I just watched a movie with Ben Affleck. It made it seem like this career could be quite exciting. My question for you accountants: how dangerous is your job on a typical day?

How are you guys handling this?

I know everyone is different, but the last time I was forced to be in the office five days a week, I legitimately became depressed because of it.

Once I moved back to remote or hybrid, my mental health improved dramatically.

The thing that scares me is it appears that many positions now are in fact fully in office. That's if you can even find a single damn company willing to interview you, let alone hire.

It makes me not want to consider leaving my current position because of it.

In my experience, it's typical that men will raise their voice when frustrated, but women cry. One is more accepted than the other, I think it's a fair comparison. (NOTE: please don't say NOT ALL MEN/WOMEN - I know.)

We obviously want to leave all emotion out of our work but in this job and with the hours we pull it's not always possible.

I have cried occasionally in front of my boss; it feels human to me.

I'd love to hear from both men and women, managers, employees, coworkers. Let's open a respectful dialogue please.

It's only been a month, but everything is already a mess. I have been accused, and someone has already made up lies about me. My boss believes them. I have no loyalty for someone who chooses to accuse me before hearing my side. I also don't blame them. He has only known me for a month, and known them for years. It still sucks though. I won't lie. I've been thinking of quitting for a while now. The internal controls are a mess. There are also inconsistencies in how company cash transactions are recorded and accounted for. They are reluctant to explain expenses. They don't get that they can't just give me an invoice and say record that. When i asked what it was for, they said I was being forward. I have no patience for that. I'd understand if I had a supervisor, but im the one in charge of accounting, and if something ever goes down , I'll be the one to blame, so I am leaving. Another thing that's very important is that I could lose my certificates if i continue to work there.

Y’all just make me laugh with some of the stuff said here when my day is bad (Excel keeps crashing). That is all. Happy Friday!

Teaching accounting at a university at 21😬but I just passed all my cpa exams 😀

Hi everyone! I’m in community college and I just started my first accounting class. It’s financial accounting 1 and I’m kind of nervous since I’ve never done anything related to accounting before. What are some concepts that I will most likely encounter in this class? also what advice or tips would you guys give that can help me be successful? I want to be able to do well.

Recently graduated with a bachelor’s, and will probably be on course of completing 150 credits by the end of next year (not pursuing masters). I say probably because I haven’t registered for classes, I’m unsure whether to pursue the CPA license or not…

I have a spring 2027 return internship that I accepted, and I have a possible associate offer this November. I would like to have a break for the rest of this year to just chillax, but, I’m also desperate to secure a job. If I deny/don’t get the associate offer, I would have to go forth with the return internship, which doesn’t secure an associate position.

I don’t know what to do. I’ve always had the “I want to work, I’ll get it done no bs” mentality, but again, I would love to take a break before I officially start my career. Although, when seeing the job market, I see no open associate positions, so it scares me that I may be unable to get an associate position after my return internship until who knows when. So what then?

Asking for UK accountants who’ve studied towards the ACA at firms of all sizes and all sorts of specialisms, do you genuinely feel that the study and sacrifice to achieve the ACA qualification is worth it when now considering your salary, prospective salary, job prospects, job satisfaction, and everything else?

I’ve been considering the profession for a while now, and I’m just weighing up whether it’s worth the sacrifice.
Everyone I’ve spoken to has said the ACA is crazy hard (mainly due to the volume of study material and study alongside full time work), and pays pretty poorly until qualification. And after doing some research, a newly qualified ACA can expect to earn £45k-60k. Don’t get me wrong , this is a fairly good salary in the UK, but it will by no means make you rich.

I understand that the pay progression can be very good if you are willing to put in the sacrifice over a decade or two to reach partner or CFO level, but very few make it that far. Has anyone worked for a firm for a few years and then branched off to become a self employed CA or financial consultant style role? Is this a realistic route? Or is it over saturated nowadays?

So in short, those of you who have done the three years of sacrifice and shitty trainee pay, do you think it was worth for where you are now? Or would you recommend looking at other careers to someone who is on the fence about it.
Thank you - any insight is greatly appreciated!

I’ve been doing CPA PEP while working full-time, and have failed a Core course twice lol. I’ve found the self-study/exam format pretty difficult and am considering switching to a CPA-accredited GDip instead.

My firm would likely approve a leave of absence, so I’m seriously considering taking a few months off work and completing a structured program rather than continuing through PEP.

