I hate this shit so much. I just wanna hunt, eat meat, and have sex. Why tf was I born in this timeline where I gotta stare at screens and go on mf teams all day. I don’t wanna stare at a screen for 8 hours and sitting down all day doing boring ass shit anymore. I’d rather be a hunter gatherer and be free in nature. The native Americans had this shit down to a science. Fuck Columbus

I was looking at the company’s proxy statement for this year and holy fucking shit, the HR SVP made $900k in total compensation. $360k base, $340k bonus, and another $200k in stocks and other incentives 💀 HR???

I'll go first. I ended up in accounting (non CPA) because I struggled with that subject the most in grad school and I'm a glutton for punishment. I went back to grad school later in life and somehow ended up with an entry level position in accounting when I finished, and 6 years later I am still doing it. Do I love it? No. Do I even like it? Also no. I wanted to leave (I work in CAS) but found a remote job doing it and figured it would be crazy to turn it down. But if I scroll on Tik Tok sometimes and I would love to be an influencer. Yes, crazy I know. I have a theory that no one really "likes" accounting and we would all do something else if we figure out how. So what do you really want to do?

I’m a senior accountant working for the regional subsidiary of a group with revenues ~500m. My region contributes around 100m of that.

We got a new controller just before Christmas, and had apparently never used Oracle even though he’s been in accounting for 20 years. No problem with that, but he completely refuses to learn. He’s been here a year but doesn’t know how to run a TB or transaction listing, just completely reliant on others to run all of his reports.

The audit team sent a request while I was on leave, and it went unanswered for more than a week because he “wasn’t sure how to run the information they wanted”. Literally all they wanted was a transaction listing for a specific account, but he didn’t think to even google it. I know this guy is making absolute bank, and it’s baffling to me how he’s made it this far.

E: I feel a lot of responses are over-estimating how high up this guy is in the company. He manages 3 people (me & 2 others in a different country), none of whom have any management responsibility, and the hierarchy is him -> local FD -> Group FD -> Group CFO. We’re not talking about the no.2 guy in finance who’s meant to be driving strategy, his remit is very much financial control and compliance.

Holy guacamole, AI is dumb. I have a whole bunch of non-accountants running stuff through AI trying to tell me how to do accounting. And it is so wrong.

I don’t think people get, it’s way more than just debts and credits. There is judgment calls, there’s what you can support, there’s processes that are dependencies. There’s corporate structure stuff and a lot of that exterior knowledge that isn’t really described when people present something on face value. And that’s where we come in, cause we know like, hey, you gotta look for these other things or hey, you gotta ask more questions and just say what can we capitalize .

And let me be clear, AI with accruals and reconciliations, I’m pretty thankful for that help, but in reality, if you got your processes clean, it’s not that big of a lift

I did 4 interviews for a company, got a call last Saturday that I got the job, fill out the paperwork, and they called me today saying that the company took down the job and is steering another way.

Is this normal? I feel like crap now. I thought that everything went well.

I'm not saying that the Big 4 in the US, EU, Asia, SA, etc. don't get into hijinks. But I feel like the Aussies are always stealing the show. What is it about Straya that leads to so many high profile accounting scandals? Is it because it was quite literally colonized by criminals, or on the contrary, do they have enough whistleblowers and competent regulators to catch this activity? Is it somewhere in between? Really curious for some insight into the matter from the boys and girls down unda.

I got fired from my public accounting job for declining performance due to my burnout, and Im looking for the best way to discuss this that I can get away with while interviewing for industry roles so that I don’t come off as a slacker.

I’ve just been telling employers that they lay off people frequently throughout the year, as they do, and I happened to be included this time. I kept it as vague as I could, and in an interview feedback it was mentioned that I was not entirely clear about my departure.

Any better ways to discuss this? Can I potentially get away with saying I quit?

I think 4-5 monitors would be ideal

Hi everyone!

