r/Accounting

Been browsing through tons of posts about CPAs starting their own firms and almost everything I see is pretty positive. Most people seem to think you can build up solid income within around 2-3 years if you know tax work well enough going in

What's weird to me is I'm not seeing much pushback or cautionary tales about going solo. Maybe I'm looking at wrong places but for a profession that values security so much, seems strange that everyone is so optimistic about entrepreneurship

So my question for the CPAs here - is running your own practice actually as stable as these posts make it sound once you get past those rough initial years? Or are people just not sharing the downsides

Currently taking cost accounting and I refuse to believe that everyday accountants are memorizing dozens of formulas and using them at work.

We’ve been ordering lunch on Saturdays while we grind these taxes. I ordered huevos con chorizo. The packaging said huevos con chorizo. It was fajitas.

Nobody else complained about their orders being wrong, so I figured I wasn’t going to raise a stink, mistakes happen.

Then one of the partners comes in and asks if my order was wrong. I said yeah. They asked if it was fajitas. I said yeah, it /was/ fajitas but not anymore. They asked me what I got and I said huevos con chorizo and they said “so that’s what that was.”

What’s the maximum prison sentence I can expect from this transgression?

I put in a full day today. should I feel guilty about not logging on tomorrow? what are your easter work plans?

During the interview, they said I have to work 60-70 hours during busy season which was something I was okay as frash out of school and needed the experience. They also said any overtime is 1.4x the regular.

example:

I worked 63 hours week 1

I worked 59 hours week 2

Direct Deposit hit last weds and it was same amount as I have been getting paid before tax season.

Are hours calculated based on billables because my billable never goes above 6-7 hours since I also do non-billable tasks.

Is this the norm? I honestly dont want to say anything if it will lead to me getting fired before I get my cpa hours.

someone care to explain?

As the title says, I'll be graduating with a 3.47 GPA, but I obtained 150 credits for the CPA exam. I'm just a little bitter that I won't be graduating with a 3.5 GPA, which could have been reached this semester, but I'm at the point where I genuinely don't care to put effort into my studies. Will these stats still look favorable to employers?

My director clearly favors a select group of seniors, consistently assigning them the most valuable clients and strongest team members. Meanwhile, the rest of us are left managing smaller clients, smaller teams, and less experienced staff, yet we’re all evaluated as if we had the same level of support and resources, all of which creates a cycle that feels impossible to break.

I feel like I’m working harder just to keep up, since I handle a higher number of clients and more often than not have to step in and do parts of my team’s work myself. I’m reaching a breaking point. The situation feels deeply unfair, and it has already impacted my performance reviews before and I can’t help but worry it will continue to affect me down the line.

What salary should I be asking for? Tax, 2 busy seasons experience in public (1.5 years total). Just got CPA.

Industry or Public Tax, Bay Area CA. Is 90k too high?

Does anyone else have survivors guilt after layoffs? My favorite coworker was laid off at quarter end. Not only is it heartbreaking but I'll be taking on the bulk of her work. It's been so frustrating to see offshore take over my team and this push for AI is annoying as hell.

We’re officially a few days away from April 15th deadline . If the client sends you a new trial balance, how would you react?

#busyseason

I have been working at a very small tax firm for about 8 years. After I got my CPA license almost 5 years ago, I opened a small firm on the side to handle a few new clients who had directly approached me.

Over the years, this firm that I have on the side separate from my day job working at another firm has grown and grown all pretty much on its own. So much so that I feel as if I am always working and have very little time, if any, for anything else.

My wife and I just had our second child and upgraded to a new home last year. This has by far been the most difficult tax season for me by far.

My firm is also now generating right around the amount of monthly revenue to cover all of my monthly expenses. I am considering either dropping to part time, or leaving all together, for my main job to mainly focus on this small firm and improve my overall quality of life. I am nervous to do this as I feel it is a big step and am curious to hear what others who have had similar experiences may have to say.

With all of this being said, I also have had a verbal agreement to purchase the firm that I currently work at when the owner retires. The problem is I fear that he will never retire. We are supposed to implement this deal sometime in the next year. The issue is that the deal he has laid out is extremely one sided (against me) and I do not believe there is any room for me to make any adjustments.

I am heavily considering not purchasing the business and just shifting my focus to my own firm from here on out. I would love to hear from others that have had similar experiences and also can offer some guidance on what you think I should do.

Thanks!

Like what kind of job I could I find ?

Hi All,

I'm a new grad. I have over 3 years of experience in the accounting industry (primarily manufacturing) so far. I have my bachelor's in accounting.

I gor lucky and found an AP role in my first year of college that transitioned into a staff accountant role at a smaller company. I also worked at a smaller tax firm on the side.

The market has been rough, so I decided to take on a "financial analyst" position at a small-mid sized company. I was excited at the chance to do something new. I have been here ~7 months.

Instead, I:

-Can't see the financials or the budget. (How do I analyze anything without this?)

-Calculate inventory reserve & perpetual inventory

-Handle all product disposals (QA job.. no?)

-Host a weekly inventory disposal meeting

-Upload labor to work orders, monitor variances in capacity/material costs

-Do a weekly cycle count

-calculate a yearly tax credit

-calculate our expired inventory/soon to expire inventory per QA needs..

-not allowed to do any JE's/adjustments

-Calculate sales/order fill rate in a report sent out to the company

-roll up standard cost for new items

-create new items in our ERP

-Update all customer price lists

Turnover rate was phrased as "new and better company culture" to me in my interview.

