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EA stands for "Elite Accountant" and its open to only a select few. In other news I've come to the frustrating realisation I may actually have to become an accountant. I'm an internal auditor with a CIA and no intention of going into Finance, but a recruiter recently pointed out to me they don't know a single head of IA who's not an accountant. Recruiter was arrogant but probably right. Looking at the UK qualifications it's basically ACA, ACCA, or CIMA which are basically considered good in that order. ACA is out of the question because it'd take three years and I'd have to go back to practice. Which leaves ACCA and CIMA. My CIA gets me exemptions for half the CIMA exams but it would still be 6 exams or one every 4 months. Just frustrating because I'd happily live the rest of my life without becoming an accountant (no offence) but looks like I'll need to be one if I want to go to the top of IA. I think you're all American but if anyone has done CIMA and has any insight if you could let me know that would be great.
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Oct 22, 2018 13:45
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| # ? May 10, 2024 00:19 |
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Kitchner posted:I'm an internal auditor.... "Internal audit" is a greater badge of dishonor than "accountant", you already have a stink on you that won't wash off so you might as well go all the way! Abandon your youthful hopes and dreams and embrace the dull but comfortable existence of middle/upper-middle class adulthood. If anyone's looking for a horror story, I find the best ones in accounting aren't the unusual or strange ones, but the ones that endlessly recur like a nightmare you have every other night. I've been a CPA for ten years with most of that time spent in financial statement audits, and I've still spent far too much time this week dealing with a local bank that's acting like they've never heard of a goddamn balance confirmation request before. I'm having PTSD flashbacks to my first year in public accounting. EDIT: And another client just emailed me about a $3 discrepancy they have after posting their audit adjusting JEs, so now I'm going to stare out the window for fifteen minutes instead of writing an email that I'd regret. Blotto_Otter fucked around with this message at 15:24 on Oct 24, 2018 |
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Oct 24, 2018 15:22
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I know this is an unpopular opinion but I really like Internal Audit. I think it gets a bad rep in the US especially because in my experience American companies treat internal audit like a compliance function instead of using them as internal risk and control consultants, which is far more interesting and value adding for all involved. I think one of the reasons I really want to advance in IA is simply because so many departments are run poo poo. Dumb audit plans, dumb audit techniques, all wasting an opportunity to make an interesting and genuinely value adding function. Its weird but I guess when I think about "dream job" within a business CFO is like the last C level executive position I would want, and most IA functions hardly touch finance (rightly so, because any half way smart company has poo poo tons of controls and second line functions over finance) yet job descriptions are still "Be an accountant or be a IT auditor".
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Oct 24, 2018 18:02
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Kitchner posted:I know this is an unpopular opinion but I really like Internal Audit. I think it gets a bad rep in the US especially because in my experience American companies treat internal audit like a compliance function instead of using them as internal risk and control consultants, which is far more interesting and value adding for all involved. That’s basically having two different jobs under the ‘Internal Audit’ umbrella. It is much more rewarding to design new, or overhaul existing, controls and processes that address risks in an organization, but at the end of the day someone still has to go test the controls and second line functions over the IT systems and financial statements if you’re part of a public company. There’s a huge landscape of interesting IA projects that add value, but the testing whirlpool exists and it’s easy to get sucked in.
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Oct 24, 2018 18:38
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Democratic Pirate posted:That’s basically having two different jobs under the ‘Internal Audit’ umbrella. It is much more rewarding to design new, or overhaul existing, controls and processes that address risks in an organization, but at the end of the day someone still has to go test the controls and second line functions over the IT systems and financial statements if you’re part of a public company. There’s a huge landscape of interesting IA projects that add value, but the testing whirlpool exists and it’s easy to get sucked in. Yeah I agree. I don't mind testing, I think you had to do a lot of it still, but it's about what you test and how you do it too. Using data analytics to test purchase orders and invoice compliance is far more interesting that selecting 25 invoices at random and checking they all had valid POs raised before the invoice was received. There's also a frustratingly large number of organisations who think it's not IAs place to make recommendations to improve effectiveness or efficiency during the audit. This is annoying because sometimes this is easy to do and appreciated, and helps your department not look like a waste of time and money.
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Oct 24, 2018 20:54
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I started a job the other month working as a payroll auditor for a 3rd Party Administrator of Union Trusts. Honestly it seems like a decent gig, it pays less than full audit roles at big companies, but I am working 37.5 hours and I get to work from home now that I am out of "training" a couple days a week, I dunno how I got this position off of a temp contract that actually ended up in a perm hire. I think the pay is a bit low compared to some accounting/auditing jobs, but I have literally never had to work a minute of overtime yet so I am still trying to see when the other shoe drops.