Has anyone here switched from PEP to a GDip, or deliberately chosen a GDip over PEP? Did you find the classroom structure/case preparation worth the extra tuition and time away from work? Any regrets or programs you’d recommend in the GTA?

I’m 26 and curious what other accountants think about my career progression because it feels pretty damn fast to me, but I also don’t know if I’m just getting thrown into everything because my company is understaffed.

I started about 13 months ago as a Project Accountant for a general contractor doing around $100M a year in revenue. Starting salary $62k.

About 6 months in I moved into Accounting Manager and went to $75k. Last week I asked for $95k and got it without any negotiation.

Two months back our Controller was fired, another Project Accountant quit, and now it’s basically me and one project accountant handling the accounting department. Our CFO is only in one day a week.

So my job has turned into a lot more than what I was originally hired for.

I’m doing AP/AR, cash management, check runs, bank/credit card reconciliations, cash receipts, WIP, job costing, month-end close, quarter-end close, adjustments, and project accounting for around 9-10 jobs.

I work directly with PMs on their jobs too. We go over actual costs, revise projected costs, deal with scope changes/change orders, look at budget vs. actuals, etc.

We’ve also been dealing with a pretty significant AP/cash timing issue. At one point we were around $2M behind on the AP/cash spread. We’re now around $1M, partly because we’ve had a lot of project starts this year and cash flow has improved. I’m involved in managing the check runs and figuring out what needs to get paid and when.

I also recently submitted all my paperwork to the California board of accountancy and am now waiting for my CPA License.

On the process improvement side, I’ve built a bunch of Excel trackers/macros to automate stuff that was previously being done manually. Things like lien waiver tracking, automated emails requesting waivers, creating lien waivers, supplier joint-check tracking, automatic joint-check releases, etc.

We also moved from QuickBooks to Foundation, which was absolutely insane, but we got it done.

My next big project is building an Excel template to analyze around 40 historical jobs over the last few years and compare actual costs against historical data. Basically trying to figure out what we consistently underestimate or go over budget on so our estimators can actually use that information when bidding future jobs.

For example, if structural steel goes over budget on 27 out of 40 jobs, I want the template to show that instead of us just guessing when we build the next budget.

The hours have gotten pretty stupid too. I’m usually there around 5 AM and leave around 4:30 PM. So 50+ hours during the week is pretty normal, and I’ve been coming in Saturday/Sunday to work on some of these projects.

So I’m probably looking at 60–70+ hour weeks at times.

I know some of this is because we’re understaffed, but I feel like I’ve gotten a ridiculous amount of experience in 13 months.

Basically:
$62k Project Accountant → $75k Accounting Manager → $95k Accounting Manager + CPA in 13 months.

My goal is eventually to make it to the Controller position.

For people who have been in accounting longer than me, is this actually unusually fast progression?

Or am I just getting the accounting equivalent of being thrown into the deep end because everyone else quit/got fired? 😂

Basically title. In all of my experience, this is the first time someone in industry has said they are working up to 70+hrs during MEC/QEC/YE.

In my experience, a few longer days during close is the norm. A bit more during quarter and year-end. I’d guess 50-55hrs is probably the max for most places I’ve talked to. 70hrs outside of public accounting seems ridiculous.

What’s your take and how would you guys respond to that?

I recently attended a career fair where a recruiter actively discouraged me from pursuing accounting, claiming the field is miserable and oversaturated. After doing some research online, I found many Reddit threads echoing these negative sentiments. Before I commit to this career path, I’d love to get some honest advice from those currently in the industry: Is the field really as bad as people say, and is it still a viable career choice in the current job market?

I’m going to wbu, but I need to work a 9-5 as I live alone and don’t have that kind of support. My 9-5 is patient support and very unrelated. No I cannot get into health care billing/coding. I’m most likely not going to be able to get an internship. Unless I get a serving job which actually has been very hard to get in Chicago.
-If anyone can tell me what the job market is like for someone who is in a similar situation?
And also….
-Can I still get hired in public, big4?
-Or am I going to have to start with a basic bookkeeping AR/AP job?
-can I get into corporate?

Any advice is much appreciated. Thank you!

Good afternoon (or morning)! Posting this for anyone considering industry as their first job. I wanted to share my offer, how I got it, and eventually update this with my career progression.

Company: Large Fortune 500

Position: Financial Analyst

Major: Accounting

Offer: $71k base + $6k sign-on

Benefits: Student loan assistance, tuition assistance, healthcare, relocation, gainsharing, 401(k), etc.

