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pocket pool posted:My wife is currently a CPA working as an auditor at a Big Four accounting firm. Recently, she has really wanted to find a new job, primarily due to a really ridiculous amount of extra hours, travel and the general stress associated with the job. Reading through the thread I see that a ton of this is kind of "just the way it is", but I'd really like to help her find something that reduces the amount of stress she is dealing with. Does she have like no idea what she wants to do? A CPA working for a Big 4 isn't exactly lacking in opportunities.
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Nov 16, 2010 04:51
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There's almost no chance it will count towards the CPA.
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Nov 23, 2010 05:57
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Umbriago posted:Do accountants deal with corporate bankruptcies, insolvencies, liquidations and businesses being put into administration or receivership? Trying to turn around failing companies and keep them afloat seems like it would be really interesting. They are probably involved but that sounds more like a law thing.
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Nov 23, 2010 17:00
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St1cky posted:I'm looking into switching going back for my Masters in Accounting and trying to get a job at a local accounting firm. I did my undergrad in economics and took a couple of basic accounting courses for my minor. How far into my masters would I need to be before I'd get hired by a firm? I'm currently working full-time in an unrelated field and looking to go to a part-time program. It's been a while, but I remember firms/companies saying Intermediate II and Auditing is what they were mainly looking for. So not that far in to be honest.
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Aug 12, 2011 05:17
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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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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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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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We took over a property about 2 weeks ago and I have been asking the previous management company for their ending trial balance, and ytd income statement. I finally got them today (as if they had to do any real amount of work on them), and the trial balance was off by 2 million dollars and showed there was never any RE at any point. 10 minute later, I get a call from the owner saying he needs some current financial statements for a refinance he's been working on. Who the gently caress switches management companies during a god drat refinance? Also, a district manager wanted to reclass a whole years worth of water heater purchases to unit upgrades. Like, what the hell?
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Oct 1, 2011 00:40
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hellboundburrito posted:This sounds like a pretty interesting situation. I agree it is strange to switch management companies in the middle of a refinance, and that fact plus the TB being off by so much would make me a bit suspicious. Whatever bank or company he is working with in this refinancing deal will also probably be a bit suspicious, and whether he switched or not I can't imagine any situation where they wouldn't want audited financials before moving forward. This is mainly dealing with expenses. Due to the way this company setup (and most apartment management companies are this way), you have someone on site that collects the bills. Being property managers and not accountants, they're like "durr let's put this ceiling fan under expense code 45623 (water heaters)" when there's a nice expense code 45324 for ceiling fans. So at the month end close, the district/regional managers go through and are like "this needs to be moved here" and you plug in the JE. Unfortunately, district managers are not accountants also, so they come up with some pretty stupid poo poo as well. This example I gave, she probably just wasn't paying attention at all to what she highlighted. For the financials and the refinance, the TB is probably off because someone from the old management company just wasn't paying attention as well. In the property management business, a lot of the staff accountants don't really have a degree in accounting. Instead, they just worked their ways up from leasing agent and have proven themselves not to be a thief or crazy (there's more to it of course, that was just partially a joke). I also think they switched accounting software midway in April. But yeah, there's some pretty shady owners that ask for some peculiar things. While I'm talking about this, never ever pay your rent/security deposit with a money order. Harry fucked around with this message at 04:19 on Oct 1, 2011 |
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Oct 1, 2011 04:17
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19 o'clock posted:In short: when I wrote software to perform our data entry automatically it was scrapped and explained to me that "we don't wanna put anyone out of a job." I guess the 40hrs a week thing is hardwired into humans or something and we can never ever get away from it for fear of heresy. Uh, so what? If the management didn't want to fire someone or significantly reduce their hours what's the matter?
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Oct 3, 2011 23:31
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hellboundburrito posted:Put it this way - you'll be a lot more attractive to prospective employers if the exam is done, because they won't have to give you time off to study and they won't have to pay for your exams or give you a bonus for passing it (if that particular firm offers such incentives). I'm pretty sure most firms give bonuses if you have it pass already. It's really worth it for them, since they know they'll have a CPA in a year.