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Oct 24, 2018 22:56
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Girlfriend just got a couple job offers. She has a frontrunner, but it starts next November and she wants to start either this winter or in the summer. On one hand going in later would allow her to finish her cpa by the spring before she comes in, but she'd rather get out of her crappy job and make better wages. Could she negotiate an earlier start date or is it too rude?
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Oct 26, 2018 05:40
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plz dont pull out posted:Girlfriend just got a couple job offers. She has a frontrunner, but it starts next November and she wants to start either this winter or in the summer. On one hand going in later would allow her to finish her cpa by the spring before she comes in, but she'd rather get out of her crappy job and make better wages. Could she negotiate an earlier start date or is it too rude? If it’s a small firm they may be flexible but a big firm has one or two start times per city each year where they train a bunch of people at once. Do as much of the cpa as you can before starting. I don’t recommend starting in winter since you go straight into busy season without any time to acclimate.
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Oct 26, 2018 08:02
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Over 400 IRS revenue agent jobs opened today, they journey at the grade 12 level now too.
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Oct 30, 2018 00:46
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incels interlinked posted:Over 400 IRS revenue agent jobs opened today, they journey at the grade 12 level now too. I want a soul crushing government job so bad. I came in here to post that I think I just saw the worst 1120-S I've ever seen. It was prepared by someone at a bookkeeping firm who was not a CPA and not and EA. I'm not going get into the details, but it made me go "...wait, what?" like 4 times.
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Nov 6, 2018 21:45
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Clients are the worst. Just had a new client on the phone telling me to tell our admin to "do her job" and follow up with her... after telling her off I found that our admin had called and left messages, and sent email, and our boss had sent email to this woman. Like I don't know who you think you called but I'm not in customer service I don't get paid to absorb your lovely attitude, and we have too many clients already to be trying to acquire ones with bad attitudes that don't read email or listen to voicemail. In the end I told her that her time must be very valuable and I hung up. Thanks for letting me vent now I'm off to drink, oooooooooo it's an accountants life for meeeeee
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Nov 7, 2018 19:59
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Kind of a random question but what would a good gift be for someone going into her first accounting/office job (at or under 40 bucks)? Anything that's super cool/useful?
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Nov 12, 2018 17:46
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A green visor hat
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Nov 12, 2018 21:52
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A Fitbit so they realize due to their job they walk less than a 1,000 steps a day and maybe that's not healthy and they should just quit
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Nov 12, 2018 22:19
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Good headphones or earbuds? A nice computer bag (although for 40 bucks and in her style this might be difficult)? If she's in audit, anything for travel would be nice (I've always wanted one of those portable steam wands . . .), tax, get her a potted succulent for her desk to try to alleviate some of the florescent lighting depression vibes.
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Nov 12, 2018 22:58
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A bottle of liquor or wine is nice. Otherwise yeah it depends on if she’s in a corporate job with a set desk or if she’ll be traveling around. You could probably get a solid wireless mouse for $40ish. Not the best, but likely better than whatever she’ll get on her first day.
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Nov 12, 2018 23:32
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Just to clarify it'll be for a tax position so she won't be doing much traveling.
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Nov 12, 2018 23:54
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If she has a desk the obvious choice is a drinking bird: https://www.amazon.com/TheGag-Pack-Magic-Drinking-Birds/dp/B002ZO7RSC
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Nov 13, 2018 00:10
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Nothing says great gift than a personalized 10key
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Nov 13, 2018 00:22
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Hurt Whitey Maybe posted:If she has a desk the obvious choice is a drinking bird: https://www.amazon.com/TheGag-Pack-Magic-Drinking-Birds/dp/B002ZO7RSC You actually need three, all at different speeds. The first presses I The next presses M and then M And the third presses Enter Then it starts all over again.
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Nov 13, 2018 09:49
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I went with the succulent idea that PatMarshal suggested and got a cactus. I got some money left over so are there any other office supplies you guys love or make life way easier? Maybe a nice pen or pencil?
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Nov 13, 2018 20:49
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I'm super into my classic wooden ruler, it really helps when someone prints a P&L or something with the item and amounts too far apart to accurately read across without a ruler. Also rulers have numbers on them and accountanters love numbers, we do.
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Nov 16, 2018 19:17
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Y'all got any Tax Guide recommendations? I've always been in the auditing side of things and would like to get a few books that would give me more depth into Tax.
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Nov 20, 2018 11:42
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https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26
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Nov 20, 2018 12:07
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U.S. Master Tax Guide, this any good?
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Nov 20, 2018 21:19
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It's basically just an abridged tax code. A good reference, but not something to learn tax from. A little disappointed by Murderball's snarky reply, I'd like something to freshen my knowledge up that isn't a 300 dollar loose leaf textbook for college students.
