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I had my first workshop for my CA programme last Friday/Saturday. I was worried about being out of work and preparation, but it turns out a bunch of the people from the big four firms do about three exercises each and just pool resources, whereas I did all of the exercises myself. At least I'm relatively well prepared. Also, had a sit down with a couple of recruiters today, asked them to throw my hat into the ring for a contract job they thought might be a good start for me.
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Apr 20, 2015 09:22
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ASIC v Danny Bro posted:Oddly enough I was talking to a mate of mine who works in the same organisation as me, and she recently did CPA - I believe it was an audit module. She said it wasn't too bad, but the practice quizzes were challenging (though I suppose they'd have to be). She did the final exam now worries, though. For managerial you'll want to do two things: master the idea of variable costing, and do a bunch of practice problems. It's basically just like any other accounting exam, doing a bunch of practice problems will help you pass.
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Apr 20, 2015 12:43
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Well I ordered Roger's course on Friday and have my ATT. Time to sign up for FAR and REG and get to studying!
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Apr 20, 2015 15:10
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Haha just got my offer. Gonna leave before year-end reviews are in.
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Apr 22, 2015 00:30
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Audax posted:Haha just got my offer. Gonna leave before year-end reviews are in. Going private?
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Apr 22, 2015 00:51
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Bloody Queef posted:Going private? Yep. Decent pay bump, less hours, massive company with room for growth, and did I mention less hours?
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Apr 27, 2015 16:13
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Audax posted:Yep. Decent pay bump, less hours, massive company with room for growth, and did I mention less hours? Good luck! Jumped from audit and I left my role after a week because I hated the lack of training programs and structure in place, and while it was a massive company, I didn't see myself wanting to continue down that career path. Jumping from 64 to 78 was pretty significant though, but the hours were going to be bad to horrible during quarter/year-ends. Alas, it is a good job market out there and one can always return to the Big 4! fuseshock fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Apr 29, 2015 |
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Apr 29, 2015 21:12
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fuseshock posted:Good luck! Jumped from audit and I left my role after a week because I hated the lack of training programs and structure in place, and while it was a massive company, I didn't see myself wanting to continue down that career path. Jumping from 64 to 78 was pretty significant though, but the hours were going to be bad to horrible during quarter/year-ends. 2) Sign. My corp job has lonnng hours at Q/YE...
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Apr 30, 2015 21:52
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Anyone ever think about fed/state? Money has gotta be less, but guarantee of 40 hours, and above at 1.5 has started to sound more appealing to me.
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Apr 30, 2015 22:31
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What's the process like for people out of college looking for a career change? My wife is considering accounting as a new career - the local community college offers courses and at least an AA in accounting, maybe also a BA. Anyone have any experience with this?
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May 1, 2015 15:15
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Is anyone here taking part in Deloitte's new review process? I'd have a hard time picturing how it could be any worse than the existing review process of the big 4 firms so I'm interested to hear some first hand experiences.
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May 1, 2015 15:30
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HisMajestyBOB posted:What's the process like for people out of college looking for a career change? My wife is considering accounting as a new career - the local community college offers courses and at least an AA in accounting, maybe also a BA. Anyone have any experience with this? Does your wife like accounting and Excel? I assumed I'd like it because my mom and cousin/aunt are CPAs and I've been around it all my life, and I enjoyed helping my mom with her clients. After my first lower level Acctg class, I knew it was for me.
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May 2, 2015 01:35
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Good Citizen posted:Is anyone here taking part in Deloitte's new review process? I'd have a hard time picturing how it could be any worse than the existing review process of the big 4 firms so I'm interested to hear some first hand experiences. I was under the impression nobody has gone through it yet.
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May 2, 2015 02:24
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Harry posted:I was under the impression nobody has gone through it yet. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it doesn't actually exist yet. It sure was fun going through the current review process for the first time, knowing it is so bad even the higher ups hate it and are in the process of replacing it 
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May 3, 2015 15:10
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Did not pass audit. Wasn't particularly close to passing either. Not sure what to do now since I don't think it was a matter of just getting unlucky with my questions. I'll probably have to try a different study program since I was getting great scores with Gleim on my practice stuff. e; Going to try using Becker this time. Orthodox Rabbit fucked around with this message at 16:02 on May 6, 2015 |
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May 5, 2015 13:10
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SarutosZero posted:Did not pass audit. Wasn't particularly close to passing either. Not sure what to do now since I don't think it was a matter of just getting unlucky with my questions. I'll probably have to try a different study program since I was getting great scores with Gleim on my practice stuff. drat, sorry to hear that. At the very least, you know what to expect next time. 
