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The thing that has helped me the most is macros. VLookups never seemed that useful for me, but macroing a routine action has pretty much saved me 2-3 hours of work everyday if not more.
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Aug 23, 2011 13:53
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Three of Clubs posted:In my experience accounting graduates usually have very little knowledge of Excel (other than the basics) and learn everything on the job. This. I've sat through a handful of the training courses and they really don't teach you much. A lot of it you will forget immediately unless you put it into daily practical use. Almost everything you will learn you sort of pick up along the way from all the exposure to it. A lot of the little tricks are stuff I got from googling for a solution to my current problem. VLOOKUPS, SUM/COUNTIFS, INDIRECT , using Macros to automate things - once you use them once or twice you will be fine. Newer version of excel have also made things easier - things like remove duplicates and multiple argument count and sum functions eliminating the need for array functions were really nice changes. Presentation is definitely a big one, and honestly people I've worked with tend to be more impressed with that than the complex models behind the work. Also for whatever reason I've never found a use for pivot tables.
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Aug 23, 2011 15:47
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Pretty_Llama posted:Presentation is definitely a big one, and honestly people I've worked with tend to be more impressed with that than the complex models behind the work. Completely agree on the effect of presentation in accounting (and in the general business world). If you can take something complicated and make it appear organized and easy to understand it really scores points. Also to echo what a few other posters said, you typically learn most of excel on the job. However you should know some basics (formatting, sums, sort, filter, etc.)
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Aug 24, 2011 04:43
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Is there as much grey area to deal with in tax as there is in audit? I've been having paranoid thoughts that improvements in automated tax software will eventually render tax accountants obsolete. As I said earlier though, I don't know much about tax work for large companies. So, tell me why I am wrong!
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Aug 30, 2011 21:03
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Mush Mushi posted:Is there as much grey area to deal with in tax as there is in audit? I've been having paranoid thoughts that improvements in automated tax software will eventually render tax accountants obsolete. As I said earlier though, I don't know much about tax work for large companies. Tax work for big companies or high worth individuals is not limited to just the tax return preparation, as much of the work also involves tax planning, estate planning, and so on. Big companies and wealthy people pay for tax accountants to advise them on financial strategies that will limit their exposure to taxes and this is more than automated tax software can do. Additionally, tax returns for these organizations and people can be very complex and even though there is software involved, human involvement is necessary to varying degrees. To tie taxes into the audit world, somewhat new regulations (in the last few years) require companies to disclose uncertain tax positions and deferred tax assets/liabilities. Sometimes us auditors can figure it out on our own if its a smaller company, but we usually involve our tax groups in order to better understand what we're dealing with.
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Aug 30, 2011 21:41
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I'm a recent college graduate. I graduated with a bachelor's degree in accounting in May 2011. During my college career, I managed to participate in an internship and was a site coordinator for the United Way Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program. I graduated magna cum laude, have 154 credits, and am in the process of taking my CPA exam. but while a few of my friends managed to get Big 4 jobs out of college, I was unlucky (or I recognized that I was very nervous in my interview and bombed it) and missed the boat on that one. I was wondering if that boat, a position in a Big 4 firm, has completely sailed away. I would like to try and obtain a position in one of the Big 4 firms, preferably focusing on taxation. Does anyone have any advice?
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Sep 5, 2011 19:46
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rentilius posted:I'm a recent college graduate. I graduated with a bachelor's degree in accounting in May 2011. During my college career, I managed to participate in an internship and was a site coordinator for the United Way Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program. I graduated magna cum laude, have 154 credits, and am in the process of taking my CPA exam. Try working for a large regional firm, like Moss Adams. They'll be a bit less competitive hiring-wise, and you'll still gain valuable experience as a tax advisor. After a few years' experience, you'll be able to get into a Big Four firm as a senior.