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Nov 21, 2018 02:45
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Well, there really isn't a one volume guide on all of tax that's any good. I find a good treatise the most useful reference and good for getting to grips with an area of tax law. Not sure how accessible they would be without any tax training, but may still be helpful. Corporate tax: Bittker and Eustice M&A tax: Ginsberg and Levin International tax: get the nutshell, but be aware everything just changed, you will need to read the new law and guidance Individual tax: no idea, I tend to refer to BNA when I have to deal with these issues from time to time Partnership tax: the logic of subchapter k BNA Portfolios are all also uniformly excellent on most topics. To learn tax from scratch, though, I'd want to take a graduate level course.
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Nov 21, 2018 03:50
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Thanks Pat, will look those over.
Texibus fucked around with this message at 06:44 on Nov 21, 2018 |
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Nov 21, 2018 06:35
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Master Tax Guide is probably the best solution for a quick reference
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Nov 21, 2018 18:23
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sale on Banksy art posted:It's basically just an abridged tax code. A good reference, but not something to learn tax from. Just having a little fun. I figure we all can use a laugh -- we'll be spending time with our families soon
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Nov 21, 2018 18:53
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cool guys, yeah I wouldn't be learning from scratch. I'm getting my license anytime now if the State of Michigan could take less than 40 days to process/verify 4 pieces of paper. I've just been out if public for like 5 years and wouldn't have the same research resources as someone at a firm. As I've gotten older I'm more interested in tax and estate planning, lots of friends starting to wondering about those things.
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Nov 21, 2018 21:55
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How do you CPAs go about getting your CPE for you renewal? I have to start mine this year. Ideally it'd be a way thats not extremely expensive or also takes an assload of time. I'm mostly asking because I'm wondering if its worth it to get something like the AICPA's passes for webinars or such
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Nov 24, 2018 00:31
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I'm on my own for CPE, so I use Becker. It's 400 bucks for an annual subscription, but they have frequent sales as well. Has everything you need to satisfy whatever requirements you have (state ethics, attest, etc.), and is on-demand so you can do them whenever you want. It also has a tracker, so when you fill out your license renewal paperwork all the necessary information is organized for you.
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Nov 24, 2018 03:17
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sale on Banksy art posted:I'm on my own for CPE, so I use Becker. It's 400 bucks for an annual subscription, but they have frequent sales as well. Has everything you need to satisfy whatever requirements you have (state ethics, attest, etc.), and is on-demand so you can do them whenever you want. It also has a tracker, so when you fill out your license renewal paperwork all the necessary information is organized for you. Oh Nice, Ill check it out. Thanks!
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Nov 24, 2018 07:24
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I use CPEcredit.com because for $170 I can do my state ethics for 1 year and then a year of unlimited, which means I can do 2 calendar years worth of CPE before having to buy it again. I only do the self-study stuff though
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Nov 24, 2018 12:20
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Whichever you choose, be sure to straddle a one year subscription so that you do you your 20 in year one and 60 in year two, or whatever your requirements are. No need to pay for two years.
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Nov 24, 2018 15:20
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sale on Banksy art posted:Whichever you choose, be sure to straddle a one year subscription so that you do you your 20 in year one and 60 in year two, or whatever your requirements are. No need to pay for two years. Now thats spoken like an accountant...
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Nov 26, 2018 06:08
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Anybody got bingo?
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Nov 28, 2018 18:28
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Orthodox Rabbit posted:How do you CPAs go about getting your CPE for you renewal? I have to start mine this year. Ideally it'd be a way thats not extremely expensive or also takes an assload of time. State CPA societies and industry groups often host CPE conferences and seminars, but they vary in quality and cost depending on the group/region putting them on, and some can get pricey if you don't have an employer paying for them. But if you do have an employer paying for them, some of them can be a nice excuse to get out of town for a day or two. If you're working in industry rather than public, some of the trade group sponsored conferences can be nice since they'll have a lot of CPE tailored to your specific industry. If you want to keep it cheap and easy, a lot of the big accounting firms host free webinars throughout the year for CPE credit, including both quarterly updates on a broad range of topics and occasional one-off webinars that go deeper into specific topics. PwC has one of their quarterly updates coming up in exactly two weeks. They all have newsletters that you can subscribe to that'll periodically inform you about their upcoming webinar schedule, if you keep up with those throughout the year it's a good way to stack up a bunch of free CPE hours.
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Nov 28, 2018 19:02
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Maybe this is the right spot, but probably not because I’m a retard. Do federal agencies have tax ID numbers? As in, if someone was making a payment to one or these agencies, is there a TIN on the payment? If yes, is there a way to look them up? Googling isn’t super easy since federal tax id gives you a load of results around how to get a tax id number.
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Dec 2, 2018 03:33
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