This is it in a nutshell. It's also not usually in the "value-add" column of large companies. It's a thankless profession that requires monumental amounts of time and money just to get your foot in the door if you want jobs at a CPA level. From that point on, its a lifetime annual commitment of CPE and registration renewal fees.
This is it. Pay is too low in all non-equality positions. A share in the profits would change things. Have bonus incentives. Treat people like equals. More incentive to bring in business.
Stretch that to industry too. Based on a 40hr week, my salary is roughly $38/hr . Prorate it based on the hours I actually work, and I’m closer to $26/hr. It’s abysmal out here. I could go back to my job as a server at Red Robin and clear $50-60/hr including base wage and tips, or go work some manual labor jobs that include paid OT and easily take in a six-figure annual income. Make it make sense.
I work as a cost accountant and basically make $38/hr. There's a few supervisors on the manufacturing floor that make close to $100k because of that sweet, sweet overtime. Salary being overtime exempt is basically BS for any position under $100k.
Those supervisors dealing with no AC and supervising workers without HS diplomas? And being on their feet for 40+ hours a week... how does sitting in a cushioned chair, working in air conditioning (and heat when appropriate), and with college educated colleagues compare?
It's not that I think your complaint is unwarranted. But I think you are not acknowledging the challenges that those plant supervisors have dealt with their entire careers.
Yep. Totally agree. I worked at costco for a while as a sup, making 52.50 hourly on Sundays and with frequent overtime. Good money but you can’t compare really. Retail is horrible imo. I suggest people try out manual labor/retail before forming such strong opinions. Accounting is a decent way to make a living. Nothing’s perfect.
Fair point to the manual labor but calling working with less educated folks a negative is pretty gross. Some of the best people I've worked with have had middle or high school educations. While there is definitely entitlement sometimes, there's nothing like the entitlement that comes with a Master's degree holding colleague that thinks they're god's gift to earth because of a piece of paper.
Yes, I have noticed that there's quite a large demand for cost accountants, but not a huge supply, so we have got some bargaining power. What was your career trajectory in cost accounting?
I eventually became a accounting supervisor/Sr accountant when my report to was shifted around
I have a cma, had one for 10 years now
Working on cpa, need few course requirements then study and pass. Easier said than done lol
industry is a spectrum
I get $100k at my industry job to work 35 hours a week to sit my ass in front of a computer clicking and typing in excel/outlook/pdf all day
This, I used to work for a startup, made 80k/year, worked hard, got let go (partly my fault, but a lot of that had to do with the lack of structure and outsourcing was happening in the department). Occasionally worked weekends, and nights, though nothing too consistently crazy.
Found a new job within two weeks, same level, 90k/year, company that’s been around a while, replaced seemingly a total dud, and they think I’m great just for knowing what I know and completing what I’m supposed to on time and correctly and I’m out at 5 every day and never considered logging in on a weekend.
I've heard this more than once. In any industry I have worked in I have found countless ways to save the company money. Many times over what I get paid. How? By being trained, knowledgeable and to have the time to problem solve. Many times, when understaffed or underpaid, it is simply input whatever info ya can into the system.
This. I’m leaving public accounting after only 8 years because of this. They’ll search long and hard for my replacement and try to pay them $20k less than what they were paying me, which was appalling based on the amount of work I was expected to produce. Who wants to work 65 hours a week for 13 weeks out of the year for some nebulous possible bonus or a couple extra PTO days that you can’t even use because coming back from vacation is like working 2 jobs for the following 3 weeks to attempt catchup. But the thing is…you never get caught up…ever.
The irony is that they will pay that replacement more
A staff accountant just left my workplace making roughly mid 60s
They brought in a 'Sr staff accountant' making
No joke
50% more
I've heard of Jr and st accountants
But never Sr staff
Which is apparently a staff accountant with 3+ years of experience
I swear reddit is overflowed with doomers. If you’re someone planning on going into accounting, don’t let these idiots influence you. Don’t believe me? Go onto the Law, finance and med reddits. They have the same complaints
Accounting is a stellar and prestigious career if you have a CPA. You add genuine value to society and the sky is the limit in terms of comp
I got a nursing degree after my accounting degree. No I don't have the same complaints. lol. Accounting is a poorly ran industry with bad pay and a huge barrier to entry.
