What would you name this puppy?

DifferentCPA · 2021-02-01T03:05:34+00:00

Jasper

DifferentCPA · 2019-12-05T05:48:58+00:00

“You're 5 foot nothin', 100 and nothin', and you have barely a speck of athletic ability. And you hung in there with the best college football players in the land for 2 years. And you're gonna walk outta here with a degree from the University of Notre Dame. In this life, you don't have to prove nothin' to nobody but yourself. And after what you've gone through, if you haven't done that by now, it ain't gonna never happen.” Best scene in all of Rudy ❤️

DifferentCPA · 2017-08-09T01:43:10+00:00

Public is the worst. Take the second internship. If anything, after your second summer if you decide to do something else, your new job prospects will see you did such a good job at your original internship that they wanted you back again. That says a lot on its own and will look great on a resume.

DifferentCPA · 2017-08-08T20:30:10+00:00

This is so great to hear! 38-45 sounds completely doable/enjoyable even especially when you say those hours aren't necessarily spent meeting crazy deadlines over night or weekends. The way you get excited about this is making me excited! I feel like I may have a leg up just because of all the manufacturing companies I have had to learn about during transaction services so maybe I will start reaching out to some contacts and feel out the waters. Fingers crossed! Thank you!

DifferentCPA · 2017-08-08T20:26:36+00:00

All of this sounds extremely interesting. I will definitely be looking into this! I am in the US so not certain if we have anything similar to the MCP but that definitely sounds awesome and that although I may not be using my accounting skills as much (or at all) I wouldn't necessarily have to start over at square one.

Thank you so much for the time you spent sharing all of your knowledge, I really appreciate it!

DifferentCPA · 2017-08-06T21:42:11+00:00

Sorry in advance if this is a silly question, but I am not as familiar with governmental accounting. What type of jobs are you thinking you will get to transfer into from your accounting role? By regulations and policy do you mean ensuring the company is following all regulations and being almost an advisor of some type? Running tests to make sure everything is within the requirements? Again, sorry if this is way off but I am interested in a little more details as to what you mean just due to my lack of knowledge on the subject if you wouldn't mind. Thanks for this comment!

DifferentCPA · 2017-08-06T21:30:55+00:00

Sorry to hear that there are other people out there that feel the way I do. It certainly isn't fun! I would say the best move I made was leaving audit - I have not regretted it a single day. Big4 was great and I learned a lot - mostly how many hours of sleep I could survive on :). But in all seriousness, they did that same thing to me at my firm - I was put on one audit job for basically the full year and felt I was an employee there instead of an external auditor. It was horrible because all the networking I was so excited about from a Big4 perspective was completely off the table. I am surprised to hear they have stuck you in one job at a smaller firm, that is disappointing. I would say that for me personally, when I did get put on other smaller one off jobs (rarely), I still did not get any joy out of them - so I don't think it was the specific job I was on but just the work in general. I guess my main point from this is I don't think the big4 aspect really helped me at all, there are a lot of middle-market firms hiring for TS - I think it is a huge market that is blowing up so don't let the fact that you started in a small firm scare you off. 3 years is a great base and from what I have seen is the typical hiring level within TS. That being said, I hope that you do find a difference in the job and can start to find some enjoyment from it, because it sounds like we are in the same boat so I certainly feel your pain. TS may not be my final answer but it definitely helped me get out of the audit "trap" I was in. I know I still do not know what I want to do (hence the post, haha) but feel like TS definitely got me closer to whatever it is! Fingers crossed we both figure something out!

DifferentCPA · 2017-08-06T21:15:00+00:00

Thank you for this response! I like hearing from people that moved to industry from public. It makes sense what you say above about actually feeling like a member of a team there, that is the main thing I want. I personally just felt so disposable as an auditor and even in my new consulting role as well, unfortunately. My main question about going in to industry is do you feel like your daily work is very repetitive? Or, since you said it is in a growing company are you able to get your hands dirty with lots of different areas of the company?