Our turnover rate is TERRIBLE. we have a 1.5 on glassdoor. We've lost 6-10 people who were critical in aspects to my role in the past 3 months. My workload has doubled. My boss quit 2 months into me starting. was told only "40-45 hours a week" max. I haven't had that since I started. They're not hiring replacements.

I'm feeling very frustrated as it's not what I was expecting. I feel like a glorified inventory analyst rather than a part of the finance team.

Additionally, I was told that a "3 day close" will be the norm going forward. We have not done a 3 day close since I started - usually closer to 6 days. I have worked 13-14 hour days this week to try and meet that goal as I'm a salaried employee.

I don't feel like this is the path to growth for me. Any advice for the future? For future jobs?

Thank you if you read this far.

Hello everyone. I will (hopefully) be finishing my bachelors of science in accounting by the end of this year. I am 25 years old and have spent the past 7 years in the same job, but it’s a minimum wage reception job. I am taking my classes online, so I don’t have the networking options that come with going to a traditional college.

I’ve already started looking around at the job market in my area, and everywhere around me that’s hiring is asking for at least two years of experience as well as the degree. I do plan on taking the CPA exam sometime after I finish, but I know looking at the job market it’s much more important for me to gain experience. Even the jobs that are asking for CPAs are asking for a couple of years in experience as well.

I do plan to relocate within the next couple of years because I know a bigger city will bring more job opportunities, but I can’t do that without finding a better job first.

If anyone else got their degree a little later and didn’t have the network and connections, were you able to get a decent start somewhere without relevant experience? I’m starting to wonder if maybe I chose the wrong path.

Going for 150 cred for cpa and want to double major but unsure whether to do BAIT or finance. Heard finance is usually the go-to double major but seeing how the market is changing and BAIT seems interesting to me I am heavily considering it. I did hear that the major in my school doesnt teach anything exceptional and if it weren’t a double major it wouldn’t be worth it. Need advice 🙏

I was working for a regional firm as a tax associate preparing tax returns I felt like I was doing good on the individual and the trust side, but what really was my downfall I believe was the partnership and business returns. I would often go over the budget time trying to get the return to tie out to the grouping. I always was not sure about what adjusting journal entries needed to be made. And I would sometimes mess up importing the trial balance with getting it in the correct format. also, when making the adjusting journal entries, I struggled with knowing what accounts to hit . And if new accounts needed to be made, I had trouble with that too. We would use access for our tax software and I would have trouble getting the return to tie back to the tax grouping. I was often unclear if something was a TJE or FTJE or RJE and where to put them into the return. Another section that was confusing to me was the M1 M2 section and the expenses on books not on return or non-deductible expenses or income on return not on books ect. feel like I could have gotten it if I was given more time, but the senior manager I was working with would often sigh when we were on teams calls, and I was asking question. I wanted to get my CPA, but this is really discouraging. This is also my second tax position I have gotten let go from the first one was because I was not meeting the chargeable hour goal, but I did not even have enough work to meet it in the first place. Any advice is much needed and would be appreciated about how I should proceed. When I would ask my fellow associates for help they were often too busy with their own work and the senior I was working with was really disengage and ended up leaving later.

As the title says, I need some advice on this. I’m currently at Big 4 with promotion for senior coming up. There’s been talk all year that most people will not get promoted. I’ve had very good performance reviews and have more senior responsibilities the teams I work on, so I have fair odds I say - but it’s up in the air for everyone it sounds like.

The issues is, senior or not - I want out. I want to be in another job before the end of the year, this job has made most of my life work and I feel like I’ve been missing out on life and honestly quite miserable. I’d be staying just to see if I get promoted or not and add that title to my resume, but still leaving for the right opportunity.

I was looking for industry roles, but actually had a very small firm reach out to me. I took the interview not expecting anything, but genuinely really enjoyed my conversations with the partner. The last interview I had, they offered me a role that would match the salary I would get if I was senior at big 4, and there’s lots of opportunities at the firm.

Timeline wise they’d want to hire in 4-6 weeks max, I would find out about the promotion closer to 8 weeks.

Is it stupid to leave right before a big promotion at big 4? I know small firms as a whole can be very risky.. but I can’t say I’m not intrigued by this opportunity. I keep going back and forth on what I want to do.

Hello, I graduate this august with a degree in accounting and still don't have a job and feel super far behind.

I have been lucky enough to have 3 internships, 2 of which were at super small Tax advisory firms with just one CPA in the office, I currently still work at one of these firms and love it but the firm is too small they don't have a full time role for interns instead just use some for support in tax season. My 3rd internship was at a regional firm last summer, I was really banking on a return offer from here but it didn't work out, they had almost 15 interns on staff and 4 got return offers 3 of which had been there for multiple intern seasons and the other was a son of a partner. I was really banking on this so I didn't do much looking for post grad jobs last summer which is really when the cycle of recruiting is for my grad year.

The place I am at now has a close connection to one of the big 4 firms and I'm hoping that works out but I need more help/advice.

I have good experience and a 3.1 GPA and have already passed the ethics exam requirement for the CPA, how cooked am I?

Any advice on what to do next?

Has anyone ever left finance transformation consulting at big 4 to become a controller?

We work closely with CFOs/controllers and this is a transition I’ve been considering going for. Curious if skills are as transferable as they seem. Accounting degree but no CPA. ERP system and MEC optimization experience.