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Sep 5, 2011 20:06
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Posted in this thread a while ago under different names, and just wanted to talk of my experiences so far with an Accounting Degree/ The Big 4 in Brisbane. I'm really enjoying my degree. I am absolutely in LOVE with tax law. I think it is the most brilliant thing to learn about in accounting, and will be taking an advanced tax law module for my major. Our teacher Steve, is without a doubt, the best teacher I have ever encountered at university. He makes tax law loving hillarious. Stories about his clients, clashes between the commissioner and the high courts, as well as ridiculous rules for tax law really do make it the greatest subject. Management accounting is pretty drat confusing, company accounting is a bit in between, and computerised accounting systems is just easy. We have a good lecturer for Man Acc and Comp Acc, but the Systems lecturer is really rude. Also went for some field trips to the Big 4. Ernst and Young was in a bit of a mess, but this is understandable - they're moving into a new building in the business district, roughly fifty stories up, facing the Brisbane River. KPMG looked pretty drat sleek, leagues ahead of Ernst and young - cleaner, stacks of law books, everything. A question for anyone who worked in the Big 4: if I wanted to get my CA, LLB or MBA qualifications, what support is available?
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Sep 6, 2011 09:24
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I was asked in the CPA Exam Study Thread to post about my industry job. My name is 19 o'clock and I am the Lead Accountant at a hotel and conference center in the High Rockies of Colorado. My department is responsible for handling the books of five different companies. These include two HOAs, a F&B department with four bars and five restaurants, our hotel operations as well as commercial leasing of our conference center. I have been here for three years now out of college and report to a Controller and Assistant Controller. My usual days involve me arriving to work at 8am. I check my e-mails, phone messages, etc. I keep a notepad handy with a list of things to do besides my recurring monthly book work. These miscellaneous tasks involve guest inquiry (billing problems from their stay with us), credit card chargebacks, settling our voluminous credit card batches correctly, programming applications to automate our accounting tasks, coaching managers on proper accounting processes, and any number of audits to name a few. I also unofficially supervise three to five of our accounting department on things that I used to do and keep up on as a result of supervising. My monthly tasks involve booking revenue for one of our HOAs as well as for our hotel and restaurants. We recently acquired the commercial property and I will be taking over those books as well in the coming couple of months. I reconcile all of our balance sheet accounts to make sure they accurately reflect our real world activities and in so doing catch to correct errors. Credit cards present their own problems between being run through our point of sale software and forwarded to our processor, and there are probably two stages of reconciling those. Accrual, reclassification, and other miscellaneous journal entries are always part of the game. I take lunch at my desk and leave no later than four most days. I used to regularly clock overtime but now I am almost always at 35 hours a week. I have written lots of applications to do my job for me (ex-CS major), so it's pretty streamlined from where I sit. I find myself sitting down with restaurant managers a lot and looking through their records trying to make things work, so I do get out of the office frequently. I will launch cash audits of drawers in restaurants on a surprise basis during the month to ensure that things are as they should be. On the weekends sometimes I pick up bartending shifts in our banquet department for extra cash. During the winter I play music slope-side at one of our bars to fill in the extra time I have and make some loot. If it snows more than 8 inches I don't come in until after 1pm if I can. I keep my snowboard and related apparel in my office. I have a chairlift directly outside my office door. I complain about the pay where I work, but the fringe benefits are nice. I get to walk to work every day, too. I'm hourly so I have no incentive to do my job faster or better, so that kind of sucks. I have a criminal record so it was really tricky getting a more prestigious job out of college. This was the one place that didn't run a background check so it allowed me to not disclose my prior indiscretions. I have taken and passed the CPA Examination and would love to get my license. This will become easier this winter when I can petition for expungement of record and dominate some interviews. I am also playing with the idea of going back to school to get my Masters and become licensed that way. Any questions or comments are welcome. I hope this satisfies what was asked of me in the other thread in describing my cushy industry accounting life. Things are very routine and it's small fires that need to be put out. We deal with collecting balances due and paying out to tons of vendors/contractors to maintain our property. It's a business first and foremost so it's a lot of "get it done" mentality versus "get it done right," which bugs me.
