Okay so I asked my mom, who has a degree in acccounting, and if I can get the chance my uncle, who used to be an accountant, about what it is like to be an accountant so i have a general idea of what accountants do but I want to know the specifics like tasks, the hours, types of accountants, etc.
So my question is: How is the job life of an accountant?
How is the job life of an accountant?
-
Desert Rat
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Sun Jan 16, 2011 6:41 am
Accounting can be very cyclical. Accountants that practice tax work long, hard hours during tax season. I've heard tax practitioners encouraged to train for tax season, much as one would train for a marathon! Accountants for the larger firms that specialize in financial statement auditing can also face long hours and tight deadlines.
I'm a not-so-extreme early retiree from local government, where I worked in budgeting. Government work can also be very cyclical. Long hours can be required to meet statutory deadlines and to address the budget crisis du jour. In general, accountants in government don't make as much as accountants in the private sector. This used to be offset by greater job security and good benefits, but these advantages are rapidly disappearing.
Even though the eduction can be rigorous (especially if you pursue certification as a CPA) and the hours can be long, I'd recommend accounting. It's a profession that's always in demand, and you'll develop the skills you need to manage your finances and investments so you can retire early!
I'm a not-so-extreme early retiree from local government, where I worked in budgeting. Government work can also be very cyclical. Long hours can be required to meet statutory deadlines and to address the budget crisis du jour. In general, accountants in government don't make as much as accountants in the private sector. This used to be offset by greater job security and good benefits, but these advantages are rapidly disappearing.
Even though the eduction can be rigorous (especially if you pursue certification as a CPA) and the hours can be long, I'd recommend accounting. It's a profession that's always in demand, and you'll develop the skills you need to manage your finances and investments so you can retire early!
It's hard to say exactly, since "accounting" is a rather broad field with a number of career paths and specializations. Off the top of my head:
1. Accounting within a large company's accounting department: intense hours at month, quarter and year end; generally low pay and non-portable skills (each company's systems and procedures can be quite different) and usually high stress to achieve 100% accuracy.
2. Accounting as a bookkeeper, independently or for small companies: Don't need to be a CPA, probably don't even need a 4-year accounting degree. This, however, is a much more portable skill; you can learn one of the two or three 'big' small business accounting systems (QuickBooks, for example) and you have the possibility of self-employment, while corporate accounting skills don't really transfer.
3. Auditing: This is my specialty. Generally auditing is broken down into two broad subcategories:
a. External audit: This is when you work for a firm (there are 4 big ones that make up most of the market - Deloitte, E&Y, PwC and KPMG) and audit other companies' financials. Horrendous hours, high pay on an annual basis but horrible on a per-hour basis, extreme "up or out" pressure to get promoted, and stress, stress, stress. On the positive side: early in your career you'll get access to high-level people at clients, so you'll get experience dealing with very successful types, you probably can travel widely on the company dime (I had business trips to places as far-flung as Indonesia, Russia, Malta and Armenia, as well as domestic travel in the US), and if you can grit your teeth and make partner you'll be well compensated. Getting a CPA is a must; you will not be promoted far without one.
b. Internal audit: Currently I am an independent consultant doing internal audit work. This means you work for a company and audit them, from the inside so to speak. Generally easier hours, slightly better pay and lower pressure; travel can still be quite exotic (I've done internal work in Argentina, England, Germany, France, Portugal, Turkey, etc. plus again tons of domestic travel). But the "end game" is less clear - generally it's a quite specialized field, and similar to a corporate accountant you can become an expert in your company's system, management, etc. and that skill is not very transferable to other jobs. The CPA is helpful although the industry has a less-well known "Certified Internal Auditor" or CIA designation that's helpful.
4. Tax: Obviously you can also go down the tax route as a corporate tax type or a tax/bookkeeper type, similar to 1 and 2 above. I have avoided taxes like a house on fire my whole career, but it's probably the best route if you dream of having your own profitable CPA practice someday; and yes, if you are a tax specialist the CPA is a must.
5. Finance: It's a bit tougher to get on this path, but with an accounting degree you could probably ease yourself over to finance with some effort in a corporate environment. The difference, simply, is that accounting records the transactions and finance decides HOW to record the transactions - i.e. finance does the high-level work and accounting records the results.
I'm sure there are dozens of other career paths, but those are the four biggest and the four I'm most familiar with, having spent half my career in external audit and internal audit and working daily with corporate accountants, finance and tax people as clients now that I consult.
I hope that helps. To self-promote a bit, I write a lot about this on my blog, bripblap.com, too.
