Pros and cons of accounting/CPA

[Teaman1]

Thinking on going back to school for accounting and try to be a CPA.
I don’t personally know many people in this line of work.
Any reason not to go this route?
Pros and Cons?
Appreciate any feedback

 

[willtim]

My wife was a CPA. Pros- good income and you can be your own boss. Cons- It's accounting, I would go stir crazy.

 

[jbosk15808]

I think the answer depends on what you want out of it and what position you want to hold once you get your CPA.

My wife has her CPA and worked in public accounting before transitioning to private and currently in General ledger accounting. She worked a lot in public accounting ( 12+ hr days/6-7 days a week) and now that she is in GL/bookkeeping she is back to 12+ hr days/ 6 days a week and vacation black out period end of month/end of quarter. It makes it tough on vacation scheduling but Its a good paying job for sure

 

[tdhanses]

Ahh, it’s a job like anything else, I enjoy what i do but i’ve always been on the corporate side and no way i’d ever practice or consult.

 

[Flyrodr]

My son is a CPA. Seemed to me that his first job was, well, sort of going no where fast. He switched to another company (apparently, that's one of the plusses, in that accounting is an important part of most any business, and the jobs can be "similar" but in very diverse situations.

In his new job, he's been very well received, given (earned!) a couple of promotions in a short time, and, by all appearances, is very well satisfied.

So, not unlike many other professions, satisfaction can be situational.

 

[Drenalin]

My wife is a CPA. Agree with most everything already said, but also just wanted to point out the exams to earn your CPA appeared to me to be pretty tough and required a huge investment of time for preparation. That may or may not matter, depends on your situation.

 

[SDHNTR]

I work with CPA’s daily. They are all swamped with more work than they can handle. If it’s something you enjoy, do it! You will have no problem finding work and getting paid well.

 

[Mowy33]

good job market, but it’s accounting… not the most exciting job.

 

[FOS373]

I have an active CPA license although I don’t do “accounting” stuff anymore. I did for a good part of my career though. I got into accounting because there would always be a job and it seemed like the basis of business. It worked out well for me.

More questions than answers - feel free to DM me and we can have a conversation.

You say “go back to school” - what are you doing now? How old are you?
I’m not sure of which state you want to be a CPA in, but a graduate degree is basically required. Do you have the time commitment?
Do you understand the different sides of a CPA? Tax vs audit / financial? Which side do you want to be? Do you know why?
Your profile says SD - do you plan to stay there?
If you don’t know any CPAs - what interests you about it?

Overall - good career with both pros and cons. LIke a lot of life, it depends on luck and timing.

 

[Novahunter]

Do like adding up facts, and simply stating: this happened? Or, do you like to understand the why of what happened, and use that knowledge to help future decisions?

If the first, be an accountant. If you're more the 2nd type, then Finance or FP&A is a good path

I work in Corporate Finance and FP&A. I can do the accounting if needed, but much prefer accountants to do that while I put the "story" together of where we were, where we are, and where we are going and paint that picture with numbers.

It takes a team though, and we all work best when we work together.

 

[displacedtexan]

My BIL is an accountant, not a CPA.

Works for the same company my wife does (she reccomended him), he loves his current job but hated his last one.

It sounds incredibly boring and frustrating to me, but he enjoys it.

 

[slowelk]

For the layman, accounting can appear to be boring, and working audit/tax for a small local firm is a pretty boring job, but your services will always be in demand if you are good with details, process, documentation, and Excel. No matter where you want to go, audit is usually the first stop, but you can quickly move into consulting which is far more interesting and demanding.

Paid well is a relative term. CPAs working for smaller, local firms focusing on audit don't make six figures, but work/life balance is better. If you want to get into consulting, work for a larger/large public firm, money is good, $150k+ before bonuses, but work can be 24/7 on some projects and it can be pretty cutthroat, but it's certainly not boring.

Another area is accounting tech and Saas. There are tons of platforms that offer SaaS accounting products that need real accountants to understand their products, and sing their praises in a sales role.

Point is, there is a broad spectrum of what being a CPA can do for you in a profession.

Personally, I studied finance, and am a CMA and FP&A because like @Novahunter I wanted to understand the why and leverage that to help businesses better position themselves for the future.

 

[accountantsanonymous]

Not a CPA, but spent most of my career in accounting. I worked on the corporate side, so standard debits and credits, reconciliations, audit trails, AR/AP, fixed assets etc. Took my current company through an IPO, and really learned a lot but it seemed like we were just checking boxes.

I’d recommend getting your bachelors, then getting into Fin Tech. Everything is software based these days, and while the conceptual side of accounting is really important, I’ve learned that being technical and understanding how systems work goes a long way. Systems administration, product management, program management, etc are all great ways to work in and around accounting, but not be stuck doing journal entries and reconciliations every month.

Find a financial software your company uses (Oracle, Netsuite, Stripe, Shopify, etc) and get really really proficient with it. Join the online communities, ask stupid questions and find ways to use the software to its complete functionality. Become a SME.

Feel free to DM if you want to chat.

 

[Owens]

Lots of good stuff already, but I'll add a couple cents worth. I think it may depend on what you want to do, there are a few different paths, tax, audit, corporate. My wife and I are both accountants (insert jokes here) and have our CPA licenses. I've spent most of my career in corporate accounting mostly as a controller (debits, credits, financial statements). I've liked it for the most part, but the biggest drawback is the never ending monthly close cycle. Seems most of my career I've been unable to take any personal time the first week or so of every month.

My wife has spent almost all of her career preparing taxes, mostly corporate. Biggest drawback is no family time from January to April 15. Which is fine for hunting. But less known, there is a tax deadline of some sort on the 15th of almost every month. The corporate tax deadline on October 15 would blow up any western archery seasons you might be interested in. Her hours have always been way more brutal than mine.

We've both been doing this for over 20 years. Can't complain about the pay. But we've both transitioned in the last couple years to more finance type roles. She's still at the same firm but is doing financial reporting for the firm itself vs client facing. I'm out of the month end close cycle, which I really like after dealing with that for a long time.

 

[gbflyer]

Worked out well for Randy Newberg

 

[amassi]

Pro- can do guards taxes at shawshank in exchange for beer
Con- work likely incredibly boring, busy, good pay and job opportunities

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

 

[SDHNTR]

Worked out well for Randy Newberg

I was wondering how long that would take…

 

[displacedtexan]

Systems administration, product management, program management, etc are all great ways to work in and around accounting, but not be stuck doing journal entries and reconciliations every month.

I laughed a lot.

My wife is a systems administrator.

My BIL thinks reconciling is about the most exciting thing a person can do.

 

[Desk Jockey]

Worked out well for Randy Newberg

Randy actually really made his bones off a pension and benefits administration business.

I am not an accountant, but worked as a advisor / consultant inside one of the big 4 firms for a while. One thing to consider is that automation is actually eroding the accounting firms businesses in both tax and audit. There will always be a need for accountsnts but the business is definitely changing and for big firms, off shoring lot of work for cost reasons.

more importantly, do you like accounting and numbers? are you meticulous and detailed? If not, you probably aren’t going to like what they do. I met and know more than a few people that studied and became accountants only to find they didn’t like the work.

 

[Teaman1]

Way more responses than I was expecting haha. I can’t tell you an exact reason why I even started looking into this field. The more I look into it, I see there are multiple routes a person could go.
I’m currently 30 and never graduated college, I work at a processing plant and make an ok living.
Really just getting bored with what I do and I’m looking for a change. Going to have to go back to college to increase pay, but that really isn’t the biggest factor.

Would take other suggestions for a new line of work/study. I’ve only just started looking for new options.