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Sep 6, 2011 16:57
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19 o'clock posted:I have a criminal record so How young was she? Just kidding 19 o'clock posted:I have written lots of applications to do my job for me (ex-CS major) I'm interested in this... I'm casually searching for a minor but I intend on graduating by fall of 2012, and my classes are locked in for this semester. My school only has a minor in computer studies, http://www.salemstate.edu/academics/schools/2212.php , so how helpful would a couple of semesters and a summer session of that be in an accounting career, vs, say... economics?
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Sep 6, 2011 17:21
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Moneyball posted:...so how helpful would a couple of semesters and a summer session of that be in an accounting career, vs, say... economics? I vote VERY helpful. Using VBA with Excel alone has saved me numerous hours of work and earned the praises of my coworkers. So much of accounting these days is computer oriented that being able to spew coded routines on a whim will make you invaluable in interfacing various accounting systems with one another. We have four or five different software systems throughout our property running hotel reservations, restaurant POS, spa reservations, maintenance work orders...the list goes on. It all gets boiled down into one set of books, though. This means that we need all of these things to book into our one G/L software. It's in doing this efficiently that I have really come to shine.
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Sep 6, 2011 18:14
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I was the one that asked and yes, that is helpful, thanks! I am very very early into accounting classes (completed financial and two weeks of cost) and I guess I am just having a hard time understanding how you actually manage the various books and journals and such. I suppose it will make more sense to me when I get into classes where I am doing more real world type things.
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Sep 7, 2011 04:17
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19 o'clock, that was enormously helpful, thank you. If anyone else wanted to post a similar run-down of their usual tasks, I'm sure I'm not the only one who'd be interested.
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Sep 7, 2011 05:52
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abagofcheetos posted:...I guess I am just having a hard time understanding how you actually manage the various books and journals and such. We only post to our books once a month for most everything we do. Accounts payable checks get cut once a week so those debits and credits get posted more frequently. Cash receipts (rent checks, HOA dues, vendor discounts and refunds) are posted as they come in. I have one of those neat remote check deposit things on my desk. Daily business is booked into our sales journal to record all revenue from our spa, restaurants, hotel, conference center and retail outlets. This sales journal produces one big journal entry containing about 200 debits and credits for the entire month that is posted. The balance to this is the cashier's journal that contains all of our payments received (cash, check, credit cards, wire transfers) for the month and produces a monthly 100 debit-and-credit entry. These two big entries balance one another (even though each has debits and credits, really the sales journal is the "credit" side and the cashier's journal is the "debit" side). How do we manage the various books? It's all reconciling. Profit and Loss (income statement) is pretty easy because revenue should match our cash collections or accounts receivable debited. Same with expenses: money paid and AP credited should be our expenses for the month - before any accruals. The balance sheet requires reconcilement of it's numerous accounts but is also pretty easy once you've done it a few times. Inventory for our five building resort is one of the most bastardly things ever. Of all the things I mentioned before we break our inventory cost centers down to about 9 or 10 different outlets. These outlets requisition from our purchasing and receiving department which has it's own inventory. Our one kitchen produces food for all of our restaurants and bars so we need to trace food cost from the kitchen to each individual outlet while also costing the kitchen for it's own mistakes and inefficiencies. I don't think I have the time to type out the entire process, really. I'm glad that these posts have some useful information in them. When I first got hired I had no idea what the gently caress. Nothing in school would really prepare me for how complex real-world accounting could be. I'm proud to say that I have figured out where education meets the real world in terms of accounting.
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Sep 7, 2011 13:10
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Moneyball posted:I'm interested in this... I'm casually searching for a minor but I intend on graduating by fall of 2012, and my classes are locked in for this semester. My school only has a minor in computer studies, http://www.salemstate.edu/academics/schools/2212.php , so how helpful would a couple of semesters and a summer session of that be in an accounting career, vs, say... economics? I work in forensic accounting and have to deal with IT staff that understand VBA, SQL etc but can't be trusted to do anything on their own because they have no accounting knowledge. As a result, an accountant needs to hold their hand, check everything they do, and invariably get them to do it again correctly. An accountant with knowledge of SQL and databases would be invaluable in forensic accounting. Re economics, as far as I'm aware economics doesn't have many practical applications within forensic accounting.