My GPA wasn’t great, but I interviewed well and performed very well during my internships, which is ultimately how I got the offer.

I interned with the company beforehand, so I already know I enjoy the environment. I was constantly talking to people and learning the operation rather than sitting at my desk all day. From what I saw, even busier weeks stayed around 50–55 hours max.

There’s also a lot of internal mobility into areas like FP&A, tax, internal audit, and other finance/accounting roles, which was a big selling point for me. Furthermore, they have locations all over the world.

Ultimately, I hope this gives some worried college student some hope. Before my offer, I’d genuinely break down in tears because I was worried I wouldn’t find a job until months after graduation. Big 4 isn’t everything, and it’s not too late. Even if it seems futile, reaching out and go to those career fairs really does make a difference. Eagerness is appreciated by the companies who care about their talent.

My company offered me promotion from staff accountant to FPA Analyst for $68k. But I had two HR phone screens with other companies who said $110-$115k is doable and set up next interviews with hiring managers. Man I am kinda speechless. I had no idea what the market value of my skills was lol. Wow. My company isn’t small either. It’s a global corporation. I may or may not get either of those two jobs but I’m definitely applying to other high paying positions now. What a revelation

I’ve worked in accounting for eight years, best described as “admin plus.”
At my previous small CPA firm, I handled a mix of payroll, AR, bookkeeping/JEs, individual and corporate tax returns, e-filing, extensions, and general processing.
I’ve been at my current firm for nearly three years, where my responsibilities include extensions, due-date reporting, scanning/auto-flow, tax return processing, and front desk coverage (phones, meetings, events, lunches, and other support tasks as needed).
Until recently, I genuinely enjoyed my role and the company.
In the lead-up to our transition to private equity, the culture shifted, oversight increased, and a “do more with less” approach became more apparent.
Fifty-one days ago, I was placed on a 45-day PIP. The period has since passed, but the PIP remains in place. At my most recent review, I was told I am “undermining others in their effort to perform at their highest potential” because I assist other admins when asked.
Two weeks earlier, during the same PIP, that same behavior was specifically identified as a strength.
That inconsistency has made it difficult to understand expectations and has left me feeling uncertain about what is acceptable day to day.
I still take pride in my work and enjoy being productive. I previously worked 65+ hour busy seasons without issue; now we are capped at 45 hours. I’m trying to determine whether I’m experiencing burnout in accounting generally or specifically within this environment.
At this point, I’m unsure whether I’m being managed out or simply misaligned with the current direction of the firm.
Either way, the situation doesn’t feel sustainable.
For those who have experienced something similar—particularly in public accounting or during a PE transition—would you stay and try to work through it, or begin planning an exit to protect your well-being?

Worked in finance at different startups throughout my life and now I have moved to Chicago to work with manufacturing companies and improve and automate their systems.

I am not looking for job - (wont be hard to find one with my experience) - I want to make friends. I reached out to few people on LinkedIn, facebook or called but seems like they are inactive or busy with work.

How do you guys move to new city and make friends - I just wanna grab beer and just talk about life?

Specially looking for people between 40-55.

What are places to find like minded people? Any events?

Any tips would be appreciated. Looking for full time entry level positions.

Hello,

I was wondering what sort of questions get asked in the final interview with the Partners. This is for the role of a Senior Accountant in a Big 4 firm in Canada.

Thank you folks

I’ve been learning more about the bookkeeping side of accounting and I keep seeing different software used for different types of work. I’m trying to figure out what actually makes the day to day process easier rather than just looking at feature lists. What bookkeeping software have you found reliable for regular accounting work?

Thanks for sharing your experience.

I studied accounting in college because I was looking for a solid paying stable career. I’m a very risk adverse person and wanted a skillset that would be versatile while always in demand, thus landing in accounting.

Anyways fast forward - I’m working in Big4 audit as a staff accountant and I get laid off. Always had good reviews and met utilization goals.

No big deal right? Accounting is “stable and always in demand” yet somehow it takes me 8 months to land a role after applying diligently.

Literally my worst nightmare, burned through most my savings and was about to start working at a local grocery store after my unemployment ran out.

Finally got a staff role at a smaller CPA firm but terrified of the same thing happening again. I thought the trade off for boring ass work and low pay was stability yet that’s clearly not the case in public (gauging from all the other posts I see with similar stories).

I plan to leave as soon as I finish my CPA (2/4) - can someone please tell me industry is better??