Is anyone here working or has anyone worked in international tax, either in advisory or compliance?

I come from a private banking background and I’m looking to transition into international tax. However, I’ve noticed that recruiters seem to favour candidates with a legal background

I recently came across the Advanced Diploma in International Taxation offered by the Chartered Institute of Taxation.

Has anyone completed the qualification or considered pursuing it? Is it well recognised by employers, particularly across Europe?

I’d also love to hear about any other qualifications or training programmes that could help someone transition into international tax without a law degree.

Any advice or personal experiences would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

This is my second encounter with some major unethical, possibly illegal, activity at the insurance broker I work for.

I have a major director in the company who writes policies at a higher commission rate for an insurance company that he created for his son. He is about to retire in a few months, and I am livid. His family makes hundreds of thousands a year off this agency - I know because I generate the commission checks.

Anyone more familiar with insurance activities in the state of CO and could guide me before I go to the authorities with what I’ve found?

I look Back and realize being a New grad is the absolute best time to get hired. Once you gain a bit of experience people will put you into boxes. I’ve had multiple interviews where I told them I only did non profits and they look at me with dissapointment. Entry level positions don’t even give me a chance whle I understand as they should go to graduates.

my peers are big 4 and waving off recruiters meanwhile I’m begging. im Sure in the grand scheme of things I will find my way out but it’s furstrating.

To give context to the question,i'm a finance student and i have alot of friends doing accounting,but whenever i ask them if they like accounting the answer is always no .i don't know what's the reason for it ,but compared to my colleagues in finance most of them really like finance .

I’m a junior accounting major with a 4.0 GPA, a student-athlete, and a relevant accounting/finance internship from a franchise company this past summer. I have no problem getting interviews, but I have interviewed probably 5-6 times for different internships (large and small firms), and probably 10+ times over the past two years without a single positive result. My internship this past summer was because of a connection with my family, but it was more of a last case scenario. I know entry level jobs/internships are hard to get right now and you rarely get a positive result after the first try, but a bunch of other people at my school and around me have gotten internships at the same companies I’ve been interviewing for. I prepare for hours and hours for each interview by reading their website and researching the interviewers and preparing 10-15 STAR situations. Each interviewer says I’m a great candidate, but every time I end up getting an automated email saying they won’t be moving forward with me.

I have 4 years experience in tax/payroll/bookkeeping at my current firm. It’s a very small firm so I do a bit of everything with my main focuses being bookkeeping and all things tax. I’ve realized I’ll never make what I want to make at this firm and I am thinking of making a change. I’ve been eyeing big 4 as a senior associate in tax, either corporate tax or salt. Can someone give me a realistic idea of what the workload/ day would be like? At my current firm I work no more than 40 hours and once I have my cpa it will be closer to 50-55 hours a week in busy season. So I’m not against working more I just want an idea before I make a big change.

Ughh I took this job that was labeled entry level accountant and tbh it was a BIG mistake. I just graduated college.

The owner said was doing the books he’ll train me. Turns out he neglected the books. He also has a gap in accounting knowledge.

Its been 4 months and Ive just been doing transactional work like ar, ap, bank rec, and credit rec. I havent done much accounting work. All the work I’ve been given was just backlogged projects that he hasn’t touched and need done. I feel like 80% of the time I’m just working on projects and not actual accounting.

The only reason I have a problem is because the owner needs to travel for business. So he will be gone for 2 weeks at a time and only talk in person for month end week. He says there’s no training in program and I have to learn his process for a year before he makes any changes.

We’re on accrual basis but he doesn’t follow GAAP closely since we’re not audited. So he closes the books and doesnt accrue the expenses so he just puts the previous month expense on the last date 31st to the first of the month. He also wants me to use his excel template to figure out fees on stripe by guessing the amounts. His credit card reconciliation template is so messy

He ends up doing a lot of manual journal entries to force the credit cards to balance when it doesn’t. His template is a hot mess and I have to use it.