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Sep 8, 2011 13:07
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Three of Clubs posted:I work in forensic accounting and have to deal with IT staff that understand VBA, SQL etc but can't be trusted to do anything on their own because they have no accounting knowledge. As a result, an accountant needs to hold their hand, check everything they do, and invariably get them to do it again correctly. I've been toying with the idea of moving into forensic accounting within my firm (a Big 4). I've always been interested in it and enjoyed the two forensic accounting classes I took back when I was in college. I haven't talked to anyone at my firm about it yet, but I think my biggest obstacle at the moment is that I just got promoted in the audit practice and the forensics jobs we have available are either for the staff level below me or my current level - I don't want to move down, but it looks like they want a little more experience at my current level for that position. From what I understand, forensic accounting can be very similar to auditing but with the added twist of being more investigative and also involving other non-financial factors such as IT audits as you mentioned. Is this a pretty accurate understanding, and do you think it would be a smart and/or easy enough transition from audit to forensics? I'd be interested in hearing more about what you do on a day to day basis, how you got into that specific field, and if there is anything you might suggest I do over the next year or so if I want to make the transition. For reference, one of the specific areas I was considering transitioning to was forensic accounting with government contracts and accounting.
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Sep 10, 2011 04:47
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Three of Clubs posted:I work in forensic accounting and have to deal with IT staff that understand VBA, SQL etc but can't be trusted to do anything on their own because they have no accounting knowledge. As a result, an accountant needs to hold their hand, check everything they do, and invariably get them to do it again correctly. I'm now a CPA who was a database programmer for 6 years prior to going back to school. The partner at my firm won't let me near the forensics practice because I'm much more valuable to the firm doing other types of work that are way more boring, even thought I tell him every time I talk to him that I want to focus less on tech and more on accounting. So frustrating.
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Sep 10, 2011 07:45
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19 I just want to go ahead and say thank you for telling us your day-to-day. It was very helpful and gave me some insight as to what I would like in the next year. It kind-of matches some of the things we're discussing in one of my classes (how the accounting process actually works in the real world) and it's nice to see that as well.
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Sep 10, 2011 08:02
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What is the best way to contact a campus recruiter who won't be visiting my campus this semester? Career services at my school doesn't have any contact info. Searching on the internet isn't turning up anything current. I feel like calling an office and asking to speak with someone could be received negatively.
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Sep 11, 2011 02:00
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Mush Mushi posted:What is the best way to contact a campus recruiter who won't be visiting my campus this semester? Career services at my school doesn't have any contact info. Searching on the internet isn't turning up anything current. I feel like calling an office and asking to speak with someone could be received negatively. I'm really surprised your school's career center has no contact info for any recruiters at any accounting firms. But if that really is the case, I know you can get in touch with any Big 4 recruiters through their websites. Specifically, both PwC and Deloitte have somewhat user-friendly websites for recruiting, so give it a shot. I look at my own firm's (a Big 4) external job site somewhat often and it's always current within 1-2 days of posting jobs.