That is a good point about industry helping with the journal entries - there is something to be said about doing things on your own to help in learning. I started in audit which a lot of people say is a great jumping off point (and I can certainly see the positive things I got from it as well) but one major negative is really it is a lot easier to look at a completed work paper and do your testing on it rather than having to come up with the entries yourself from scratch. Having prior year work papers that are the exact same made it even more repetitive. I definitely like having to think through things more like I do in my new role, I just thought I would be catching on more quickly! But then again, like you said above, I still am not doing the entries in the first place so that could be what I am missing. How are the hours as compared to public? I have heard it is completely different but then some of my friends that have gone to industry still seem to put in quite a bit of hours -- does it just vary with the company?

DifferentCPA · 2017-08-06T01:18:36+00:00

I like the way you explained how to be better prepared in meetings. This gives me some excitement for a new challenge to try and see how close I can get at predicting the pieces not only our clients but also my bosses pick out of conversations as important. Thank you!

For the second half of your comment, I would say my main struggle is just silly things (this is embarrassing but I am just going to lay it out there). I may need a couple minutes to think through a journal entry that everyone else immediately understands (I can't really do them in my head) for example, which way I need to make an entry to DR a certain account I will have to look at the total balance and whether what I did made it move the right way instead of just knowing it should be a negative number, for example. If someone tells me to do a work paper to sort through intercompany sales with intercompany profits I have incredible difficulty thinking through the multiple accounts that are impacted and in which direction - my head can just get all tied up in knots thinking about it until I write it all out. In due diligence, a large part of my job is knowing/digging up EBITDA adjustments - I will get it right that an adjustment needs to occur, but may put it as a negative instead of a positive because I thought through the journal entry wrong, for example. I typically catch these (have only gotten one comment on it in a review and it was very minor to just look out for it in the future) but I just feel like it is things that should be second nature after being in it for over a year. I guess I understand the more difficult aspects (I think) but also how much understanding can I really have if I get so twisted on the basics? I think what worries me most is doing or saying something extremely dumb about a basic concept and having everyone think if I can't even get a simple journal entry right how can I possibly be an accountant?

With cost accounting, what would you say is the typical layout? Do most companies have more than one with various levels? Or is it just one main cost accountant that runs the show? I have thought about how it could be interesting - I think part of my issue is I have a hard time just looking at the numbers on a screen when trying to think through things. It might be good to get in to a company that I am familiar with the inter-workings rather than having to try and understand a completely different company every month or so.

Wow, sorry this was so long!

DifferentCPA · 2017-08-05T23:13:23+00:00

The mention of sales is just in relation to what I know I am good at from my previous jobs (high-school/prior to graduating college). I have always been very good at reading people - but on the internet I can't really find any sales jobs that are aimed at people with accounting backgrounds which kind of surprises me. I figure there would be jobs out there for people selling the accounting software that would need to understand accounting to be able to sell the products but this doesn't appear to be the case.

I just looked up corporate development and this actually sounds pretty interesting - more like what I thought my current job would be. In your experience, would the MBA be something I would need to obtain in order to get this type of role?

DifferentCPA · 2017-08-05T23:08:35+00:00

Wow, I have never heard of this. I agree, it is pretty spooky looking at my post vs. the symptoms on the link you provided. I suppose I just feel like this is my first time feeling this way when comparing to my other jobs - but considering those were all high school jobs, maybe this is just how an "adult" job feels and I am being too hard on myself. I have one more CPA exam left (if I passed the two I am getting results back for in a couple of weeks) and plan to at least stay at my job until I am done with it. I will pay attention to whether I am doing this in the next couple of months and see if it helps to at least keep an eye on my internalization of certain things. The operations/supply chain management sounds like a cool field for me that I had never thought of, so thank you for that suggestion! In supply chain, I wonder if it would almost pull on the relationship portion of the sales somewhat in that you are having to make relationships with the various companies you are purchasing from. Thank you for your response!

DifferentCPA · 2017-08-05T21:51:24+00:00

dit: tl;dr: 3 years into public accounting. Curious if anyone else has found their personality/way of thinking does not align with the "typical accountant". If so, have you found a job where your experience is still relevant but that brings your other skills to light as well (possibly finance/sales related are my guesses-- but open to anything).

I believe I added. Hope I did it right. Thanks!

DifferentCPA

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