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Oct 21, 2011 03:47
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hellboundburrito posted:And speaking of Quickbooks, I'm in the midst of my first experience with it right now. As someone who normally audits companies with more complex accounting systems, it is making my life harder than I would have expected given its limited capabilities. That being said, maybe the person who uses it just isn't very good with it and is blaming it on the software...
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Nov 1, 2011 05:08
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Turkeybone posted:So, I'm about to finish babby's first accounting course, Financial Accounting. The professor has lots of credentials, and I'm getting an A or A+ in the course, so I guess I'm wondering what kinds of jobs would I be qualified to take? I assume the most basic/entry level kinds of things, but I'm just curious where to get started. For a public internship/job, they tended to want you to have Intermediate I.
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Nov 18, 2011 00:47
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Creel posted:I recently got a job but it's not really what I want. I want to change jobs, but I don't want to make any enemies by leaving so soon. The position I have isn't what I wanted, it's a highly specialized position that has no use outside of the Bank I work for($35,000/yr).
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Nov 27, 2011 00:17
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forum id posted:If you are boring enough to be a lawyer you are probably boring enough to be an accountant...but are you stupid and insipid enough? Something goes wrong? Better bring in someone to identify the problem. Then bring someone in to fix said problem, which doesn't in fact get fixed so you have to bring in guy 2 again (who might have been wrong in the first place).
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Dec 6, 2011 05:17
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Tennis Ball posted:I'm currently an MIS major. At my university MIS and accounting majors share a couple of required classes. This results in me being able to get a double major in accounting with almost no extra time spent. With a MIS/accounting major you'll be looking at IT audit work and SOX compliance things.
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Dec 16, 2011 02:28
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Tennis Ball posted:I have a a permanent MIS "internship" (See: job) right now. I'm pretty reluctant to leave since it pays pretty well and all of the experience is relevant to my degree (Not shoddy "make copies of these papers" type intern stuff.).
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Dec 19, 2011 01:23
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Why finance if he wants to go into tax? I'd go with MIS< but I don't think it would make too huge a difference. Your main goal is to become a CPA candidate asap and then passing.
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Dec 19, 2011 05:12
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Moneyball posted:I was under the impression that the next 30 hours had to be at the masters level. Go to your states CPA board and look at what the requirements are. If you can, find the actual application you'll be turning in. My state board seemed to keep things rather well hidden for whatever reason. I'm sure it's a YMMV type situation, but the application support team was very friendly and helpful when I emailed them.
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Dec 19, 2011 19:23
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Just graduate, get a job, and study for the CPA. Don't get too far ahead of yourself now. Also, the MBA/JD combo is pretty worthless.
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Dec 26, 2011 15:55
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Moneyball posted:As an update to my previous post, it turned out to be a new Liberty Tax franchise, and the owner is paying for the books this year. Having experience filling out tax returns will not hurt you in any situation. In the very least, it will show a future employer that you're able to show up to work and not get fired. In fact, you can then spin it as "I've done tax work and found it wasn't really my thing. I'd much rather do [whatever]" and the interview will most like respond with "Oh yes, I couldn't stand tax." Harry fucked around with this message at 20:55 on Jan 4, 2012 |
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Jan 4, 2012 20:52
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Are you looking towards actual CPA work? Like auditing or tax? Or are you looking for industry work?
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Jan 30, 2012 20:16
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What's the difference between the two? Honestly someone looking at your resume will probably just see accounting and go from there. Why are you looking for a finance degree of some sort? I mean when someone says "Corporate Finance" they generally mean accounting, you know that right?
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Feb 24, 2012 05:22
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Are you looking to go into public accounting specifically? If not, you could probably get by with an accounting certificate and your degree right now. I work in industry and spend quite a bit of time just proof reading various written reports.