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Sep 11, 2011 09:03
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hellboundburrito posted:I've been toying with the idea of moving into forensic accounting within my firm (a Big 4). I've always been interested in it and enjoyed the two forensic accounting classes I took back when I was in college. I haven't talked to anyone at my firm about it yet, but I think my biggest obstacle at the moment is that I just got promoted in the audit practice and the forensics jobs we have available are either for the staff level below me or my current level - I don't want to move down, but it looks like they want a little more experience at my current level for that position. I've never been in audit so I'm not sure about the comparison to audit. As a brief overview of the work I do, I'm a senior analyst (possibly almost manager) working for a boutique Australian forensic accounting firm. The big 4 don't seem to do the kind of forensics work we do; the only times I've heard of them in the context of forensics is a high profile investigation of a large rugby league club breaching the salary cap rules, and a small insurance claim prepared by one of them. We have 3 kinds of forensic engagements: 1. Work on behalf of government bodies. We are engaged as a dirty expert (i.e. won't appear in court) to investigate corporate collapses with the purpose of gathering evidence to be used in court or quantifying losses. We've been engaged in this kind of role for 2 of the largest corporate collapses within Australia in the last 3 years. As an example, my role on one of those matters was to develop a loss model to work out how much each of the parties involved lost in net cash outflows as a result of the collapse. So it's designing a model in Excel, liaising with IT staff to organise how the relevant databases will feed into the model, documenting the model, preparing analyses of the loss (e.g. how much of it can be attributed to this vs that) as requested by the government body to help in mediation etc. 2. Litigation support We are engaged by a party to a legal dispute to provide expert evidence in court. This involves first preparing an Expert Witness Report, then the partner showing up in court and being examined. The kind of stuff this may involve includes: - Valuations of businesses (free cash flow, residual income/abnormal earnings, multiples etc), sometimes preparing forecasts yourself, other times relying on forecasts provided to you; - Discounted cash flow analyses of loss of profits, involving forecasting what a company would have earned but-for a breach of contract for instance, less what they actually earned, discounted at a company specific discount rate; and - Critical analyses of opposing Expert Witness Reports designed to muddy waters or just make a judge think that what they have done is garbage. Could involve analysis of deficiencies in/the inappropriateness of data they have relied upon, criticising their methodology and throwing up an alternative one, etc. 3. Fraud investigations Haven't done much of this myself, but it involves: - Audit of financial records to identify evidence of fraud; - Interviewing/interrogating staff; and - We sometimes get small fraud matters that involve the review of insurance claims on behalf of a loss adjuster and providing a recommendation as to how much they should pay out on the basis of the information provided. Everything we do is project based, and as such I don't have a day to day. For 3 months until 2 weeks ago I was analysing forecasts and the historical performance of an infrastructure company and writing an Expert Witness Report, for the next few days I'll be preparing some schedules for a mediation, and I have absolutely no idea what I'll be doing next week. I do know I have a court case I'll have to prepare for in December. From what I've been told, forensics is a lot less structured than audit. Re your audit background, the people I work with generally either have an audit or insolvency background (or both). Forensics is all about analysis (and report writing), and the more you know about accounting the better placed you are to be able to analyse accounting data. In that sense, audit is a good background to have. Re how smart it would be to transition to forensics: + Forensics is good if you like project work, with each project being significantly different to the last. I like that because it keeps me interested. + A lot of forensics involves receiving a problem and designing a solution for it. The problem might be "how do we show this forecast isn't likely to occur" or might be "how do we calculate the value of this contract". I'm responsible for solving the problem, so every day is a challenge. + A recruiter recently told me that (in Australia) forensic accountants get paid more than any other type of accountant at the moment. - If you don't like writing you will be upset as there is a lot of writing. - You won't be an expert in court for the next 10-20 years (if that was your plan). Other than analysis, good stuff to know includes being able to write well (everything you do will culminate in some sort of a report) and knowing as much finance as possible. Hope this helps!
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Sep 11, 2011 09:16
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Three of Clubs posted:I've never been in audit so I'm not sure about the comparison to audit. As a brief overview of the work I do, I'm a senior analyst (possibly almost manager) working for a boutique Australian forensic accounting firm. The big 4 don't seem to do the kind of forensics work we do; the only times I've heard of them in the context of forensics is a high profile investigation of a large rugby league club breaching the salary cap rules, and a small insurance claim prepared by one of them. That is very helpful, thank you. I am a fairly strong writer and don't mind doing it at all, and I usually take the lead on writing both internal and external reports involving specific and significant issues our clients ask us to look at so I don't think I'd mind the writing portion of the job. At this point I think I will probably do at least one more busy season in audit and then look more seriously at forensic accounting. Of the different types of things you mentioned in your post, what is your favorite part of the job? The aspect of your work I think I'd be most interested in is the fraud investigations, but I'm not sure how our forensics practice is structured as compared to yours.
