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Bloody Queef posted:I graduated pretty old at 24, so I've been in public for 3 years. 72k is the low end of where I've seen recruiters telling me. Oh don't say that . . . I graduated in May 2013 at 29. Had to finish off an obligation to my current employer due to the Tuition Assistance Program, and now they're not hiring for entry-level accounting. So filling out applications I go! I have a strong background in customer service (had a paper route from 10-16, then worked at a movie theater up to management level from 16-22) and manufacturing (maintenance mechanic for one year at a small company, then 6.5 years of everything from machining to process control documentation at a Fortune 500). My ideal position would be some sort of Rotational Development program at a large company, but it seems like a lot of them are asking for December 2013 grads or later (just barely cutting me off, kill me now). What are the chances I can land something like that? Or am I doomed because I'm old? What about any sort of Accounting?
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Feb 16, 2014 02:27
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Edit: wrong thread, moving
Zarin fucked around with this message at 20:41 on Feb 17, 2014 |
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Feb 17, 2014 20:18
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Something lawful posted:Any fellow accountants fancy discussing the truth/bitterness behind this http://audit.wordpress.com/2006/11/10/holy-crap-this-really-sucks/ ? While I have no personal experience to lend to this, I've heard enough variations of it that I'm really only targeting entry-level corporate/manufacturing type accounting positions. Then again, I've spent so long in manufacturing now that I'll probably always be more comfortable in boots and earplugs than dress shoes and a tie.
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Feb 23, 2014 16:19
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Bugamol posted:I have a salary / experience questions if anyone can help. The company I work for is in the smaller range $20-$50 million 75-100 employees. Preface: I'm not in the field yet, and I live in the middle of flyover country, but here goes: The area I am in has a cost of living just below the national average, and the Fortune 50 company in the area pays their entry-level guys about $57k to start. My 2010 Cost of Living Index suggests that my area costs 96.5% of the national average, and San Francisco costs 164%. This means that entry-level position I have the data for which pays $57k here should pay around $94k there. And that's just to start. First year outta school with maybe an internship. So, even if you knocked off some money because you're not at a Fortune 50, but then added back a little bit because it sounds like you have a crazy amount of responsibility, my numbers say you should expect more. But, again, that's all these are: numbers on a spreadsheet. This almost seems like it can't POSSIBLY be right, but there it is. You will definitely want to have someone from around the area chime in. Now, for a question of my own, if anyone has some experience here: How does not-for-profit accounting pay compared to private sector, as far as entry-level? I assume it is lower, but I wonder about how much.
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Mar 1, 2014 00:56
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Sanity Check, please: I'm a recent Accounting grad (May 2013) with a 3.72 accounting GPA. Midwest. Non-traditional student with a lot of customer service and manufacturing work experience, but I'm not over 30. Yet. I've been applying around, and have landed 4 phone interviews for entry-level industry positions so far. Yay me. Unfortunately, three of these interviews asked me about salary. I took the advice of the negotiation thread and got them to tell me the range for the positions, which has been around $32k-$36k.  One of these was a fluffed-up payables/receivables position, so I don't really count that one. But one was a full-on Accounting position, and another was a Revenue Analyst position (which is pretty close to accounting, kinda).I'm already making more than that. My company hires fresh Accounting grads in at $57k, so I've been using that as my number for the "my research indicates that the ballpark market rate for Accounting grads is $57". Am I way out of line here?
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Mar 7, 2014 00:14
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Harry posted:57k is way on the high end for fresh accounting grads. Unless you mean graduate degrees. Even then that's pretty high. Undergraduate. It's what my Fortune 50 company pays for fresh undergrads. I'm aware that it's a Fortune 50, so I quote it with the expectation that I would be talked down and accept something in the $50k-$52k range. Is $32k-$36k kinda low, or is that pretty average? Edit: I was counseled away from an internship while completing my degree because "my work experience will show that I'm very employable" (manufacturing and customer service). I'm wondering if I should hate that guy right about now. Zarin fucked around with this message at 01:34 on Mar 7, 2014 |
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Mar 7, 2014 01:30
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Good Citizen posted:Almost surely. Well, like I said, the big player in the area drops $57k min on their fresh accounting undergrads. I heard that a larger city up north (Minneapolis) has an average of $50k starting (according to the recruiter I talked to up there) It just seems weird to me because I make $41k in an hourly position that any yahoo can get right outta high school; taking a pay cut to move into a professional field just doesn't feel right. Fake edit: I assume "almost surely" is in response to "I wonder if I should hit that guy now"?
