A Career in Accounting - Do I keep going?

[Phenom604]

I've been a Staff Accountant now for 2 years. I've been doing A/R, A/P, entering deposits, making cheques, doing bank recs, helping to prepare year end and monthly statements.

So far, this job has just been one for me to grind out in order to get to gain experience and get to a higher level position. It's not fun, it's not a passion (like poker is for me). I'm only in the accounting industry because I've heard it can lead to higher positions within a company, and because I'm good with numbers (which has helped me with poker)

For anyone in the accounting industry: Are there jobs out there that I can enjoy and make money? Please let me know your experiences. I'm a little lost here, and don't really have anyone to turn to for advice. I'm gonna quit my job very shortly for undisclosed reasons, and I need to find some direction in my life. I'm 30 by the way. I'm en route to pursuing my CGA designation (Canadian) and am wondering if I should continue this.

Any advice helps. Thanks alot guys.

[celiboy]

I'm actually a CA in Canada. Once you are designated you should have alot of opportunites for yourself - public practice, industry, gov't, your own accounting practice, etc. As for the work, yea it is boring, espescially when you start out and get the junior level stuff. AS you move up, things get a bit more interesting I suppose, but it's still debits and credits. The more you move up, the more pressure there will be as there are always deadlines espescially in a public company. Salary wise, once you are designated you should be at 50-70K and 100K should happen5 or 6 years from that point assuming you live in a big city. To be honest, I'd probably do something else if I could start over again, but the money is decent so at my pace I can retire at 45 and sit on my ass all day, or consult part time, so I think it's an OK trade-off for the boredom/pressure of the career. Also some aspects wouldn't be too boring...if you were involved with a start up, or an IPO that would probably be pretty interesting. Also once you are designated, there is nothing preventing you from doing non-accounting work. Having a designation is somewhat close to having an MBA, but more focused on accounting which is fairly important nowadays in business due to all the scandals over poor reporting lately.

Another thing to mention is that most of the people in this industry are Type A's who are also perfectionists, which means 60 hours+ a week will be the norm for most of your bosses and you will be expected to match that workload or be labelled a non team player. I'm pretty lucky as I work somewhere that is 40 hours a week for the most part, but that is unusual in my experience. Obviously being salaried, you would not be paid any OT.

[4_2_it]

I'm a US CPA with over 15 years of experience. I can relate to what you are going through. The 1st 3-5 years you are doing work that is really somewhat basic, but the skills that you are learning will prove invaluable later on.

My quick advice for you to get certified and spend a few years in public practice. That will open a lot of doors to allow to find a job in the industry that you want.

PM me if you have any specific questions, I'd be happy to detail my career.

[Tien]

Congradulations on quitting.

Don't waste your life doing things you hate for the money. Life is too short.

There are tons and tons of oppurtunities out there where you can enjoy doing and make money in the process.


Spend a lot of time soul searching. The answer is normally found deep inside you somewhere and will take time to uncover it.

It's not easy, but nothing worth discovering / worth having / worth doing is ever easy.

[bluef0x]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm a US CPA with over 15 years of experience. I can relate to what you are going through. The 1st 3-5 years you are doing work that is really somewhat basic, but the skills that you are learning will prove invaluable later on.

My quick advice for you to get certified and spend a few years in public practice. That will open a lot of doors to allow to find a job in the industry that you want.

PM me if you have any specific questions, I'd be happy to detail my career.

[/ QUOTE ]

Do you mind posting your basic history? Just the jumps you've made and your thoughts on each position you've held? Might be easier than answering tons of PMs.

[john kane]

I'd be very interested in hearing about accountants' careers.

If you had the opportunity to make $300K at least, possibly $400K, tax free (im from london) from online poker in the next 12 months, would you choose to start the ACA with a big 4 firm?

[mikecrooks]

Do you have a BA?

DONT DO A/P. F THAT. A/P is the most thankless [censored] job on the face of the planet. I have never seen a band of more miserable [censored] than in the A/P department. This is not good work. Run for your life.

Do you like tax and audit? I think this might be a more rewarding experience.

[yellowbastard]

[ QUOTE ]
So far, this job has just been one for me to grind out in order to get to gain experience and get to a higher level position.

[/ QUOTE ]

Isn't that a lot like saving up sex for your old age? - Warren Buffett

[WLVRYN]

I spent 8 years in public accounting with one of the big 4 firms (KPMG) in the audit practice. The first couple of years can really be a grind, but if you do a good job, its really easy to get onto good clients and work on more interesting things. By about the middle of my 2nd year, because I had done well and our office had a fair amount of turnover, I was in-charging decent size audit engagements. BY my 3rd year, I was in-charging bigger public clients. I was promoted to manager after my 4th year (a year earlier than usual) and senior manager by my 6th year. I worked a fair amount of hours, but you also get a ton of vacation to balance out the OT. As long as you do a good job and the partners like you, you will get promoted pretty regularly and your salary will grow fairly quickly.

I would proably have stayed with KPMG, but we moved to the Detroit area and I wasnt real enamored with the clients and the office in general, so I left as a senior manager to take a job in the accounting department of a Fortune 100 company as the manager of the technical accounting group handing M&A accounting and other non-routine accounting issues. I'm certain that if I had stayed another 2-3 years I would have made partner, but the move definitely clouded things.

Back to the OP, I'm not sure how it is in Canada, but in the US, I think you are best off at least getting in 2 years of public accounting. You can get your CPA license, and will get a pretty wide variety of experience, as well as learning how to research accounting topics.

[Uglyowl]

Sounds like you have a good start, but need to learn the industry. Go on monster, check out the accounting jobs and focus on what they are looking for in candidates. After you see what skills will help you get moving!

Maybe check out roberthalf.com, that will have some salary data (all jobs pretty much have it.)

Accounting/finance is a good place to be.