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    Accounting Freeze panes has left the game

    May 06, 2020

    Accounting Freeze panes has left the game

    Freeze panes has left the game

    Posted: 06 May 2020 04:32 PM PDT

    Don't stay in public accounting kids.

    Posted: 06 May 2020 12:57 PM PDT

    10 years ago I decided to go back to school for accounting. Here is how my career went.

    Posted: 06 May 2020 06:38 AM PDT

    Hi everyone, the past few months have been pretty crazy and there have been a number of posts about salary, career progression and what the outlook is like especially during a recession. I've been wanting to write up my journey into and through accounting because I was in very similar shoes about 10 years ago.. I hope my experience can enlighten potential career changers or anyone else just starting out.

    Grad School - Salary $0

    I decided to go back to school in 2011 when a previous career wasn't working out. This was in the middle of the last recession and I was making about $29K in a dead end job. I was 26 and had an undergrad in communications. I didn't really know what I wanted to do with my future other than I wanted a career where I could be comfortable raising a family and actually make some money. I took a shot in the dark and decided to get a masters in accounting. I think this was because I've always enjoyed economics and accounting is a very practical application of that. I also just like money in general. Like most people here, I didn't really know what a career in accounting meant. I had taken a single general business class in my undergrad and knew I needed to research my options. There was a top tier state school in my state that has a great program for people who do not have a background in accounting. I enrolled in community college to knock out some basics while I applied to schools in my state. I got really lucky and was accepted in the program at the top tier school to start summer of 2012. It was a great program, not only because it catered towards non-business undergrads but the program was essentially 1 year + 2 summer semesters. I could get in and out without racking up too much debt. The school also had excellent recruiting. I had half a dozen interviews including 3 of the big 4 in September. I got 4 offers including Deloitte and PwC. By the middle of October I accepted an offer for PwC to start the following September. This was like night and day compared to my undergrad program in communications where you were pretty much on your own to find a job. While school was hard, I enjoyed reliving the college life. I appreciated some things a lot more this time around. I graduated summer of 2013 with just enough hours to take the CPA exam. The last few weeks of summer were bitter sweet because I knew the stress of school was winding down and my new career was starting, but I also knew that the path ahead of me was going to be difficult. What I didn't realize was how fucking difficult things were about to get.

    PWC - Salary $52K
    In September of 2013, I started with about 15 other people in our city's office. I felt a little behind from some of my piers because I did not do an internship. Looking back now that didn't really matter because nobody knows anything when they start even interns. After training, I immediately got put on a year-round healthcare client. The good thing about this client was the team was solid. There was a dude I remembered from recruiting who was hilarious and we immediately bonded. There was another experienced associate who was also a hard worker and she was very patient with me. Things were looking like it was gonna be a decent engagement. I had heard that this client got picked for a PCAOB inspection the year before and also filed 2 weeks past the SEC's deadline the year before. The manager and senior manager assured us that this was all in the past and the firm was ready this year. I was naive and believed it. Starting in early November, we started working till about 10PM because the company was restating their financials. This was my first taste of public accounting shit. I was probably putting in 65+ hours and it wasn't even busy season. The rest of my starting class was working normal hours. I could sense that busy season was gonna suck. I need to get my CPA done and out of the way. I keep my head down and try to study as much as I can. I was determined to get my $5K CPA bonus from the firm. We end up getting through the restatement and I pass FAR with a 76. Thank god I passed because I really think I might have given up in defeat if I failed. I rush to study and take BEC before the holiday break knowing that the other side was busy season. I passed BEC and spent the holidays with my family.

    When I returned, the experienced associate who was my friend put in his notice to get the hell out of there before busy season started. I wasn't bitter but I was I worried. Busy season starts and I entered the most miserable 3 months of my entire life. This company was an absolute shit show. I remember that I was "in charge" of testing revenue which consisted of over 1,600 selections. Yes, you read that right. Me, a first year who didn't know substantive testing from my asshole was in charge of testing this ungodly amount of bullshit. On top of that, our testing strategy was to make the company's IA do the testing and I would "review" it . What a joke, I had no idea what was going on. We were working past midnight M-Th, 5PM on Fridays, 9-5 on Sat and then 12-5 on Sunday. This went on for 6 weeks! I was completely miserable. I had multiple managers tell me I was a subject matter expert. Ha! That was the extent of my coaching, just a bunch of shitty managers who are too busy telling me that I am expert. The only saving grace was the light at the end of the tunnel. Since this was a public company they HAD to file by the deadline. Right? The senior manager kept assuring us that there would be no late filing this year. She told me this to my face one week from the deadline with the whole fucking file was a giant dumpster. We ended up missing the deadline, and the next deadline and the company got de-listed months later for failing to provide audited financial statements.