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Mar 7, 2014 03:51
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Harry posted:$30,000 is definitely in the low end. I would say mid 40's is pretty standard for an accounting undergrad with no previous work experience, and high 50's is definitely outside the norm. Are you sure they're hiring people fresh out of undergrad for that much? Absolutely sure this is an undergrad salary. I went through the on-campus interview, and then the final all-day interview marathon with them back in October 2012. Too bad I had my interview on a layoff week, when the bottom was falling out of our market. While HR would only give me the "You were not selected, good luck in your job search" message, another contact of mine did some digging and informed me that one mark of four was *just* below acceptance into the pool, and noted that had there been more jobs available, that I would have been extended an offer. Granted, they normally like to see an internship or two, but I think my work experience with the company helped. Since then, I've done a lot of awesome stuff that looks great on my resume, so that should count for something, right? Edit: I currently make low 40's, and figure that low 50's is what I am truly expecting, so tossing out a high 50's number would be in line with that negotiation strategy. Edit 2: High 50's is truly the absolute lower bound for entry-level undergrad accounting at my company, and we are proud that we only pay market rate, so I don't think it's a totally batshit insane number to start with. Zarin fucked around with this message at 05:39 on Mar 7, 2014 |
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Mar 7, 2014 05:13
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SiGmA_X posted:My company pays HS educated clerks 37k and starts BS/BA non-CPA candidates at upper 40's (haven't seen a posting for one of these yet, I think it's 47k), and few-year experienced BS/BA non-CPA candidates at 57k. All of these vary with experience and competence and negotiation skill. Non-public accounting, fortune 1000 company in PDX. For what it's worth, I guess, I am a CPA candidate because I spent too much drat time at school (though I will probably need to scoop a two-hour ethics course online). Zarin fucked around with this message at 05:43 on Mar 7, 2014 |
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Mar 7, 2014 05:38
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fuseshock posted:I started in B4 audit a year and a half ago now, and everyone started at 55K in Chicago. All other firms and other lines of service started higher than us Thanks to everyone who posted some entry-level salary information! It makes me feel a bit better to think that I can hope for a raise from my current position ($41k) by moving into entry-level accounting.  This post in particular is very helpful; I'm just a few hours from there, so that puts things into perspective a bit.
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Mar 11, 2014 18:12
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. After a year, everyone I knew that got rated at expectation bumped up to 59K.
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Covok posted:God. This is so awkward. I am the only person who gets business at this firm and I'm literally waiting to hear back on a job offer for a big promotion that I will take if I get it and my boss is pushing me, unbeknownst to her, on getting a client where she basically can only make it work if I am there to do the business stuff. No need for it to be awkward. It's Just Business, after all. Since there's no way to know if it'll pan out or not, I've always just rolled through business as usual as if nothing was going on (because sometimes it falls through and therefore nothing is going on!) and when you turn in the two weeks you say "let me know what your priorities are for me to focus on in my final 80 hours here" and what gets done, gets done and what doesn't . . . is now firmly an SEP.
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May 5, 2022 19:02
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Jhordhynne posted:Congrats to the new CPAs. I need to get on that train fairly soon as I just graduated. Change your major to IT and enjoy a much less stressful career Fake edit: poo poo, you said you JUST graduated, nvm, meant to say "CONGRATULATIONS!" My career has been really weird, so someone else can jump in and give a better perspective maybe. I worked in the trades for a bit, decided I wanted a desk job, and so went (back) to college and decided on Accounting. I think what I wanted was Finance, but figured that out too late. Oh well! Anyway - just re-read your post - I'm trying to figure out what your path has been, and/or what you're looking for. You say you have been working "in industry" for a few years; were you doing A/R, A/P, etc.? Or what is the background? On my first read I thought you were a fresh grad looking to jump right into industry, but maybe you're closer to the same situation I was in? At any rate - are you looking to stay in industry? Or are you really wanting to get some public experience?