1. Accounting within a large company's accounting department: intense hours at month, quarter and year end; generally low pay and non-portable skills (each company's systems and procedures can be quite different) and usually high stress to achieve 100% accuracy.
2. Accounting as a bookkeeper, independently or for small companies: Don't need to be a CPA, probably don't even need a 4-year accounting degree. This, however, is a much more portable skill; you can learn one of the two or three 'big' small business accounting systems (QuickBooks, for example) and you have the possibility of self-employment, while corporate accounting skills don't really transfer.
3. Auditing: This is my specialty. Generally auditing is broken down into two broad subcategories:
a. External audit: This is when you work for a firm (there are 4 big ones that make up most of the market - Deloitte, E&Y, PwC and KPMG) and audit other companies' financials. Horrendous hours, high pay on an annual basis but horrible on a per-hour basis, extreme "up or out" pressure to get promoted, and stress, stress, stress. On the positive side: early in your career you'll get access to high-level people at clients, so you'll get experience dealing with very successful types, you probably can travel widely on the company dime (I had business trips to places as far-flung as Indonesia, Russia, Malta and Armenia, as well as domestic travel in the US), and if you can grit your teeth and make partner you'll be well compensated. Getting a CPA is a must; you will not be promoted far without one.
b. Internal audit: Currently I am an independent consultant doing internal audit work. This means you work for a company and audit them, from the inside so to speak. Generally easier hours, slightly better pay and lower pressure; travel can still be quite exotic (I've done internal work in Argentina, England, Germany, France, Portugal, Turkey, etc. plus again tons of domestic travel). But the "end game" is less clear - generally it's a quite specialized field, and similar to a corporate accountant you can become an expert in your company's system, management, etc. and that skill is not very transferable to other jobs. The CPA is helpful although the industry has a less-well known "Certified Internal Auditor" or CIA designation that's helpful.
4. Tax: Obviously you can also go down the tax route as a corporate tax type or a tax/bookkeeper type, similar to 1 and 2 above. I have avoided taxes like a house on fire my whole career, but it's probably the best route if you dream of having your own profitable CPA practice someday; and yes, if you are a tax specialist the CPA is a must.
5. Finance: It's a bit tougher to get on this path, but with an accounting degree you could probably ease yourself over to finance with some effort in a corporate environment. The difference, simply, is that accounting records the transactions and finance decides HOW to record the transactions - i.e. finance does the high-level work and accounting records the results.
I'm sure there are dozens of other career paths, but those are the four biggest and the four I'm most familiar with, having spent half my career in external audit and internal audit and working daily with corporate accountants, finance and tax people as clients now that I consult.
I hope that helps. To self-promote a bit, I write a lot about this on my blog, bripblap.com, too.
I've been working in the tax department of an accounting firm in Anchorage, AK since May of last year. I also had two accounting internships before I started here, one at a theme park where I did internal accounting and finance functions and the other at a regional accounting firm in Bellevue, WA. During my theme park internship most of my work consisted of various reconciliations. It started with reconciling the credit card machines to the cash register reports for each stand in the park. Then there was a daily performance report that was prepared on performance by stand. As mentioned above at month end things were a little more busy but my boss was only at work for more than 40 hours a week about twice a year so it was a fairly consistent schedule. Personally doing the same reconciliations day in and day out was too boring for me.
My Bellevue internship consisted both of audit and tax work. The audit work was mainly 401(k) plans where you conducted tests to make sure that participants are eligible for the plan, that they were receiving the allocation of income from the funds as they should, that the employer was sending in their payments timely, and many other tests regulated by ERISA. This work consists of talking with the client's personnel and extracting information from various documents. Full sized audit work is similar in that you talk to the client's personnel and extract data but you also do other types of testing and gain a full understanding of the clients accounting system. Many people I know have audited for 3-5 years to get their CPA license and practical experience and then become a controller or CFO for a client or some external company. For auditors hours vary based on the time of year and depending on what type of clients they work on, but its typical to have work weeks much longer than 40 hours especially if they are traveling.
In my current position I mainly do tax work, much like my internship tax work it started out mainly as 1040s but as I showed my skills had developed I have been moved up to the point where I am working on large multi-state corporations with many subsidiaries. The tasks that make up preparation time include gathering information from the client, determining which special deductions the client's business qualifies for, tying out beginning equity, calculating book tax differences, and a few other tasks I'm sure are slipping my mind right now. The weeks have typically been 40 hours but for about two weeks before September 15 and October 15 I was working between 45-50 hours. Now the "real tax season" or "busy season" runs from February to April 15 and I've been told for the last few weeks we will be working for 60ish hours. We are also not allowed to take vacation during this period unless its for the birth of a child or death in the family type situation.