    I eventually got off of this client around April thanks to my coach who was sympathetic. I know that I was peacing out of there as soon as I passed the last two exams so I put my head back down and managed to pass REG and AUD in the summer. At that time BDO reached out to me for an interview and I decided I wanted to give public accounting one more shot. I remember getting the partner to sign off on my 1 year of experience the day I interviewed. Not long after that the $5K was deposited into my account and I left PwC.

    BDO - $62K

    After getting my CPA bonus at PwC, I jumped to BDO based on a referral from a friend who worked there. The main draw was getting to work on some technology and software clients. BDO was like night and day difference from PwC. The work-life balance was actually real and not just something the firm talked about. On top of that, I worked with people that actually cared about me. I was able to get on a few good clients, public and private. The actual audit work was pretty similar to PwC but slightly less BS. There was a bit more travel as my main client was about 4 hours from the office. However, the firm was very good about not making the travel jobs suck. We drove in on Monday morning and left Thursday afternoons. Busy season was also a lot less stressful. On a typical day we'd usually roll in around 8:30-9 and leave around 8:30-9. A far cry from PwC where leaving at midnight was "normal." At this point, I started to realize that working the hours I did at PwC were NOT normal even though the firm tried to make you think that.

    I really liked BDO and would recommend it to anybody who wants to do public but knows they don't want to do Big4. Everyone was much friendlier and the main partner I worked with was a genuinely nice guy. I worked there for 2 years. I finished my 3rd year in public after being the senior on a few jobs including a public company that had just been acquired. I was mostly an average to good employee, but I could see the writing on the wall that public accounting was not for me. My wife also got pregnant around this time and I didn't want to travel anymore. To the firm's credit they tried to keep me there by saying they would limit my travel. After my wife gave birth, I took 4 weeks for paternity leave.

    While on paternity leave, I got a linked in message from a really interesting software startup that was starting to become well known and I decided to leave BDO. At his point my salary was around $68K. I put my two weeks notice in about 5 weeks after I returned from paternity leave. BDO even made me pay back my paternity leave. lol

    Startup 1 - $80K
    I started working as a Sr. Accountant at a "mid-size" start up around fall of 2016. I think there were around 70-80 employees. The startup was a gig startup kind of like Uber. They were mostly based out of the state I lived in, but had a small presence in other parts of the country and Canada. When I started the company was transitioning off of a third party accounting service. This company would come in for a few weeks out of the month and close the books. They were pretty expensive but I thought they did a decent job. We successfully transitioned off of them after a few months and the majority of the work they did was on my plate. About 3 months after I started the company shifted focus and pulled out of all markets that were not in the immediate region. We had some layoffs as well. It was kind of a scary time for me since I didn't know what would happen. The CFO and CEO were very open about everything though. In fact, I've never seen a more open company. Our financials were shared with every single employee in the company every month. Pretty crazy looking back, but everyone really felt like they were building something together. As cliche as it sounds it did feel like a large family.

    I was part of the initial Audit for the company. This was my first time being on "the other side" it was a great learning experience for me There is nothing like having to explain the past 2 years to an auditor when you weren't even with the company. During the audit my immediate boss left and we hired a new controller. The new controller was a pretty interesting guy who I later came to respect immensely. When I say interesting, this guy wore outfits you could describe as "street wear" and was an avid basket ball player. He even wore surfer pants to his interview. The reason he could do that is because he was actually pretty sharp. Probably the smartest accountants I have ever worked with and will always be grateful for being a mentor to me. He kept an extremely tight ship with myself and the other staff accountant. He expected quality and wasn't afraid to call you on your bullshit. But he was never short on praise when you worked hard. He was also not afraid to push back on our finance team when they did things that didn't sit right. He also let the CFO know how hard the accounting team worked and went to bat for us a lot.

    Our task was to create an automated accounting system for all of our transactions. I mentioned earlier that we were an app kind of like Uber. We had about 500K customer transactions a month but each of these might have multiple payouts to an independent contractor. Each customer transactions could have 4 or 5 actual transactions within it. We also ran promotions that could give different type of credits to customers that had to be treated differently. Customer could call months later to refund, or dispute. There were a lot of moving parts. I worked closely with my boss and an engineer to build out these giant tables that we could book JEs off of. It was hard work and took the better part of 18 months but sooo satisfying to see all that hard work pay off. I honestly don't think I'll do anything as complex or satisfying for the rest of my career. I could write a lot about my experience with him and the work we did building out the accounting but I dont have all day. My career owes more to my 2 years at this company and working with him than I'll probably ever realize.