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May 8, 2015 11:06
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PAS workshop is next week. Looks like it's going to be mostly focussed on standard setting, some reporting analysis (really entry level stuff) and an assessed question on leases (most likely dealer/manufacturer leases). Unfortunately it's almost seven years since I've done any analysis from listed-entity annual reports and I'd forgotten how much horseshit you have to wade through. I suspect there are some mistakes in the answer template too as a result of it being rolled over from last year which doesn't help when you're trying to see how they got last year's figures so you can be sure you've done this year's stuff right. This is one of the toughest workshops for me to prep for though because I haven't dealt with IFRS and NZIAS since university but the next one will be way easier. Also spoke to a couple of recruiters today about some of the roles they have listed. Hopefully I'll hear back from the second one I spoke to on Monday.
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May 8, 2015 12:57
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Hi all, I'm not sure if this is the right thread for this but does anyone have suggestions for skills that pair well with accounting? I have a non-transferable AAS which is like the opposite of being a CPA candidate, I think, so if I want to advance my career it seems broadening my skills is the best way forward. Regarding strengths, I'm methodical and efficient, and I have excellent recall and pattern recognition. Regarding weaknesses, I am not creative. Tracing paper: no problem. Blank piece of paper: I'm lost. I've thought about things like learning SQL or trying out a statistics MOOC but I don't have a lot of time outside work to pursue that kind of thing so I want to be sure I have a defined end goal. Google searches like "kinds of accounting careers" are bringing back CPA-oriented results, and college counselors are just going to tell me whatever gets my wallet open. If anyone can provide a good resource for non-CPA accounting careers or has experience working in a hybrid position as an Accountant/??? then I'd really appreciate hearing about it!
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May 9, 2015 01:13
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I majored in accounting my first job was as a cost accountant / gl accountant for a private company. Now I'm a financial analyst for a much larger private company. So maybe some sort of analyst?
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May 9, 2015 03:05
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strawberrymousse posted:Hi all, I'm not sure if this is the right thread for this but does anyone have suggestions for skills that pair well with accounting? I have a non-transferable AAS which is like the opposite of being a CPA candidate, I think, so if I want to advance my career it seems broadening my skills is the best way forward. Regarding strengths, I'm methodical and efficient, and I have excellent recall and pattern recognition. Regarding weaknesses, I am not creative. Tracing paper: no problem. Blank piece of paper: I'm lost. Honestly VBA coding is probably going to get you super far, combining that with some sort of certificate in SAP data warehouse/business objects should open a lot of doors. Computer science and database management pair very well with accounting. Assuming you want to do internal accounting, the big 4 is probably going to focus on the fundamentals. apatheticman fucked around with this message at 04:08 on May 9, 2015 |
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May 9, 2015 03:31
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Bugamol posted:I majored in accounting my first job was as a cost accountant / gl accountant for a private company. Now I'm a financial analyst for a much larger private company. apatheticman posted:Honestly VBA coding is probably going to get you super far, combining that with some sort of certificate in SAP data warehouse/business objects should open a lot of doors. Computer science and database management pair very well with accounting. I'm definitely intrigued by these suggestions, thank you for the advice! If you don't mind a couple of follow-up questions, would you both consider those paths to be open to someone who only has an AAS? Where would a good starting point be?
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May 9, 2015 05:23
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strawberrymousse posted:Hi all, I'm not sure if this is the right thread for this but does anyone have suggestions for skills that pair well with accounting? I have a non-transferable AAS which is like the opposite of being a CPA candidate, I think, so if I want to advance my career it seems broadening my skills is the best way forward. Regarding strengths, I'm methodical and efficient, and I have excellent recall and pattern recognition. Regarding weaknesses, I am not creative. Tracing paper: no problem. Blank piece of paper: I'm lost. Will any of your credits transfer to any colleges near you offering 4 year degrees?
