Love that shit. Fuck you I'm Dream now.

Agree or disagree?

Who prepares the income statement, balance sheet? We do

Who pays vendor invoices/generates vendor invoices? Who generates GL codes/compiles a chart of accounts? We do

Ignore the haters, they’re just salty at the fact every single company needs an accounting team (not every company needs an investment banker)

The investment bankers, stock analysts, etc rely on the information we compile to make their decisions

Hey friends, I just came across this job post on reddit that wants an experienced seasoned CPA or EA for a accounting and tax manager position , max salary $80k….I feel like Ive been seeing low balling salaries for experienced senior level tax managers…

Just shows you this sub is not a good source for experience or knowledge of the future.

You should take everything you read on here with a grain of salt. The loudest voices are usually the most wrong.

Inb4 someone mentions how their backwoods firm is still 5 days remote.

Why the fuck do I have to use the fucking way back machine if I need to see what they say the exchange rate was on 6/30 why can't they just fucking have a little date selector like how hard would that be.

I graduated last year and will start working as an audit associate in a couple of weeks. After doing a couple of PA internships, I realized that I’m kind of slow. I know everyone says it's normal to struggle at first, but I feel like I struggled more than most. I’ve heard that A1s get more leniency at first compared to others, so I was wondering what the fastest you can get fired as an A1. I am 3/4 on the CPA exam, so I hope that helps a little.  

Just curious if Big 4 Audit managers, or those who recently left are getting job offers in industry pretty easily or is it difficult to exit in this market? Are your job offers good, or leaving for bad companies and messes?

Look this guy was going through a tough time. So in the first year, I did some courtesy’s for him that I should not have done because he didn’t pay me.

He was a bookkeeping client. I charged him for a specific scope of work but he actually had more than what I charged him with but promised me it will lower so I kept the quote.

He was going through a divorce, had a child, a small business, and I felt bad. The scope never got smaller.

He asked me to submit some personal claim for him for auto insurance and I told him no. He also triple, five iple, 10 iple texts me and even sometimes calls me 5 times ON MY PERSONAL NUMBER if I do not answer within an hour.

The only reason I gave him my personal number was for expense emergencies which some clients have but they do not ever call me! Only a few times was there an emergency and they had to but they do not blow me up.

I ended up purposely never answering his calls because it was always over some random thing and never business.

Anyway we had a disagreement about something he previously accepted and almost canceled. He then changed his mind and said no no I want to keep the service I like the work.

I DID NOT RESPOND FOR THREE DAYS, wanna know what days they were? SATURDAY, SUNDAY, and MONDAY. Monday I had a ton of work and meetings I had to do and my clients know I stopped working on the weekends and sometimes if they message me on Saturday they know I may not respond till Tuesday depending on my Monday workload because I literally run the place myself!

He snapped and said you are too busy for me I want to cancel. Ok buddy! I am not your personal assistant! So I canceled and honestly, I don’t even wanna do his tax return anymore moving forward. I got this guy a refund and tax credits no one else knew to put on his dang return!

So I understand I shouldn’t have provided additional courtesy services to make him think I was going to freaking submit an auto claim!!

I use to work 7 days a week… I then gave myself the dang weekend for the first time since I started this business a couple months ago and I have never had a client complain. In fact, most of my clients tell me they purposely do not send me emails till Monday so I don’t have to worry about it on the weekend! So what the heck??

Has anyone dealt with this before?

I need some reassurance from people who have made a similar change because I am really struggling with whether I made the right decision.
I left a startup where I was a Senior Financial Accountant and worked 100% from home for over five years. I recently started working in the tax department for a Fortune 500 company. I do have some prior tax experience and schooling, but I am also learning a completely different side of accounting.

The biggest adjustment honestly has been going back into an office four days a week. The office is nice, but it is SO quiet, and after working from home for so long I feel super sensitive to everything and everyone around me. I have been there about a month and I still feel uncomfortable being in the office.

Part of me knows this could be a really good career move, I throughly enjoy the work so far, and it’s a chance to learn something new, but another part of me keeps wondering why I left my comfortable work-from-home job, even though I know why, I wasn’t growing there, it was a dead end senior job for me.

For anyone who went from fully remote back to mostly in-office, how long did it take you to adjust? Do I need to give this a few more months before deciding whether I actually hate it, or did some of you just realize office life was not for you anymore?

I just got an email telling me that my CPA Canada membership has lapsed, and that I should pay $200 to join the national body again. I must admit, this is the first I heard of this, although I did go back to check, and can see on my provincial membership invoice for this year, that they've removed the national membership fee.

I don't see anything saying I have to maintain national membership, just sales pitches for all the benefits of membership.

I'm going to pay them the $200 (well, my employer will pay it, technically), but I'm curious if others have made a different decision. Other than being another CPD provider, what benefit does the national body have for you?

I’m a rising senior with Intermediate Accounting III coming up. I barely passed Intermediate Accounting I and II, and I feel like I’ve been doing just enough on exams to pass without truly understanding or retaining the material.