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Sep 12, 2011 00:40
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Audax posted:19 I just want to go ahead and say thank you for telling us your day-to-day. Not a worry. You'll be surprised to find out how many people doing industry accounting have no scholastic background in accounting. It's a little annoying explaining to your coworkers how debits and credits work and what balance sheet accounts are versus income statement stuff, but that's gonna be any job.
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Sep 13, 2011 16:17
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I have no formal education in accounting, but am able to run all the necessary day to day functions that the industry I work for needs except for taxes etc. I start my major specific education in accounting next semester after having a minor in psychology and english. I make poo poo doing the accounting I do and it was a bit hairy and stressful sometimes learning on the fly, especially with the lovely GL software we use. Conceptually I am probably a really horrible 'accountant,' in fact I don't know poo poo about accounting, but as far as getting the day to day done there is actually little education necessary in what I do besides 'doing it.' Then again I'm not running a five building resort like 19 is... sounds like hell.
Lamdo fucked around with this message at 19:19 on Sep 13, 2011 |
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Sep 13, 2011 19:16
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Lamdo posted:I'm not running a five building resort like 19 is... sounds like hell. Speaking as the only person in my entire organization with an accounting degree who is a CPA candidate to boot: you can do this without an accounting degree. My only worry is that it seems like it's much harder to do without an conceptual background of accounting information systems that would ease in the shear volume of transactions a company of my size encounters. My education has helped me tackle problems in ways that don't involve doing what was just done in complete reverse. This isn't to say that Lamdo or others in the field are poor accountants - because it's simply not the case - but I still get a little baffled from time to time. I have seen some spectacular books assembled by people who barely got through high school. I think a lot of your success is going to be tied to who you are and not precisely what kind of education you've received. The big one I like to do in the real world that I learned in class? Start writing out a journal entry and decide where you need to fill in the blanks. Write out a journal entry for lots of puzzles and it helps to follow the tracks that way. I am a ninja when it comes to our crappy G/L software, too. Everything is command line interface. Every command is two characters long or less. Edit: Edited to not sound like such a dick. 19 o'clock fucked around with this message at 21:41 on Sep 13, 2011 |
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Sep 13, 2011 21:30
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Here's something I encountered today at work. Our water bill comes randomly every two to three months from the local municipality. This bill is paid in the period in which it is received and expended directly from the income statement. We are accrual accounting based, though, and we cannot simply put an expense that spans two to three months on our income statement. How do we accrue for it? It's a loving headache is what it is. You can't really guess what your water usage is going to be, you don't know what the billing cycle or rate is going to be either. I take the most recent bill's rate/day and use it to calculate what the current month "should be" and use it until the next bill arrives. That means that we debit the current month for an amount and push a credit forward to the next month's expense using an accrual. In the month in which the bill is paid we have a credit that mounted from the previous month or two of estimating that hopefully gets wiped out by the debit to our water expense. It's never as accurate as I like it to be and we "catch up" when the bill is paid and we actually know what was to be charged. Butts.
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Sep 13, 2011 22:53
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How about booking it as a prepaid expense - estimate three months worth, and then amortizing it over the next three months? Kind of like an allowance for AR, but if you experience an overage, adjust accordingly.code:
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Sep 14, 2011 00:21
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Sukashi posted:How about booking it as a prepaid expense - estimate three months worth, and then amortizing it over the next three months? Kind of like an allowance for AR, but if you experience an overage, adjust accordingly. We can't really credit cash because we aren't reducing our cash balances until we have the bill and are paying it. I WISH it was a prepaid like many of our recurring utilities. Hell, if it was like our electricity we would pay it monthly then accrue it to the previous month before book closing. As it stands it's an expense that we pay every two to three months with no observable frequency. We close our books monthly and cannot go back to reopen them. I voted that we switch to cash accounting from accrual. Somehow I don't think that would go over so well with the powers-that-be.