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Jun 16, 2022 21:09
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Jhordhynne posted:It's been a weird progression but it was hotel night audit (2016) -> AR (2018, hotel) -> AP (2019, hotel, constuction) -> Staff Accountant (2020, general product sales). All of this while starting from community college and getting my mental health in order. pseudanonymous posted:Just ask them if they'd be willing to sign. It's very state dependent on exactly how close that linkage needs to be, and largely up to that CPA to determine if they are comfortable. Seconding what pseudanonymous said - you should be perfectly fine. Either someone will sign now, or someone will pick you up and sign pretty soon after that. Each company is different with what they want to see w/r/t to continued education. I only have F100 experience, but my last company started out real big into credentials (either CMA or CPA) but stopped pushing that as hard at some point - it was generally regarded that you didn't necessarily NEED credentials to make it up to middle management in the Accounting space, but it certainly couldn't hurt. After that it became a bit more encouraged/required. (Naturally, some positions - such as externally-facing roles with the SEC or whatever - absolutely did require a CPA at least. But these were relatively rare.) My current company hasn't said a word about credentials. I have noticed that a lot of my co-workers seem to have MBAs for some weird reason, even at just the Senior Analyst level. I'll have to pay attention to how much not having something is going to limit me going forward, but I don't think it will - not for the next step, at least. (My plan is to pick something up eventually; maybe when my kid starts school, we can do "homework" together or some poo poo idk) Overall I'd say that I feel like your work experience is arguably stronger than mine from a resume perspective. Plus, you can talk about how you've worked in multiple industries (hospitality, construction, energy/petrochemicals). That's not nothing! That's three industries you could look at and be like "Yeah I have experience in this field already, so I understand a bit about the business." That being said, if the CPA is what you're going for - will your current company pick up the tab for that? If not, would it make sense to hop over to somewhere that will?
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Jun 17, 2022 00:34
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Good Citizen posted:Sometimes I worry about you covok
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Aug 4, 2022 17:46
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Covok posted:Yeah, I guess it just means if I want to keep this job I can't go to a construction company in the future. Might be worth running it by a labor law attorney in your state; see how enforceable the thing actually is. Entirely possible it's not, so signing it would mean nothing. Alternatively, you said it's a pretty small outfit; if you find out you love construction, maybe the next step would be to work for a firm that offers relo 
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Aug 27, 2022 01:14
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nwin posted:Do you all take CMA’s seriously? Depends on the company, I think. The Fortune 60 I worked for treated them as roughly equivalent for most positions (except a select few, outward-facing reporting type positions such as SEC Reporting) that required a CPA. Probably varies from company to company, I imagine. This new company I'm at ("new"; I've been here for almost 2 years fml) hasn't said word one about certifications at all. 
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Oct 24, 2022 03:49
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Femur posted:Is yardi that terrible? Every explicitly Business-to-Business software is that terrible, yes.  I have never used Yardi so I'm just guessing here
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Nov 10, 2022 20:55
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Covok posted:My new job has taken a bad turn. The owners found out I was a tax guy and now I'm constantly on the phone with the IRS, wasting my time, asking for updates on the ERTC and other garbage because they are convinced their current tax guy was just lazy and they want answers now, despite me explaining its just going to take time for this all to process. I mean, if they decided that's what they want you to do instead of what you were doing . . . To put it another way, if you're still working just the 40 hours a week then eh. I try not to get too riled up about that stuff . . . I'll do whatever you pay me for while I'm here, I guess. That being said, I usually hit 40 hours by lunch on Thursday (well actually if we count Sunday as the current week then probably sometime Weds night) so yeah adding something that I felt was stupid would make me very unhappy. Just depends on how well you're doing guarding your time I guess.