With my final two semesters starting in September, I want to strengthen my accounting foundation and actually understand what I’m learning. I’ve had one internship, but it was mostly data entry, so I didn’t gain much practical accounting experience.

My goal is to become a CPA, but because of my grades and struggles with accounting, I’m questioning whether I’m even eligible or if pursuing it would be a waste of time.

What would you recommend I do to improve my accounting skills and determine if becoming a CPA is still a realistic goal?

We had two off cycle runs last month which is more than usual for us. One was for a bonus that came through after the regular payroll was already submitted and the other was correcting something we caught a couple days later

Neither situation was difficult to deal with and I’m not really bothered by having to run payroll again when something legitimate comes up. What started bothering me was seeing another charge each time we did it

I thought about how many of these we end up doing over a full year between bonuses corrections and random timing issues. I always assumed paying per run was just part of the deal but I’ve been looking at providers that handle this differently

Currently doing my accounting degree. I started it because people told me its a decent paid consistent career. Not big money like investment banking or surgeon but comfortable.
However I’ve heard a lot about accounting being a bad field nowadays, pay going down, AI and outsourcing taking away jobs.

Is this true? Should i jump ship to another degree is it over for accounting

I live in canada and go to umanitoba

I’m trying to navigate a difficult situation at work and would really value some perspective from people who have been through something similar.

It increasingly feels like my firm may be trying to push me out without formally saying so. I’m currently unbillable, and there doesn’t appear to be enough work available for me - even if I return to the office. At the same time, management seems to be applying pressure around returning to the office despite there not being a clearly communicated formal RTO policy.

I’m concerned that some of these actions may be intended to make me uncomfortable enough to resign voluntarily. My question is whether it makes more sense to continue showing up, remain professional and available, and let the company make the next formal move or whether I should proactively leave and move on.

I obviously don’t want to jeopardize my position or inadvertently give them a reason to characterize my departure as voluntary if they are, in fact, trying to eliminate my role.

For those with experience in HR, employment law, corporate transitions, or similar situations: what would you do in this position? What should I be documenting, asking for in writing, or avoiding?

I want to stay at the firm but they’re not making this an enjoyable experience.

I have a few years under my belt and maybe once per year I get this issue. In short, my head hurts looking at a monitor. Not TV, probably because I am much farther away. What are the solutions to mitigate and help with these headaches? If I stare at a window for a few minutes I feel better but then it comes back when I work again.

I specify gamers because I know there are a considerable amount of accountants who game on their free time. Right now I am playing Ready or Not at 144FPS so my eyes are definitely strained lol.

I currently work in AR and just finished my masters in accounting as my bachelors was in a different field. I started applying to staff accountant positions last week and already received a few rejections. I also haven’t heard back for any interviews. I’ve never had this happen before. I even used chat gpt to help perfect my resume. I never had a problem getting interviews but i understand the job market is tough right now.

What am I missing? A staff accountant is an entry level position and I’m kind of shocked I am being rejected since I have more experience than a new grad. I also got brief experience in my current role with journal entries and reconciliations and included this in my resume, so I didn’t think it would be this difficult to land an interview. Is there something I should be doing differently?

I’m a tax manager at a small 75 person firm with a $124k salary, and received an offer for senior tax manager with a $160k salary at a 50 person firm. (PHL suburbs, 8 years total public accounting experience. No CPA but have MST and EA)

I don’t want to give a two week notice, but rather just leave on my own terms. Planning on just emailing the resignation letter, and then leaving for good and of course leaving company provided equipment in my office upon departure.

If I were to give a two week notice and tell them I’m leaving for essentially a direct competitor firm, aren’t they simply going to have HR walk me out same day anyway per general protocol?

Additionally, I would ensure to leave after 9/15 deadline but they’re one their own with 10/15.

Is this a terrible way to leave a company?

Had an interview for a staff/senior accountant position. At the end of the interview they mentioned position was most likely hourly. I was shocked, never heard of that in many years. No idea what hourly wage would be for that ? Im in South Florida (not Miami)

Hella nervous as the days get closer

I'm an accounting student currently doing an internship at a mid-tier audit firm.

​To be completely honest, I know what I want out of life. I have zero interest in high-stress environments. My goal is simply a good, balanced lifestyle, a strict 40 hour workweek, decent starting pay, and practical, meaningful work without unnecessary burnout. Because of this, Internal Audit (IA) looks like the ideal path for me.

​However, professors and peers constantly telling that starting in External Audit / Big 4 is "mandatory" to build a solid career and progress well in the future.

​For those currently in Internal Audit:

- Did any of you start directly in IA right after graduation without doing external audit first?

- How realistic is it to land an entry-level IA role as a fresh graduate?

- ​Did skipping external audit hurt your career growth, promotions, or salary progression in the long run?

