not work. Those are the expensive capabilities, and a firm cannot train them in a graduate at any speed.

So the trade you are offering is: I will need six months to get current on tax and learn your systems, and in exchange you get someone who has been the client. Framed that way it is a good deal, and framed as an apology for a gap in compliance experience it is not.

Where the door is genuinely open

Not all routes back are equally hard. In rough order of how well a commercial background lands:

1. Outsourced finance functions and virtual CFO work. This is the honest sweet spot and it is where the profession has grown most. The work is management reporting, forecasting, systems and advising owners, delivered to several clients instead of one. It is closer to what you already do than to a compliance job, and commercial experience is priced as an asset rather than discounted as a gap. If you take one thing from this page, take this.
2. Advisory and corporate services. Transaction support, due diligence, board reporting, restructures. Values commercial judgement and the ability to talk to owners.
3. SMSF and superannuation. Self-contained, rules-based, learnable from a standing start by anyone competent, and structurally short of people. A common and underrated re-entry point.
4. Business services and tax. The traditional core, and the hardest route in from commerce, because it is where the portfolio problem and the tax currency problem both bite at once. Possible, but usually at a level below your commercial title.

How long is too long

There is no cut-off, but the character of the move changes with time.

Under about three years, you can usually go back close to the equivalent practice level. Your technical currency is recoverable and firms treat it as a short absence.

Three to seven years is the awkward middle. Mainstream compliance work generally means a step back in title, because a manager in practice runs a portfolio and reviews others, and you will not have done that recently. This is the band where the advisory and outsourced finance routes are worth taking seriously rather than treating as a consolation.

Beyond seven years, going back into compliance is genuinely difficult and we would usually say so. The virtual CFO and advisory route, though, does not degrade the same way. A finance director with fifteen years in industry is a strong candidate for advising owner-managed businesses, and in that context the years count for you rather than against.

What happens to your money

Usually a cut at entry, and it depends heavily on which of the four routes above you take.

Into compliance-weighted work at a level below your commercial title, expect a real reduction. Into advisory or outsourced CFO work, often not, because the firm is charging for exactly the commercial experience you are bringing.

The thing to hold on to is that the entry number is not the decision. Practice reprices quickly once you are demonstrably carrying work, and it has an end point that commerce does not: partnership is an ownership position rather than a salary. If the reason you are moving is that you want equity in something, a lower first-year number is the price of admission rather than a verdict on your worth. Current bands by role and level are in the 2026 accountant salary guide.

How to make the case

Concretely, because this is where most candidates lose the argument.

• Answer the portfolio question before it is asked. Find the evidence in what you have already done: multiple entities in a group, several subsidiaries with their own reporting, a period covering two roles at once, a systems project run alongside business as usual. You are looking for anything that shows parallel workload rather than serial focus.
• Lead with the commercial insight, not the compliance. A CV listing standards and systems reads as a weaker version of a practice CV. A CV that says you rebuilt the forecasting model, found the margin problem, and presented it to the board reads as something the firm cannot get elsewhere.
• Show current technical, briefly and honestly. Naming two or three recent developments and what they mean operationally does the job. Our catch-up briefing covers what has moved since 2020, including the High Court's decision in Bendel in June 2026 and Payday Super from 1 July 2026, both recent enough that people who never left are also still absorbing them.
• Say the word chargeable out loud. Acknowledging that you understand what a utilisation target is, and that you expect to be below it for a quarter, is disarming. The firm is already thinking it.
• Be specific about why. "I want more variety" is what everybody says and it does not survive contact with February. A reason grounded in something real, wanting to advise owners rather than report to a board, or wanting a path to ownership, is more persuasive and more likely to be true.

When not to do it

The move fails for one reason far more often than any other, and it is the timesheet. People know intellectually that practice bills time, decide it is a detail, and then discover eighteen months in that they resent it every single day. If some part of you is hoping it will not be that bad, believe that part.

The second trap is running from something rather than toward practice. A difficult manager or a stagnant finance team is a real problem with a much cheaper solution, which is a different commercial role. Practice is a big change to make for a reason that a smaller change would have fixed.

Then there is money. Some of the four routes protect your number and some genuinely do not, and the time to work out which one you are on is before you resign, not during your first February.

Last, and this one is quieter: wanting practice for the title. Manager in a firm and manager in industry are different jobs that happen to share a word, and the firm version involves a portfolio, a budget and other people's chargeable hours. If the appeal is the word rather than the work, it will wear off.

Frequently asked questions

Sources and basis

• Tax Practitioners Board, Relevant experience for tax agents (experience gained under the supervision and control of a registered tax agent; general accounting alone unlikely to constitute relevant experience). Accessed 28 July 2026.

Apart from the sourced item above, this guide is opinion formed from placing accountants into Australian public practice, including people arriving from commercial finance roles. It is general information about careers and hiring, not legal, tax or financial advice. We have not quoted movement rates or salary figures here because we could not verify any to a standard worth publishing.