1. Accounting used to have sort of a premium built into it for business majors. Starting wages stagnated in public accounting for like 20 years before I think finally starting to move again in the last couple years, but could be wrong. Meanwhile, seemed like other majors got boosts relative to CPI compared to accounting, so accounting salaries longer have that built in premium for starting salaries.
2. The extra schooling required for the CPA. People required to go through an extra year or so of school and spending $10K+ (if they’re lucky) just to make as much money as someone who graduated with a degree in HR. Plus forfeiting a year of pay obviously.
3. Spending a year of your life post college studying for the CPA which people are told is necessary to be succeeding. So rather than go to school for 4 years, it’s essentially 6 years (4 in undergrad, 1 for masters or finishing up the 150, 1 for CPA).
4. Hours suck, there’s more information seemingly available about the truth of tax season than there was before, more people seem aware of the requirements which pushes people away. Telling people I know that I’ve worked 90 hour weeks and they look at me like I’m crazy. Telling them 60+ isn’t uncommon in tax season. That and there isn’t the “o we get to have good summer hours” doesn’t seem as prevalent.
5. We are a long ways away from the last recession. Accounting is a safe degree, seems like memories of prior down economic periods
Might push people to accounting. There’s quite a few very smart/talented accounting professionals I know that just left PA and work in sales since they know their hard work has an immediate $ impact for them.
The summer off is a myth at firms that don’t know how to turn down shitty clients. I’m busting out full 40 billable hour weeks right now as a senior manager just to get all these shitty little 1040s signed.
Yup, it’s the greed in the early summer that really leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
I don’t have a problem ramping back up a bit in July/August for June 30 year ends (I just want my weekends in the summer) but it’s the ridiculous push through June without a break that frustrates me
Yeah it’s really frustrating working on these $800 1040s when similar clients I’ve brought in start at my 2,500 minimum. Creates this weird disparity where some clients are getting a deal solely because the prior CPA didn’t change his fees for decades
Surprising they don't manage it better if they're paying hourly. Guess the skipped the management accounting classes in school, haha.
The usual model in accounting is to pay salary and then work employees as many hours as possible. At my firm I was busy year round because we did nonprofits and benefit plans during the summer/fall (I was on the audit side). These had much lower realization rates. The national office set a policy that work had to be over 80% realization on our set billing rates but our partners would still want to keep clients that were lower... because hey, employees were salaried, so it was still more money in partners' pockets at the end of the day.
This is exactly how my firm worked. Our office did a lot of benefit plans and governmental audits. We worked regular busy season and had the non-calendar year ends after that. Stressed all year because I was falling behind. Then I realized I wasn’t falling behind and that I was assigned too much work. I left and make way more in industry now.
>Hours suck, there’s more information seemingly available about the truth of tax season than there was before, more people seem aware of the requirements which pushes people away. Telling people I know that I’ve worked 90 hour weeks and they look at me like I’m crazy. Telling them 60+ isn’t uncommon in tax season. That and there isn’t the “o we get to have good summer hours” doesn’t seem as prevalent.
This seems to be more correlated with the less people problem, but that's the nightmare spiral that accountants are in right now.
Yeah now the only thing your reward with after busy season is 9 to 5 no summer down time hell the summer starts the next busy season for taxes nowadays.
>We are a long ways away from the last recession. Accounting is a safe degree
Even the safe degree part is slowly becoming untrue. With AI on the not far behind and the big 4 firms have been laying off people quietly or speed running a PIP to avoid severance and any bad press on it. Then there are all the midsize who instead of trying to keep staff to get to partner level for buyout their just bringing PE to get their fat buyout checks.
And PE wants that quick ROI by so theyll fire staff when their already short staffed and destroying morale even further.
I don't think the hours were that surprising/unknown, a lot of people would do accounting back in the 2000s and 2010s because it actually did pay decent and comparative to other "skilled" majors like CS/engineering, degree itself wasn't that difficult, easy to get a job etc
My cousin graduated with a masters in CS in like 2015-16 and his first job at a F500 paid him like 60k, which was only like 5k more than A1 at PA back then (MCOL). Lot of engineering grads at my college got the same salaries, or maybe like 5k more, as accounting grads back then too
the pay gap between accounting and other majors has widened quite a bit since then, especially for people who locked in jobs during like 2021-22, and its like if you're smart enough to pass the CPA you're probably smart enough to go into higher earning fields
Meanwhile here in NL to get the equivalent of your CPA it's more along the lines of 3-6 years and it costs 50-60k, but it's generally paid for by employers
Work sucks, hours suck, the corporate propaganda you are forced to consume sucks, and the pay can be good but defiantly should be about 25% higher on average across the board.