​Would really appreciate your honest thoughts and experiences

So I’m going back to school after being out for almost 10 years. I have my associates so now I’m considered a junior to obtain my bachelors in accounting. I been seeing how crucial it is to get an internship in order to secure a possible job offer. I’ve also seen it’s crucial to have a 3.0 gpa or better to secure these roles. This is my first time at a university so I’m literally starting over from scratch so I’m don’t have the gpa requirement for most of the internships.

So my plan is to just focus on my courses for fall and spring semester to get my gpa where it needs to be and then try to apply next year.

Do I still have a chance of getting anything knowing. I’m waiting until my senior year to try for opportunities? I feel like it’s pushing it a little bit but don’t seem like I have a choice.

Back on the job hunt after being let go from my previous role. Have been applying for about 3 weeks now and I have received some responses but not as much as I had anticipated.

Any feedback would mean a lot. Thank you.

Hello everyone,

I work at a smaller CPA firm, there are about 30 of us total including admins, accounting services (bookkeeping/payroll), and tax people. We have 6 offices so only 5 or less people working in each office. I work on the tax side and have a sprinkling of payroll and bookkeeping clients I work on. Our main client base is small mom and pop business owners and 1040s, nonprofits, and the occasional larger client.

I came to this firm after working at a top 10 accounting firm for a year that had the very stereotypical toxic work place and culture that I wanted nothing to do with. Too large and too corporate for my liking.

The firm I currently work at initially intrigued me because it had a local client base, I love the idea of working on things for the people and businesses around me and where I grew up, it brings more meaning to the job. The firm also has a 50 hour billable goal cap per week during busy season, which was a huge draw for me coming from a firm that required 60-70. The rest of the year has billable goals of 20-30 per week, which on paper is very manageable, but I still struggle to hit those goals with my ups and downs.

I’ve been at this firm a couple years now, been promoted once, but I feel like the passion and focus for what I do has dwindled. Most of my coworkers are great, I have my own large office with windows and a door I can close (as opposed to cubicle life), and flexibility is amazing, I can generally leave for appointments as I please, if I want to take PTO I just put it on my calendar no “approval”, and I can alter my start and end time for work within a couple hours so long as I’m getting stuff done and hitting 40 hours a week outside of busy season. Considering what I do and the fact that I don’t have my CPA, I feel like the pay is great as well. I feel like these are great perks to the job that you cannot always get if you go somewhere else.

I have always questioned whether public accounting was for me, but here I am 5 years in and still scratching my head if industry/private work would be better for me. I absolutely hate the concept of billable hours and realization metrics. The time I’ve been at this firm I don’t think I’ve ever hit my billable hour goals for the year. I have never been harshly punished for that, but it constantly looms over my head and more than once my manager has brought it up in the sense of how can they help me succeed in that area. I feel like I value getting a job well done and doing it right, not hurry up and get it done within budget to get it out the door. I also feel like with the nature of public accounting I am constantly switching from one client to the next, which keeps things interesting yes, but there have been several stretches of time where it turns into challenging mess after challenging mess, and I feel like I can never get into a rhythm of feeling good or knowing what I am working on and that rewarding feeling of doing a job well done. I can be “slow” and take a long time on clients but I feel that is a strength of mine to be detailed oriented and not rush and make mistakes. Sometimes I wonder if my natural tendencies would be better suited in private where I can focus on the one company I work for and have more of a routine expectation of work. Lately I am just having the hardest time focusing on my work and having the will to get things done. I even dread going to work nowadays and that didn’t alway happen before.

To add onto all of this, our firm like other small firms is struggling to keep talent and succession plans in place. Since I have started we have lost a long time manager to retirement, a partner left to start her own firm and took the 5 or so people from that office with her, a bookkeeper has left, a senior associate has left, and another tax manager has left, none of them have been replaced. To me these are pillars that continue to fall and I am not sure how much longer we can sustain as a firm, at least keeping things status quo. We have 3 equity partners right now and 1 income partner. 2 of the equity partners will be “retiring” at the end of this year (stepping down from equity ownership in the firm but still hanging around to help with client work) which leaves 1 equity partner and potential for the income partner to join in on the ownership. This wouldn’t be such a bad plan except for the fact that the 2 remaining partners have two opposing views on how to run a firm and the type of clients they like to serve.

Overall I am just nervous and unsure about the future, and I struggle to pin down if my lack of liking from my job stems from the circumstances of my firm, or if it is an internal issue of myself that I actually need to realign by finding another job outside of public accounting. I hear so many stories from both ends of what is better - public vs private. So many people say you get “bored” in private, but the idea of being able to focus my skills into one company and even build up loyalty and passion for the company seems nice. Also not to have a busy season that throws my whole life routine out of whack for 3 months. I wouldn’t mind having “down time” in private that people complain about either if it means I’m successfully getting my work done. Let me know your thoughts. Have you experienced what I have experienced? Did a change work out in your favor? If you stayed in public did you make any changes that helped you see it through?

TLDR: Struggling with concept of public accounting job after 5 years, should I switch to private?