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Sep 14, 2011 01:26
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Well you use water every month so you have to recognize an expense every month. So try something like:pre:1/1/x1 Utilities Expense 100
Utils Payable 100
2/1/x1 Utilities Expense 100
Utils Payable 100pre:2/15/x1 Utils Payable 200
Cash 200
OR
2/15/x1 Utils Payable 150
Cash 150
OR
2/15/x1 Utils Payable 200
Prepaid Utils 100
Cash 300
scribe jones fucked around with this message at 01:43 on Sep 14, 2011 |
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Sep 14, 2011 01:39
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You can't do prepaid because you aren't prepaying anything. (to sukashi) I don't see why you would put anything into prepaid since you know how much you'll be paying at that point. (scribe jones) I do accounting for apartment complexes, and utility billing is the loving bane of my existence. The A/P side sucks, the gl side sucks, and the A/R side sucks. It's also cute when they go "Oh yeah there's a bunch of accounts we never bothered billing you for. Pay us or we cut off all your units." Harry fucked around with this message at 03:57 on Sep 14, 2011 |
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Sep 14, 2011 03:49
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scribe jones posted:Well you use water every month so you have to recognize an expense every month. So try something like: That's what we do presently. We debit the damned expense every month and credit an "other payables" every month. It's a bastard because we want it as accurate as possible but we mostly just let it wash or poo poo itself every time the bill is actually paid. Cue some manager/homeowner/shareholder/stakeholder wondering why sporadically every two to three months our expense swings wildly one way or the other. This, my friends, is how real-world accounting can be a little frustrating. It really doesn't matter too much in the big scheme of things, but when you can dial other things in so perfectly it really drives me loving crazy. Harry posted:I do accounting for apartment complexes, and utility billing is the loving bane of my existence. As long as I'm not alone in some of accounting's nonsense.
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Sep 14, 2011 05:14
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Harry posted:You can't do prepaid because you aren't prepaying anything. (to sukashi) I think scribe jones basically had the right idea, but I agree with you that you shouldn't plug to prepaids even though at the end of the year the misstatement resulting from doing so would likely be immaterial. If you end up getting a bill for less than you cumulatively expense, I would reduce expenses and if you get a bill for more than you cumulatively expense, I would debit the expense. Even though Utils Payable and accruals are both liabilities, technically I think you should be crediting Accrued Utils when you record the initial expense, and then move it to Accounts Payable when you get the bill. If you're actually paying the bill immediately upon receipt, it doesn't need to sit in payables and you can just reduce the accrued liability with the credit to cash. Since it is just a balance sheet reclass and financials for many small private companies show AP and accruals in the same line item it may or may not be worth it to do this.
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Sep 15, 2011 03:01
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loving right I think I nailed it today. I think I developed a solution to this mess that will fix all of our companies going forward and keep the monthly estimated within 5% of what they need to be. loving right I'll see if I can't share it when I'm done.
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Sep 15, 2011 04:51
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Travel claims are the bane of my existence, verifying per diems, dates, exchange rates & receipts are too time consuming and irritating. I can't wait until I get my designation which is ages away; halfway through getting my diploma I realized I couldn't use any of the courses towards getting my degree (chalk that up to a life lesson learned) which I'll need for a CGA/CMA/CA. I've been taking a course every semester for the past 2 years and next semester I'm going to do 2 per semester to speed up the process. I really do like my job though, growing up I always thought I never wanted to work in "business" but after not knowing what I wanted to do, accounting has turned out to be a great fit.
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Sep 15, 2011 15:51
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yea, I haven't figured out a good way to do utilities either, it's just hosed and almost the only thing that's ever wrong with my statements. I'm sure I can figure out a solution, but haven't gotten around to it. I have other responsibilities besides just 'accountant.'