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May 9, 2015 13:31
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A GIANT PARSNIP posted:Will any of your credits transfer to any colleges near you offering 4 year degrees? Some of my credits from fifteen years ago would probably transfer and get me out of basics like Comp, but the accounting courses I took more recently were non-transferable. A larger problem is that back when I was a dumb teenager/twenty-something who was first in my family to attend college, I accrued enough credits for a four year degree without getting at all close to earning one. So I can't get more aid without successfully appealing, but even then my local four year is $5K base tuition per semester. If it's the best possible direction to go then I'm not 100% ruling it out, but if there's a way to improve my career with a smaller money/time commitment then I think that's the preferable option as I'm already over 35 and reluctant to get back into debt. I'm debating the usefulness of a second AAS but I'm not thrilled with my community college's relevant offerings. For now I'm going to take Udacity's Intro to Statistics course to see how that goes. I'd also like to try out VBA but I couldn't find a current MOOC for it and I'm not sure what the recommended self-teaching method is. I think SA has a section for coding though so I'm going to see if I can locate that, there might already be a thread for it there.
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May 9, 2015 18:25
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strawberrymousse posted:Some of my credits from fifteen years ago would probably transfer and get me out of basics like Comp, but the accounting courses I took more recently were non-transferable. A larger problem is that back when I was a dumb teenager/twenty-something who was first in my family to attend college, I accrued enough credits for a four year degree without getting at all close to earning one. So I can't get more aid without successfully appealing, but even then my local four year is $5K base tuition per semester. $5k/term is insane. I paid about half that or less for my local public college. At least half of my classmates were non-traditionally students, many of them much older than you. Most of the older ones were already working in accounting, and their job advancement started requiring degrees. My company is the same, you can't move past the first level of staff accountant ("Accountant") at my company without a 4yr degree (in any field, though basically everyone has one in accounting or finance). We do have a handful of good accountants who only have an AAS, but they're definitely career limited. I know this varies widely from company to company of course. I think decent programming logic skills are really needed for accountants in today's world. If you can't do formula logic, you'll spend a lot longer doing most things in Excel and your career or workday length is typically impacted.
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May 9, 2015 21:15
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SiGmA_X posted:What field do you work in currently? I'm still working at my first accounting job, a small bookkeeping firm I've been with about three years. Recent changes have created a toxic atmosphere and I've been looking around at similar positions for a couple of months already. However, my firm has kept me in this weird in between state where I'm not doing any reporting, audits, "high end" stuff like that but I'm still being paid like a proper accountant. In my area, bookkeepers make about $30K and accountants make about $55K, and I'm making almost $50K. So I'm going after these Accountant I jobs that want experience doing things I've never done and I'm getting nowhere, but the bookkeeper jobs would cut my salary by 1/3 to 1/2. My options are very bad for four year degrees, as well. After posting about the $5K/term public university, I decided to check the private ones just for a laugh and found: $500/credit hour, $14K/term, and $19K/term. Even if I managed to appeal the aid denial, I can't see myself taking on that kind of debt at this point in my life. I did run through the gamut of Scholarships.com's On the upside, I found out that VBA and VB are basically the same thing and found the Cavern of Cobol .NET thread, so I'm going to take a look over that and see if there's a good starting point for newbies. I really appreciate everyone's help and will keep checking in! Please let me know if it becomes too much of a derail and needs its own thread.
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May 9, 2015 23:02
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Before you completely rule out a 4 year university due to cost, go sit down with them to see how they can help you. There are all sorts of institutional grants/aid that you might qualify for. Just because you almost got a bachelor's degree a long time ago does not mean you won't qualify for subsidized loans, pell grants, etc. The school's advisors/FA office will know better though. If you already have 90+ credits it is extremely likely that you would need less than 2 years of school to get an accounting degree. Plus you will end up with around the 150 credits that you need for CPA which opens up roughly an infinite number of doors for your career. There are also CLEP exams that you can take to give you credit for subjects that you already know. A lot of schools/programs will even give you credit for work experience. Edit: I would say that even without any aid of any sort, ~$20k is extremely worth it for a bachelor's degree plus being CPA eligible.