As mentioned above for both audit and tax work it is generally considered to be high yearly compensation but low effective hourly compensation. I'm willing to give you some specifics: My Bellevue internship paid me $20/hour. They gave me a fulltime employment offer at $51,000 and that was the same offer I got where I currently am. With the firm I'm currently with I get 7 vacation days, 5 flex Fridays (during the summer we get every other Friday off), and 20 personal days per year. So when they give me 32 paid days off a year it helps to balance out the long hours I do have to work during certain parts of the year. For someone fresh out of college (I graduated with a double major in Economics and Accounting in March of 2010) I feel very well compensated and those figures don't even include what the company pays for my health insurance which would bring the total compensation to almost $60,000. Hopefully the specifics help. Typically accounting firm work pays the best in the field with government and internal accounting a little behind but with a more consistent work week.
My Bellevue internship consisted both of audit and tax work. The audit work was mainly 401(k) plans where you conducted tests to make sure that participants are eligible for the plan, that they were receiving the allocation of income from the funds as they should, that the employer was sending in their payments timely, and many other tests regulated by ERISA. This work consists of talking with the client's personnel and extracting information from various documents. Full sized audit work is similar in that you talk to the client's personnel and extract data but you also do other types of testing and gain a full understanding of the clients accounting system. Many people I know have audited for 3-5 years to get their CPA license and practical experience and then become a controller or CFO for a client or some external company. For auditors hours vary based on the time of year and depending on what type of clients they work on, but its typical to have work weeks much longer than 40 hours especially if they are traveling.
In my current position I mainly do tax work, much like my internship tax work it started out mainly as 1040s but as I showed my skills had developed I have been moved up to the point where I am working on large multi-state corporations with many subsidiaries. The tasks that make up preparation time include gathering information from the client, determining which special deductions the client's business qualifies for, tying out beginning equity, calculating book tax differences, and a few other tasks I'm sure are slipping my mind right now. The weeks have typically been 40 hours but for about two weeks before September 15 and October 15 I was working between 45-50 hours. Now the "real tax season" or "busy season" runs from February to April 15 and I've been told for the last few weeks we will be working for 60ish hours. We are also not allowed to take vacation during this period unless its for the birth of a child or death in the family type situation.
As mentioned above for both audit and tax work it is generally considered to be high yearly compensation but low effective hourly compensation. I'm willing to give you some specifics: My Bellevue internship paid me $20/hour. They gave me a fulltime employment offer at $51,000 and that was the same offer I got where I currently am. With the firm I'm currently with I get 7 vacation days, 5 flex Fridays (during the summer we get every other Friday off), and 20 personal days per year. So when they give me 32 paid days off a year it helps to balance out the long hours I do have to work during certain parts of the year. For someone fresh out of college (I graduated with a double major in Economics and Accounting in March of 2010) I feel very well compensated and those figures don't even include what the company pays for my health insurance which would bring the total compensation to almost $60,000. Hopefully the specifics help. Typically accounting firm work pays the best in the field with government and internal accounting a little behind but with a more consistent work week.
-
TheWanderingScholar
- Posts: 650
- Joined: Thu Dec 30, 2010 12:04 am
@bripblap: I remeber reading your blog sometime ago.
Also from what I've read, I'm really leaning toward bookeeping since it seems to have less stress and I'll be able to have skills that I can bust out if I get laid off or feel like doing something. Do they need to update skills yearlly or is it a one time deal?
Also from what I've read, I'm really leaning toward bookeeping since it seems to have less stress and I'll be able to have skills that I can bust out if I get laid off or feel like doing something. Do they need to update skills yearlly or is it a one time deal?
Hi YAW - thanks for reading my blog 
I'd say bookkeeping is like anything else - you'll need to keep skills updated. Accounting - debits, credits, etc. - doesn't really change, but of course systems, regulations, etc. all do. But I'd imagine in general that the bookkeeping skills updates won't be as frequent or critical as a corporate accountant's might be.
I'd say bookkeeping is like anything else - you'll need to keep skills updated. Accounting - debits, credits, etc. - doesn't really change, but of course systems, regulations, etc. all do. But I'd imagine in general that the bookkeeping skills updates won't be as frequent or critical as a corporate accountant's might be.-
TheWanderingScholar
- Posts: 650
- Joined: Thu Dec 30, 2010 12:04 am