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Sep 15, 2011 18:53
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I graduated December 2010 with a BS in Accounting from a small southern private college. The accounting department was sold to me as being the best in the area (and it was great) but the school is so small so no one came to campus to recruit and the school's career center is useless ("oh you just need to go out and network"). I was going to try to get a job with the IRS, but the Revenue Agent hiring earlier this year was cancelled for budgetary reasons. So I've spent the last 9 months applying to jobs online and the best I've managed is two interviews that ended with "sorry, you just don't have enough experience." I'm broke so I can't afford CPA review, much less to take the exam, same with GMAT so Grad school is out. I don't mean to throw a pity party, but what do I need to do differently?
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Sep 26, 2011 14:47
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VanishXZone posted:I graduated December 2010 with a BS in Accounting from a small southern private college. The accounting department was sold to me as being the best in the area (and it was great) but the school is so small so no one came to campus to recruit and the school's career center is useless ("oh you just need to go out and network"). I was going to try to get a job with the IRS, but the Revenue Agent hiring earlier this year was cancelled for budgetary reasons. So I've spent the last 9 months applying to jobs online and the best I've managed is two interviews that ended with "sorry, you just don't have enough experience." I'm broke so I can't afford CPA review, much less to take the exam, same with GMAT so Grad school is out. I don't mean to throw a pity party, but what do I need to do differently? Get a job in AP or AR to get your foot in the door. At least you can save up some money to start studying for your CPA. That will be your best bet going forward. The CPA will open doors for you.
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Sep 26, 2011 17:43
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VanishXZone posted:I graduated December 2010 with a BS in Accounting from a small southern private college. The accounting department was sold to me as being the best in the area (and it was great) but the school is so small so no one came to campus to recruit and the school's career center is useless ("oh you just need to go out and network"). I was going to try to get a job with the IRS, but the Revenue Agent hiring earlier this year was cancelled for budgetary reasons. So I've spent the last 9 months applying to jobs online and the best I've managed is two interviews that ended with "sorry, you just don't have enough experience." I'm broke so I can't afford CPA review, much less to take the exam, same with GMAT so Grad school is out. I don't mean to throw a pity party, but what do I need to do differently? Like the poster above me suggested, you could go out and get a related job in industry to garner some experience. There are also some cheaper review programs than the ones you typically see people using like Becker - check out https://www.another71.com for some additional resources on those. What kind of firms have you been applying to? Most firms in my area, the Big 4 I work for included, need resources. Granted, most prefer experienced hires because most if not all new hires without experience come from campus recruiting and there is only so much help a new hire can provide to an understaffed firm. But, if you can show your desire to be on the CPA track, you'll be more attractive to them. Right now is the major recruiting time on campus for the big firms, so it might not be too late to get an interview. You should also consider trying to get an internship with one of the big firms - they will often hire graduates who didn't intern with them previously so that they can evaluate you in the field and give you more time to get your required credits and exams done. This past summer I had an intern who was actually a couple of months older than me and had just graduated in May, but he didn't have 150 credits so they wouldn't hire him full time (yet). If you don't have the credits required for certification in your state, start pursuing those now so you can help your case. I know you said you can't afford grad school, so look at alternative options like online courses that are cheaper and still get you the credits you need.
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Sep 26, 2011 19:19
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Chow-King posted:Get a job in AP or AR to get your foot in the door. At least you can save up some money to start studying for your CPA. That will be your best bet going forward. The CPA will open doors for you. Pretty much this, or an accounting clerk position. You can pretty much pick someone up off the street to do these jobs, so having an accounting degree will be a bonus. The pay won't be phenomenal, but a paycheck is a paycheck.
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Sep 26, 2011 19:19
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I had a teacher who recommended a job listing / recruiting site that was pretty much exclusively bookkeeping and accounting work. At the time I was dangerously underqualified to actually take on any of the jobs they had listed. The bad news is, we've moved since then and I can't find my notes from that class *anywhere.* Anybody have any resources like this?
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Sep 27, 2011 17:04
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