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May 9, 2015 23:34
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Butt Soup Barnes posted:Before you completely rule out a 4 year university due to cost, go sit down with them to see how they can help you. There are all sorts of institutional grants/aid that you might qualify for. Just because you almost got a bachelor's degree a long time ago does not mean you won't qualify for subsidized loans, pell grants, etc. The school's advisors/FA office will know better though. Although I'm still skeptical that the cost is worth it, I recognize part of that might be bitterness talking due to my previous experiences with college. I've just submitted a FAFSA and they said my local university will have the results in 3-5 business days, so I'll wait that long and then call them about making an appointment with a financial aid counselor. No point in biasing myself against it without any real info, after all!
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May 10, 2015 00:15
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gently caress IFRS and especially gently caress governmental accounting.
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May 10, 2015 02:18
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Lemmi Caution posted:gently caress IFRS and especially gently caress governmental accounting. So when do you take FAR?
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May 10, 2015 02:24
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Took it today, and if felt like an inordinate amount of questions were on those topics. Non-profit seemed way overrepresented too, but it's much easier.
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May 10, 2015 04:14
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I kinda just rushed through all the MC on FAR and spent all my extra time looking up absolutely everything in the sims in the authoritative literature and passed. I had a class dedicated to gov/fund accounting in my masters program though. Everybody walks out of those things thinking they hosed up bad and are going to fail
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May 10, 2015 04:37
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Good Citizen posted:Everybody walks out of those things thinking they hosed up bad and are going to fail Can confirm, I generally did better on the exams I felt the worst about.
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May 10, 2015 07:39
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I really think the correct answer to a question about IFRS should be "Who gives a gently caress?" And if they think governmental accounting is that important, maybe they should have a special credential just for that, Certified Governmental Accountant or something. Lord knows AICPA loves making up credentials. I felt that my exam was shockingly light on nuts and bolts business accounting and heavy on trivia.
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May 10, 2015 07:46
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Anyone else in the lovely world of fund accounting? I spent 3 years at a big 4 before leaving for a hedge fund in New York.
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May 12, 2015 04:00
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jaymm posted:Anyone else in the lovely world of fund accounting? I spent 3 years at a big 4 before leaving for a hedge fund in New York. Based on my experience with fund accountants in New York, I would practice ignoring all attachments and asking whatever question feel is most important. Then complain it's not current when you respond a month later. This appears to be a critical skill.
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May 12, 2015 19:39
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What would a one year master`s degree in accounting combined with a five year master`s degree in law be worth if the Law degree was not all that impressive ( tough not bad per se either). It`s an option i have mulling over lately, but i don`t want to waste my time or money either.
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May 12, 2015 21:20
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Baudolino posted:What would a one year master`s degree in accounting combined with a five year master`s degree in law be worth if the Law degree was not all that impressive ( tough not bad per se either). It`s an option i have mulling over lately, but i don`t want to waste my time or money either. Lawyers make a bit more money, but if you're at a good firm then you'll learn and see a lot of very cool, very confidential poo poo in forensics. Hoops fucked around with this message at 21:29 on May 12, 2015 |
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May 12, 2015 21:26
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Hoops posted:I'd look into forensic accounting if I were you. It has the worst parts of a lawyers job but as accounting jobs go I think the highs are the highest. In day to day terms, a lot of the time the two jobs can be very, very similar. Interesting indeed. I shall have to look into what options i have. I`ll have to be sure that i can "sell" myself to a employer on the strength of my accounting education alone, because my legal education is not doing the trick ( i do get the odd interview tough).
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May 12, 2015 21:38
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jaymm posted:Anyone else in the lovely world of fund accounting? I spent 3 years at a big 4 before leaving for a hedge fund in New York. Tell me everything.
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May 12, 2015 23:09
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Harry posted:Based on my experience with fund accountants in New York, I would practice ignoring all attachments and asking whatever question feel is most important. Then complain it's not current when you respond a month later. This appears to be a critical skill. One month response time is generous. abagofcheetos posted:Tell me everything. What would you like to know? I work pretty long hours at my fund just due to the nature. I am the lowest guy on the totem pole so most of my work is the mundane needs to get done type. It's definitely 100% different than being in public. My day to day involves a lot of treasury work. My projects include finding ways to make us more efficient, regulatory work, and the like. Month end is always a lot of work due to our quick nav strike.
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May 15, 2015 03:32
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