    While we were building this system, our company was acquired by a multi billion dollar company that is very well known. People who had been at the company for a while, like myself, got a good payout as well as decent retention bonus all based on salary and years of service.The way this was relayed to employees was by a 1:1 meeting with your department head and an HR rep from the acquiring company. I got $35K bonus that day and $7K every quarter for the next 4 years. On top of that my salary was immediately bumped to $90K. In front of this little old HR lady I blurted out "HOLY SHIT!" It felt like I had won the lottery. It was a pretty crazy day. Employees were giving each other hugs and crying. I saw grown ass adults cry. Probably the closest I'll ever get to feeling like I won the lottery.

    The new parent company was pretty hands off. We had the benefits of a big company and the culture of a small company. It was the best of both worlds. I spent the next 12 months getting accustomed to inter-company accounting along with my usual duties. My boss had his first kid around this time and made plans to leave the company and return to his home region to start a family. At this point, I had been with the company for over 3 years. Without a title change. While my compensation was amazing due to the retention bonus, I felt like I was trapped. I was getting paid too much for my senior accounting role to make the jump to another job without moving up to controller. I honestly thought I was going to be there for a long time. I stayed for another year before getting a message on linkedin about a controller job. It was a hard decision to make but I ultimately decided to leave. I felt the company's culture was changing and some prominent managers had already left. I also felt like I had done everything I could there. It was time to hit the trail. It was bitter sweet because I dont think I'll ever work at such a unique place and have such a unique experience.

    Startup 2 - $120K
    So here I am. I'm currently working for a really interesting startup as the controller. My role is work from home which is fucking awesome. I cannot stress enough how great it is to not commute. It's an extra 10 hours a week I get. My boss seems like a really great guy.The company is kind of the opposite of my last role. The revenue is high dollar yearly contracts instead of the opposite at the previous position. I'm really excited to be less in the details and work on managing the team.

    So that's my life story, thanks for reading all of it. Looking back I made the right decision to go back to school. Would I make the same choices if I could do it over again? Probably, but I also got really lucky with how a lot of it played out.

    submitted by /u/ThrowAway_CPA_1
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    When you’ve been working for 4 hours since 9:00AM but you check the clock and it says it’s only 9:36AM.

    Posted: 06 May 2020 09:28 AM PDT

    IAS 16 wouldn't appreciate it

    Posted: 06 May 2020 08:03 AM PDT

    Taking my adderall after being out for 2 weeks

    Posted: 06 May 2020 09:01 AM PDT

    Have you ever worked so much on a shitty workpaper that it makes you nauseous

    Posted: 06 May 2020 09:20 AM PDT

    I feel like I'm just spraying febreeze on shit. I now subconsciously associate my computer/pc gaming area with audit because of wfh.

    🤮🤮

    submitted by /u/mrnicedude12
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    Application says $100,000 USD - for top 1% “raw intelligence”

    Posted: 06 May 2020 07:58 PM PDT

    I thought my father wrote you off a half million years ago

    Posted: 06 May 2020 07:45 PM PDT

    CPA Exam or MS in Data Analytics?

    Posted: 06 May 2020 07:29 PM PDT

    I'm wrapping up my MAcc. I work in private accounting for healthcare NFP. I pretty much have no desire to work in public accounting unless it would be to shorten the hours requirement for my license. Also, accounting is a new career for me in my mid-40s. My wife passed a little over a year ago and I've liked keeping busy since she passed. I was wondering if I should by bypass the CPA exam and just do another master's but in analytics? In healthcare especially it's a desired skill. I don't think I can get knocked for lack of ambition with two grad degrees. Or maybe take a break from classes and take CPA exam? Thoughts? Thank you

    submitted by /u/MAccDaddyinNV
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    Is it worth it to go to school for an extra 2 - 3 years for CS and spend another ~40k if I realized I don’t like accounting?

    Posted: 06 May 2020 08:21 PM PDT

    22 years old

    3rd year undergrad

    submitted by /u/redditboy464
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    Undergraduate consodering leaving accounting altogether. I need advice pls

    Posted: 06 May 2020 05:36 PM PDT

    Currently in my junior year studying to get a bachelors in accounting. After a couple of months browsing this subreddit and making research found that the general consensus was that working over 60 or 70 hours per week in this career was common. Getting paid 50k or 60k for working those hours does not seem worth it for me. I did enjoy my principles of accounting classes and that's why chose this but I am honest with myself and I don't believe that I would like to work that amount of time. Is industry a better path for me? or they also work those unhealthy crazy hours? Is it too late to change majors? I need advice bros.

    submitted by /u/Srv110398
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    One thing I miss about Big 4 & public...