I have an interview for an entry level M&A tax role at a big 4. I applied on a whim so I hadn’t done much research beforehand but I’m curious as to what I can really expect in terms of hours/WLB. I’ve seen people say things from 40-50 hours all the way to 80 hours every week. How bad is it really? Would love some insight into what I could expect. I know busy periods are unpredictable in this line of service but would appreciate hearing anyone’s experiences. Would I be able to have a life outside of work? I’m afraid if I’m working 70-80 hour weeks throughout the entire year my mental health is going to decline drastically lol.

6 years of experience and I've been at the same long/short equity fund for most of it. Currently Assistant Controller and looking to do a lateral move with the same pay (~200k all in) with 2-3 days in office. My resume is updated but I've only spoken with two recruiters so far.

I was excited at first until one of them started sending me crappy roles saying it would be hard to place me at a firm that isn't 5 days in office. Is this true? Most people I know work max 3 days in office. To me, requiring someone to be in 5 days a week doesn't bode well for work-life-balance culture. I also don't think it's worth interviewing for something I don't absolutely love on paper.

I'm not desperate for a new job right now so the last thing I want is to be pushed into something that isn't a fantastic move for my career.

Should I even bother working with a recruiter? Are there any firms I should avoid? Right now my blacklist is Mission Staffing, Atlas Search and Arrow Search because of past experiences. If I make the mistake of sending my resume to the wrong person I don't want my info sent to everyone and their mother.

Any other thoughts on the market right now and your experience with it is much appreciated.

Why aren’t more of you getting Data Analytics/MIS degrees to pair with your accounting degree? I graduated nearly 10 years ago in the first class of my university’s Data Analytics program and it has done way more for me than accounting would have done alone. Since graduating, I’ve seen a single auditor at PwC and Zero applicants have both majors.

If you understand even the basics of database architecture, granularity, and SQL you have no idea how dangerous that is now paired with an accounting background.

Software engineerings scope is shrinking. They will no longer build, just maintain and make efficient. Accountants and other subject matter experts of a process will be the builders, and they’ll hand off the working prototype to the Software Engineer.

You want to be the builders, not the guy doing the manual repetitive task that the builder will automate with Software.

I finally got a job after two years of applying as a graduate, but now I do 80% of the job and then the final 20% of it I end up messing up somehow. I want to get better at my job but I ALWAYS seem to miss something.

I was supposed to have a mentor I could lean on but she ended up leaving in my first week here.

Like today I thought I was doing pretty well, but then a personal tax client I thought I completed in my second week where they sent me so much paperwork. I managed to get it all done but made tiny errors here and there like putting overseas dividend income under USA even though there wasn’t USA in there. I just assumed it was there for some stupid reason. The tax director saw this and is going to run it by me on Wednesday morning, I don’t even know what I’m supposed to say about this.

How can I get better at my job?

Edit: I’ve been here for 1 month

I'm doing college applications and they keep asking why I want to be an accountant. I don't know what to say because do people ever have a passion for accounting?? I'm doing it for the consistency of the same building and the same desk and the same job every day. But I cant say that because college will be anything but consistent. I looked at some old posts here but couldn't find much that would look good on my application.

Curious if anyone here with a Big 4 audit background, or a mix of Big 4 and industry experience, has been thinking about a different career path lately.
I made a move into advisory and have found it interesting to see how those skills translate into different types of projects and work. There are paths outside traditional audit that may offer a different mix of work, compensation and work-life balance.
If you’ve been exploring your options or are curious about what the transition can look like, feel free to reach out. Happy to share my experience and connect you!

Did anyone else do this? If so, how did you know what modules to test on in Becker since I-75 review is so much different? For example I-75 starts with the balance sheet, but doesn’t touch on OCI until chapter 22 and that is literally a huge part of module 1 on Becker? Please send tips 🥲