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Dec 6, 2022 17:44
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Not sure if this goes here or not, but maybe! I did really appreciate Bookkeeper Chat a week or two ago. US-based by the way, if that matters/helps. I have a BS in Accounting (heh) but I've only ever really done turbo-corporate-manufacturing-company Weird poo poo That Isn't Really Actual Accounting (SOX Admin, Costing, Forecasting) - I mean, I know they're Accounting-Adjacent enough, but I keep ending up in roles where I'm almost more of a System Admin than anything else. Some very deep SAP experience, but in heavily-customized instances (  ), semi-obscure bolt-on modules, or MM/Operations/Orders/Invoicing screens.From what I gathered lurking this thread for years is that I probably belong in the Corporate Megathread rather then here. Naturally, I lurk both I suppose if there was interest I could post about the corporate poo poo but I don't post much and this thread seems like it has a nice vibe going already. Anyway, on the the content of the post: Given that I am basically Not An Accountant And Never Have Been (didn't post my first journal entry until like my 4th corporate role), when my buddy who owns a small business (coffee shop) approached me it went like this: : Hey I've been doing my own books and I'm getting buried and gently caress this poo poo, I hate it, I'll pay you instead : Sure, it's an aspect of the profession I've never even gotten close to so it'd certainly be good personal development for me but, full disclosure, I won't have a loving clue what I'm doing at the start : Me either, but you probably know more than me already. I figured it out myself, you'll be fine. Hired!And so here I am. I have a close friend who runs a bookkeeping business and has been doing that sort of work for 5 years now so that's an excellent resource I have to lean on as I get up to speed. But, I'm also a big proponent of self-servicing my own research whenever possible. I'm wondering what online resources would be good for me to reference? For example, we've changed the classification of some things between different expense categories already. Working through other things today when nobody else is available, I tried asking Google "are cleaning supplies COGS for a restaurant" but that produced conflicting answers. My knee-jerk inclination is "no, it's an overhead expense" but at the same time, they're pretty loving crucial to a place that serves food/beverage and the consumption would vary based on volume, so . . . maybe? Thinking back to Intermediate Accounting (or Tax, or one of the other Hell Classes) I recall having to do a bunch of research on a website of some sort that was like The Unholy Bible for GAAP or some poo poo. I figure I'm not the first idiot to ask this question and there HAS to be some sort of Official Guidance out there somewhere (for this and probably most of my questions) but I'm not sure where to look. Any tips on what sort of resources are out there that aren't "smallbusiness.com" or whatever the gently caress shady-sounding websites Google is shoving at me would be much appreciated!
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Feb 19, 2023 23:48
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pseudanonymous posted:I'm not being flippant but why does it matter? Like is your friend presenting his financials to someone else? Yeah, he has a CPA he's going to be sending this all to. Just trying to make sure we have the high-level statements correct in preparation for that. I had thought that COGS was called out separately from other expenses on the tax return but now that I'm looking at the screenshot I took of the example used it doesn't appear to be . . . although I only grabbed Part II and not Part III. And also the example was for a Sole Prop and the guy I'm doing stuff for is an S-Corp so I don't know how different it is. I was told "it's mostly the same" but technically so is a banana and a T-Rex. Yeah, if it doesn't matter for tax time then that's a Future Me problem as I dig in to start setting up reporting and doing deeper analysis on what is driving revenue, expenses, which items are ahead or behind on margin, etc.
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Feb 20, 2023 07:29
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Gabriel Grub posted:Cost of Goods Sold is line 2 of Form 1120-S, which is what you (or rather his tax preparer) would be filing for an S-Corp. Alright, yeah, I thought we'd talked about that one being key. The screenshot I grabbed during the conversation was only lines 8-27. Eh, it's been a few minutes since I felt like an absolute dumbass. Surely, this time will be good for my personal and professional development as well.