    Posted: 06 May 2020 11:59 AM PDT

    Is all the free shit you get. Yes you can argue that you they give you those things instead of a higher salary, however, going from an environment where you get a lot of free stuff to almost none is kinda meh psychologically.

    Mice, monitors, keyboards. Get to expense things frivilously since people just approve it anyways. Find random perks like TSA Pre or discounted hotel & car rentals. And at my B4, you used to get money for "living healthy" which you could just abuse to get a lot of Amazon gift cards. On top of expensing meals for doing things like firm recruiting.

    submitted by /u/m0bilize
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    Officially done with Intermediate I and II!

    Posted: 06 May 2020 07:07 AM PDT

    The struggle is over! Onto audit and Financial Analysis next semester

    submitted by /u/itsajokeyall
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    Does anyone else misspelled depreciation as "depression"?

    Posted: 06 May 2020 09:25 AM PDT

    Anyone starting to head back into the office?

    Posted: 06 May 2020 07:57 PM PDT

    We're starting to ease back into it, and opening back travel (my group doesn't fly). What about you?

    submitted by /u/Dave-CPA
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    Thoughts on Another 71/Ninja?

    Posted: 06 May 2020 05:34 PM PDT

    I'm considering using Ninja along with wiley to prep for BEC. Sitting on 5/26, haven't started studying yet. Have Audit next, 7/1.

    Lol pray for me.

    submitted by /u/treese25
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    What do managers do besides review workpapers?

    Posted: 06 May 2020 11:35 AM PDT

    Serious question, currently a senior, potentially interested in staying on

    submitted by /u/morobin1
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    Do you think accountants are under appreciated or nobody gives a heck?

    Posted: 06 May 2020 07:06 PM PDT

    Just curious so drop in below your opinion if interested.

    submitted by /u/CeliMaru21
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    Chances Big 4 pays 1st year > 2nd year

    Posted: 06 May 2020 07:46 AM PDT

    So on a leadership call last week, they mentioned freezing all raised across the board. I also know they raised base for starting first years. What are the chances a big 4 firm pays the first years more than the second years and if this happens what do you think the effect would be on the the second years?

    submitted by /u/RllnMJThtsAChpVctn
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    1: public, 2: industry?

    Posted: 06 May 2020 09:04 PM PDT

    So far most of the posts I've read on this subreddit consist of those who've worked in public accounting (big 4,mid tier), switched out into industry accounting, saying that it might as well be the best decision of their life etc. Those I've asked have told me that experience in audit weighs alot in future career changes (1 year audit=3 years industry). It feels like these happy endings only happen to those who've gone through the audit path.

    Has anyone been working in industry from the start and is progressing just fine into management? Do you regret not working in public initially?

    I'm currently starting out as an intern as a fund accountant and I'm wondering if i should've started out in public first if i were to consider becoming a controller in the future.

    submitted by /u/afran183
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    Is public accounting really a good fit for me?

    Posted: 06 May 2020 08:44 PM PDT

    I'm a tax manager at a mid-sized CPA firm. I'm silly, fun, innovative, and creative. My office is quite the opposite... very resistant to change and very much stuck in the traditional ways of doing things. I love my job though especially the flexibility and variety, but I feel like my traits would be more appreciated elsewhere. Additionally, I'm introverted and consistently get career feedback telling me to be more extroverted so that I'll be able to bring in clients down the road. It's discouraging to say the least. I'd appreciate any advice you guys might have!

    submitted by /u/thesassycpa
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    How do I find what are the average financial ratio by industry such as which is acceptable and which are red flags?

    Posted: 06 May 2020 08:32 PM PDT

    Is cismarket.com reliable for data. There is also readyratios.com. I am just trying to figure out average ratio so when I crunch number, at least it make sense depending on industry. What are some good reliable sources that you guys use to keep up to date?

    submitted by /u/samsunggalaxys4yeah
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    What to expect in industry?

    Posted: 06 May 2020 07:54 AM PDT

    Hey all I'm on a third and final interview for a Senior Corporate Accounting position at a large international company. I'm a 2nd year tax associate what can I expect in this role? Public tax accounting is the only job I've had after graduating so I'm not sure what all to expect other than job description and what I've been told in interviews which I think has a fair amount of employer polish and kookaid. It's a 33% raise on my current salary so I'm very interested in it but I'm not making decisions 100% based on money. Direct report to controller. Boring? Same thing everyday? Low upward mobility? Thanks guys!

    submitted by /u/mrboobs26
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