re: CPA's Exiting Public Accounting

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Posted by Drury01

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What kind of things do you look for in a new hire for industry?

I like where I'm at now, but I have no interest in becoming a partner down the road, seeing how much our current partners work.

Being a CPA who primarily audits NFP's, does that hinder me in the eyes of industry, as someone previously suggested?

What about tax experience, does that translate to anything?

I also have a roommate who went straight to corporate after graduation. They offer no salary increase or incentive for a CPA. Obviously having a CPA won't hurt, but is it as much of a game changer as it's made out to be?

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Drury01

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Congrats on retirement. I would say you had a pretty good career. If I got to retirement age and was making on a cash compensation basis whatever 220K in today's dollars is worth, I'd be very satisfied.

That's a great career. You're compensation, in my eyes, is no where near below average. Congrats on retirement.

And FYI....CPA>MBA. By a lot....but I'm biased haha.

Which co offers 10% 401k without you having to contribute?

I worked for a regional CPA firm for about a year and a half. It was brutal. We did this 1065 project for a large publicly traded hospital chain and were offsite in their dusty, dark basement from Jan to March 15th. Typical week was the following.

7:45 to 11:30
Senior Manager who would sleep in office would show up at 11:25 and declare it was time for lunch. He'd stick around for a few hours and "go back to the office"

11:30-11:50 Lunch is corporate cafeteria

11:50 am to 9:00 pm - back to the dungeon

An anal retentive partner would show up ate about 4:00 pm and we'd sit in silence the rest of the evening/night.

On Saturdays, they claimed we'd be there until about 2:00 pm. Reality was we left at about 6:00 pm and nobody broke for lunch or even at lunch. A partner got mad at me and another co-worker for going and picking up Wendy's for lunch one Saturday.

All the while, they'd hound the $hite of you to take the CPA exam. I'm like, when do you expect me to study for it. I stayed for a year and half and then left to go work for a academic medical center. It was good, steady, but got pretty boring.

From there, I went to a publicly trade manufacturing company in corporate accounting which was a disaster. I was basically an excel jockey dumbing down large amounts of data. There was a cash deficiency when I started and I got to clean up and reconcile all cash accounts, including the translation and remeasurement ones for the Canadian dollar. Literally nothing had been reconciled in like 6 months. My manager was a cnt and had no idea what she was doing. Anytime you had to ask a question someone else besides her who actually knew how to do something or the history of something she'd get royally pissed. Her and the corporate controller hated each other. We were also undergoing a Lawson to SAP conversion. I worked Labor Day weekend and Labor Day and New Year's Day. I think I had Xmas day off that was it from July to end of January.

I got the fck out of there as fast I could. I am a controller for a small company now and love it. I get to touch all the accounting and finance for the company. Taxes, GL, Reporting, Acct processes, etc. I work about 45-50 hours a week but I actually like the people I work with and the company cares about me. I am the only one there that has accounting knowledge so there is no ego of who is the best and smartest accountant that you typically run into when there are multiple accountants in a room. No way can I ever go back to a big company with loads of bull$hite to sift through.

Also, after the 1065 project was done, I got to work on individual tax returns until April 15th. More of the same hours. I got put on an audit 5 minutes from my house that started before April 15th. We worked 8-8 for two weeks straight and then in the office on Saturdays. Since I was also doing tax stuff, I had to leave the audit at 8:00 five minutes from my house and drive back downtown to clear BS review notes from another manager. After tax season, the firm made this big deal about "giving" us a day off for all of our work during busy season. At that point, I had worked the equivalent of another full time job for 3 months.

It wasn't until August that I worked a 40-45 week.

It was interesting to help with the conversion to SAP and then attempt to help get the corporate accounting department a little more organized than it was, but it was pretty terrible.

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Do the majority of firms pay you a base hourly rate and your overtime is 1.0 times your base rate?

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Yes they did.... in 1984.

The company I was at did not pay OT for salaried employees. They mey bonus but that depends on earnings and level in the company. Things can be going good, beating earnings, etc and then the last quarter doesn't hit projections and bam, no bonus.

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How is all of that crazy OT pay handled during busy season in public? Do the majority of firms pay you a base hourly rate and your overtime is 1.0 times your base rate?

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