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Feb 20, 2023 09:29
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Blotto_Otter posted:
Heh, he's not a normal non-accountant then; very detail-oriented. But, we vibe in that way. I think he's fine getting just the broad strokes correct if that is truly good enough for tax time (and it's sounding like it is); I'll spend the rest of the year classifying stuff in a way that works for the reporting he (we) would like to see. In looking at it a bit more, I guess I just didn't want to over-state or under-state whatever tax benefit COGS provides, and the goal was to try and clean everything up, do any reclassification necessary, and put a bow on it before he files. Given that that's two weeks away, we're probably gonna opt for the more high-level option Blotto_Otter posted:In the long run, everything is a variable expense. If you argue it long enough, all of a business' expenses can be linked in some way to the hamburgers that it manufactures. Life is short, toss that poo poo into overhead and call it a day. Fair enough, and I appreciate the candor. Another issue is that it seems like he was trying to do ALL classification via QBO Category (account) and I think I've convinced him that we can do a better job using other functionality for that and the accounts themselves can be much more broad/high-level.
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Feb 24, 2023 03:30
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Winged Orpheus posted:Every single person who says they have a simple return has been lying to my face about it. They don't think it's simple, they think it shouldn't cost much. Mine WAS easy, though! <  >. . . although, oddly enough, it was the first time I've ever owed. Which was very surprising because I was not expecting that at all. I really need to look more into that. Did something change for 2022 that would have caused me (MFJ, only income for two dependents + self) to suddenly owe? My tax preparer said something about things changing last year or this year with the calculations to reduce the amount of returns but I still need to do my own research on that I think.
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Mar 9, 2023 21:45
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black.lion posted:the tax benefits of having kiddos got sliced down for 2022 compared to 2021 ("expired"), thats my only guess given the generalized info Hmm that could be it then. Yeah, sorry the info was general and sucked! I really don't know what yet either haha. I took this job in 2021 but the relo package made my compensation for 2021 into complete moon numbers, so I was expecting this year to be "normal" and was surprised. It's entirely possible I did something stupid and deviated from my lifetime strategy of setting my W4 to 0 across the board to me trying to get to as close to "don't owe, no return" and then completely forgot because that was two years ago and there has been too much stress, vodka, and not enough sleep between then and now I'll dig into it this weekend and come back with a book report.
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Mar 10, 2023 16:28
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Having been in industry for a decade+ this entire thread is an enormous pile of Moon Language. A few years ago, I'd have felt like a lesser person. Now? I feel like I dodged a hail of bullets. . . . I'll probably still end up getting a cert or two soon tho~
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May 16, 2023 07:57
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Annointed posted:Been getting unlucky so far with job offers week 4. Got any tips to make the waiting for the job offers easier? Whenever I get antsy about hearing back, I take my mind off of it by filling out another one, two, or however many it takes for my brain to feel like it did something and shut up. This also stuffs the pipeline so if you hear back with the answer you didn't want, there are more in queue It is a soul-sucking process though; not sure that I can help with that part 
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May 30, 2023 21:15
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Annointed posted:Thanks for condolences Are you willing to relocate?
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May 31, 2023 01:48
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Annointed posted:More and more job rejections. Been there; it's a soul-crushing experience that it took me years to get over (if I'm actually truly over it; I'm not so sure). I liken it to rep grinding in an MMO, except you can't see how much each application/interview is worth and you can't see the progress bar. Just know that EVENTUALLY, if you keep at it, you'll get that call that signifies that you finally finished the grind
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Aug 29, 2023 21:45
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Smif-N-Wessun posted:Yeah but what about the part where the grind finishes, and then you enter into a lovely role and then the grind keeps going Oh, that's easy - alcoholism will hold our hands through that one. Same as it ever was.
