Any CPAs around here?
- Thread starter Bubba T
- Start date
MillionMills
Superstar
I'm in public tax but looking at getting out / starting my own firm
Good stuff. Would you specialize in a certain area of tax or would you focus more on individual and small businesses?
MillionMills
Superstar
individuals / small business
just cant work for the man anymore shyt is driving me insane
I feel you. Getting through this busy season has been hell. I'm trying to get certified, get my experience in and moving on.
This thread just reminded me that I failed my accounting class.
Which class was it? Intro to Accounting?
The first one I took was financial accounting. I was failing that one at my uni, so I dropped and took it at a cc. Passed with a B.
This time it was Managerial accounting and I couldn't drop. I really think it's just that the uni does a terrible job at teaching it. At the community college, I understood most of the stuff. The math was easy. I just couldn't remember or really understand anything else.
Same with the finance classes that I had to take. They were nice though and gave me a C.
Thatrogueassdiaz
We're on the blood path now
Camile.Bidan
Banned
I am a CPA, Currently working a CEP (Certified Equity Planner) and CMA.
If you are thinking of being a CPA, there are better career options out there.
If you are thinking of being a CPA, there are better career options out there.
Thatrogueassdiaz
We're on the blood path now
Like?
I agree, there are better options. But those generally require more schooling.
Hijo de luna
Superstar
You're the third CPA I've heard say this. I'm eligible for the exam in my state. I started studying Roger back in 2015 planned to take BEC but then I landed a really nice gig in commercial credit that required I get an NACM cert so I had to switch gears. I'm still on the fence about the CPA because I know I'll never use the actual license. The only real benefit would be the three letters behind my name.
Camile.Bidan
Banned
i have been sitting on this for a while. I think if you get into Taxation, it might be better than the path I took, but if you do taxes your career will be limited to tax.
I did the typical 3-4 years of audit training, but rather than going to industry or corporate accounting, I went to consulting. However, I consult for corporate accounting, so I understand was happens in corporate. This is the route that most people take.
Here are the good things.
1) Employment opportunities are everywhere. Where ever there is medium to strong economic activity, you should be able to get a job fairly easy with enough experience.
2) Access to work at a lot of cool companies. Accounting doesn't require a Ivy league education (or equivalent level non-ivy) to work at big Companies or even rise to a senior leadership role. This is not the case in many finance positions and other operations positions. I have been in board rooms with some pretty important C-level (as in CEO or CFO) people.
3) Flexibility. This depends on where you take a job, but even when I was in audit, I had plenty of opportunities to work remotely (from home) or leave early and finish some other time.
4) predictable pay increase. For me it seems like I get increases in pay every year, and they have been in my expectation for the most part.
Now here are the bad things.
1) PCAOB Staff pratice alert no. 11. This is something that has fundamentally changed how audits are performed and how public companies conform with SOX (sarbones oxley regulations). This regulation was released in 2013, and most college professors don't have any real world experience in this new SOX environment. You probably don't even know what Internal controls are or what SOX is, and I am not going to explain this here. Just know this. This year, multiple big 4 audit firms (EY, PWC, KPMG, Deliote) voiced complaints that the new PCAOB requirements have vastly increased audit work and personnel turn-over. In fact, I know that one firm has a turn-over rate of near 50% per year whereas it typically is around 20% a year.
What this means for you is that you will spend the vast majority of your time drafting 100+ page "walkthroughs" and testing controls Indeed auditing is more of a english major's field than anything else now. This is not fun. I did it for 3 years in the new environment and it broke me, and I watched it break many other people.
This, by extension, increases the drab and boring workload of corporate accounting into a collection of impractical and meaningless tasks. EVERYTHING and I mean everything needs to be documented. This means every review step and every thought that you made have had when preparing or reviewing even the simplest journal entry or reconciliation. This has made the turn over rates in corporate accounting higher! The worst part about it is...investors care more about non-gaap numbers than anything else! You probably don't know what that means, but essentially none of this extra work even impacts the market!
2) pay.. It sucks. I only know SF bay income salary numbers, but they aren't pretty. You will probably start at the big 4 making 55-60K, which is really bad. You then leave after two to three years and make 90K in Corporate, which is bad. If you stay until manager at the big four, you probably make 130-150K in corporate as a manager, which is bad. If you are really successful, you will rise to Controller in corporate and make 180-200K, which is bad. So the pay is all around bad. Engineers in bay start at 130-150K, so they will start at a salary that you could possibly make after 5 years experience if you stick to it. You need at least 200K in the Bay Area to even live comfortably. Add in kids, and it's a struggle. This situation may be different in other parts of the country, but I don't know actual numbers in other parts of the country.
3) CPA doesn't mean anything. I have my CPA. I barely worked for it and pass it with ease. That's the problem. It's too easy to mean anything or impress anyone these days. The test is getting harder now, which helps.
4) The work boring and it sucks. Accounting (especially in corporate) is extremely mundane and boring. You basically do the same thing, over and over, and over, and over, and over. Every single day. If you're lucky, you can use accounting to get into finance or IT, which seems better to me.
5) Females: This is something that many don't talk about, but many people even females, see this as a negative. There are a lot of females in accounting, and a lot of females in leadership positions. Now, some of the best bosses I have had were females, and some of the most indecisive idiots I have worked under were males. However, females in general change when they get power and females don't seem to form team bonds with their peers. I have audited 2 majority female and female operated accounting departments, I have consulted for a majority female and operated accounting department. Further, I there are so many females in auditing, so I experienced female managers and seniors on a daily basis.
In every instance, these female accounting departments have been nightmarish survival of the fittest operations ran by extremely mean and cold hearted female leaders. Whether they outright insult you, or just use the most annoying passive aggressive remakes, it's near torture dealing with these people. Also, females can't seem to work in a team without trying to destroy each other. It's very stressful, and I'd rather not be a part of it. I know this is pretty sexist to say, but most of the warnings about these environments and working with females in general, I received from good female leaders and co-workers that I trusted who had more experience than me. It always seems to work out exactly how they warned me. If you work on the west coast, you'll find that many of these accounting operations are ran by Chinese females, and they are everything I described multiplied by 100.
If you're a female, be prepared for the worst. In my audit life, I saw females treat others so insanely mean that crying was a daily occurrence. If you are a beautiful women with medium skill, you better be ready for a daily assault or personal attacks, passive aggressive remarks and gossiping about you. I don't know what it is, but pretty girls get the worst treatment from the females. In audit, I worked with 4 dime piece women who were solid, but not outstanding employees. I saw how the other females treated them and it was not cool at all. These dime pieces came to be my goto employees when I was in audit because they worked hard and I could trust them to get things done on time. There were other females that were definitely smarter and quicker to learn, and they were the ones that were the most mean to other females and weaker willed males.
There are many more reasons I could list, but I ran out of time sorry.
ill_will82
What you see, is what you get
I was really thinking about going back to school for another degree. and I was thinking about taking up accounting since I only need a few classes to get a degree in it. I'm going to look into the job outlook and research to see if it's worth my time being bothered. I already have one degree that's useless not trying to get another useless one.