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Mar 21, 2012 21:40
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Look at basically any community college, they probably have some program. I'd imagine it involves like Financial accounting, managerial accounting, intermediate I & II, and maybe corporate tax.
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Mar 21, 2012 22:51
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Democratic Pirate posted:I just don't know if I'm signing up for a few years of sifting through excel files daily to find errors or if the work is a bit more engaging. Accounting probably isn't for you if you don't want to be looking through excel files for the rest of your life.
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Mar 29, 2012 03:16
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ThirdPartyView posted:IMO, the hardest class of the Accounting curriculum was Intermediate II, not Intermediate I (which was 80% rehashed from introductory financial accounting). Some universities have Intermediate I, II, III. So his intermediate might go up to bonds and maybe leases.
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Mar 30, 2012 13:51
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Democratic Pirate posted:So I'm recruiting with all the Big 4 and have to choose which one I like best. Anybody have horror stories/advice? I've heard E&Y isn't that highly regarded in their audit role compared to others, that's about all I know.
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Apr 14, 2012 15:58
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My general impression was that it's either the easier hours + government benefits, or you work there for a little bit and then leave to become a tax consultant.
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Apr 21, 2012 14:13
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Do companies really care that much about public accounting when they have that there? I really just don't see how someone who has worked as a staff auditor for 1-2 years at a big 4 is seen as more qualified than a cpa who's worked as a senior accountant/assistant controller for 2-3 years.
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Sep 7, 2012 20:14
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chupacabraTERROR posted:I don't think it's a matter of qualifications. Personally I think that Big 4 experience is indicative of someone's ability to manage their time and heavy workloads. I'd rather hire someone who has had to get through that meat grinder than someone who hasn't. Not because they are better at accounting, but because they probably know how to make the most out of the least time-wise. At least in theory. In reality, there are some really dumb people in every level of this profession, including those with Big 4 experience. But still, it's just another checkbox on the resume that might indicate some semblance of competence. So what? Do people think industry doesn't have crunch times as well? Edit: I guess a better way to put it is that since the hirer is in industry and presumbaly have crunch time as well, I don't see why Big 4 is suddenly a requirement. Harry fucked around with this message at 20:47 on Sep 7, 2012 |
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Sep 7, 2012 20:43
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How many accounting credits do you have? Can you sit for your states CPA? I think Deloitte is known as the government auditing big 4.
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Sep 14, 2012 16:45
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Well starting for a big 4 is something like $50,000 with a $5,000 bonus when you pass the CPA exam. Accounting is such a catchall type thing it'll be hard to guess what you're making 3-4 years after school.
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Sep 26, 2012 14:58
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abagofcheetos posted:Are these dinner dates usually one on one, or with a group? I was just invited to one for the night before my internship interview, but it listed both the audit and tax/advisory managers, plus I cant imagine they would waste time on just me for an internship. 10 canindates = 10 free meals sounds about right to me if the company lets you get away with it.
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Sep 27, 2012 22:20
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When normal people say finest jeans they mean no holes in them. As for intermediate accounting, I'd imagine someone at that table will have had a C in the class.
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Sep 28, 2012 03:15
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I live in Texas and pretty much everyone drug tests. I believe the Big 4 do here as well, not 100% sure on that.
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Oct 4, 2012 16:31
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I'm surprised anything remotely related to auditing doesn't require a drug test, especially a Big 4. Don't most large corporations and all government audits require it?
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Oct 4, 2012 22:44
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Carlton Banks posted:I'm in governmental auditing (state level) and I've never had to take a drug test. Mainly meant Fed.
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Oct 5, 2012 00:11
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If you have a BS in Math, the CPA/MBA path are (should be) the same thing. CIA wouldn't help you at all, and a CMA isn't that popular in the US. I think it has some kind of requirement like being in management for two years as well.
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Oct 20, 2012 03:07
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Really just reading any of the accounting scandals from the 90's on should make you question auditors. Hell, some girl at Grant Thornton that I was talking to said you never want to say the fraud word because that means you lose a client.
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Oct 21, 2012 20:38
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