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Aug 31, 2023 06:24
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Annointed posted:I worry of getting fired too. Worry not; that is the path to ruin. An infinite amount of carefree idiots have coasted through lucrative careers - worrying only leads to stress, and stress leads to substance abuse and heart disease. Or something. I'm not really sure if that's wisdom or not, tbh. What I will say is that I had a Director once that repeated this phrase like a mantra: "On to the next one." I think he might have been on to something; it works great for back-to-back meetings, quitting jobs, and recovering from disastrous Tinder dates. In my opinion, if you're not making mistakes, then you're not learning anything. Embrace the mistakes as the catalyst for personal growth, and sell the gently caress out of what you learned from each one. As long as you don't keep making the same one over and over again, you're doing alright. In my experience, it can take up to 6 months to master a closing process; from there, you'll spend the next 8-12 months coming up with ways to improve it, and then any time after that contemplating self-harm just so you can avoid having to go through the motions of the improved and efficient processes that you yourself have created. In other words, you will soon free yourself from such worries, and eventually imprison yourself in new and horrifically unexciting ways. Then you'll leave for another company and the cycle will start anew
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Oct 12, 2023 04:09
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I had three roles (industry) at the same company before I got poached. I cried more in the first 9 months than I did in the 30 years prior. gently caress accounting.
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Oct 19, 2023 00:08
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Annointed posted:Thank you all for the advice. I was able to enjoy a nice vacation without worry of my boss firing me during said vacation. Yay I'm considered someone not to get rid of easily. I do have a list of clients that didn't pay yet, I just have to trudge through said Quikbooks list and bother my boss until we can both just clear things up. Congrats on the good vibes! The last part is easy though - paying bills is expensive, you see, and that hurts the bottom line. Especially at the end of the year when you're trying to hit metrics. Bonuses don't just pay themselves, after all! With luck, the product/service your company supplies is annoying enough to find alternate sources for that people start paying their bills after year-end closing~ I legitimately lost track of how much of this post was seriouschat and how much was meme
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Dec 28, 2023 11:46
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Good Citizen posted:Considering a job offer at a company with a bad wfh policy and needing to consider how attached I am to pantsless accounting Without knowing your work situation, I have to imagine it really just comes down to how much bigger the new paycheck would be.
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Jan 5, 2024 02:33
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Annointed posted:How much practice does it take to make fewer mistakes? Were you referring to the CFE, or at work in general?
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Feb 7, 2024 09:11
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Quite possibly the lamest question ever, but are there any Accounting-focused (or even just -related) podcasts that are worth anything? I have a long (very long) drive coming up, and if I can spend any of it pretending to be even remotely productive that'd be a win. I'd narrow it down further but that's probably already narrow enough haha
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Feb 20, 2024 14:56
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Quote is not edit. My correct edit is below this post, and I'm lazy. Oops.
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Feb 21, 2024 02:20
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Zarin posted:Bosses want lots of things.
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Feb 21, 2024 02:21
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Annointed posted:It has been 4 months. Why is it taking so long for one simple request to be completed? How big is the company? That's almost speedy for a couple places I worked. On the bright side, it doesn't sound like your boss is completely perplexed by the fact you want two monitors, so you have that going for you haha. The boss I had for my first "professional" role refused to put in for a second monitor for me, so I bought the cheapest 1080p I could find at Best Buy. (I'm not suggesting that you actually do this) If you're going for dual 1080p, it might almost be faster to find someone giving one away for free on Craigslist/FB Marketplace heh. Because of that previous experience, when I took this current role I had "dual 4k monitors" bullet-pointed as a condition of employment in my offer letter next to my salary, signing bonus, benefits, and other official stuff.
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Feb 24, 2024 00:16
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Smif-N-Wessun posted:My question is, how do we get through this if we have a long career left ahead of us? To quote the prophet Charlie Berens: "Keep 'er movin' " That is to say, you're not at a company forever. When looking elsewhere, don't apply for the role that you're currently in; you've already had that experience. Apply for the role that would be a promotion if your company was sane (they're not) and wanted to develop you (they don't). I'm not gonna say it's not stressful, but it seems to work.
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Feb 25, 2024 08:33
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Annointed posted:It just seems like there isn't a single company out there that wants me to actually stay there long enough to retire. On the contrary: there are lots of them! Almost all of them, in fact! The real question is if they're willing to PAY you in a manner that reflects that. Of course they're not; that sounds expensive
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Feb 25, 2024 11:39
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