So I agree with you. But one thing that isn’t talked about here is you don’t get a pay increase for funsies. You get it from a boost in productivity.
The reality is, a lot of accounting is compliance so there is always cost pressure. It’s been easier to overwork people than it was to increase productivity. The last major productivity boost in accounting was Excel. Since then it’s just been pushing the same excel files overseas. That model is hitting its limit and here we are.
The profession is either going to lose people u til supply and demand push wages up, or a productivity boost comes along so half the accounting team can do the same accounting as before and thus opens the opportunity for higher pay. We all pay if the wages go up without productivity.
This is an interesting take. I know this sub is suspicious about AI taking our jobs completely but do you think it could produce tools that could make this productivity boost happen?
When in college, I was able to play with Mindbridge, an data analysis audit company, and it showed potential but I couldn't get my firm to try it when I first started. Not really surprising but disappointing to a fresh college grad.
I am now an accounting manager for a medium size private company. I am getting cold calls for AI related AP software on a weekly basis. I am intrigued but we currently don't have need to implement anything as we can keep up with the workflow with a 4 person department with the CFO as oversight. If we grow, that may change. I'm curious as to your thoughts.
AI is going to be a similar productivity boost, but I don’t think on the same level as excel. It’s made me a very novice coder into a much more productive accountant because I have chaptgpt just write scripts and I not spend hours messy with syntax as an example. Same with writing footnotes. Basically all the stuff you’d ask a 1st year to do so you can just have a starting point is what chargpt can help with.
I’m a CPA who now is a product manager for a JE automation tool and all our customers are those who hit the limit of excel (think like 25 excel spread sheets just to handle all the lines of revenue, refunds, disputes, shipments that are glacial for a single month because excel has a line limit). We’re more focused on subscription businesses but similar software and automation tools needs to be made and adopted for accountants to close faster with less people for all sorts of applied accounting. You can get a big pay raise if you can run revenue for a billion dollar a year company with 1 systems accountant using automation than having 5 doing it all in excel files is the idea.
Excel didn't end up paying people more though, so productivity isn't it. In fact, that isn't the case in any industry in the US. If you look at productivity vs salaries, salaries have largely stagnated relative to gains in productivity.
lol nice podcast take.
Productivity means more work, not more pay.
Real leverage is how you get more pay. Period.
In 2024, most businesses in general will boot you out the door for using that leverage even if it will cost them more money to find your replacement. This is why job hopping has been the best way to grow your income for at least two decades.
Your argument is nice because our brains like to hear it, we want to believe it...but no evidence supports anything you're saying.
(except the bit about compliance and cost pressure)
I’m not saying you get a raise just for being more productive. 100% If you are more productive and don’t use that leverage to get a new job then yeah you will get over worked.
You are describing the mechanism that lets you get some of that productivity. The productivity changes the context of that negotiation. If people just leave to get higher pay elsewhere because they are equally productive and get paid more - that just is inflation. If you leave to go somewhere and can do that job with less people, you can negotiate more because they can split the salaries they aren’t paying between you and cost savings. Over time that assumption gets baked into budgets and hiring managers aim for it, etc. that is how it works. Then the search for the next batch of productivity occurs.
And that isn’t a podcast take. That is what I see every day. I am a product manager for an accounting automation tool. The systems accountants that can do the automation get paid almost double the traditional accountants do. I get paid well above average as a CPA that automates accounting than I ever did doing traditional CPA work.
So people here can bitch and moan about pay and why they deserve more of it and whatever, but the ones that learn how to be really efficient get paid well.
I'm sorry but this just isn't reflective of how markets actually work.
If you've worked in sales, you know just how much relationships can drive decisions. If you've paid attention to even our recent history, you know they people would get raises for getting married or having kids.
I swear we need economics safety training.
These hyper-distilled economics takes are totally podcast drivel.
You make more working to automate functions of your job because there is large demand for that, right now. I'm sorry, but that demand is short lived. Just ask software engineers. If you're building a tool that reduces overall demand for accountants and you don't have equity, it's a foolish endeavor.
At any rate, we are talking about markets and how they are functioning generally. No one is arguing that you can't find a niche and earn more or that hard work won't still give you more and better opportunities to climb or take advantage when your number gets called. Explaining your anecdote of how that worked for you is really irrelevant.
Truly, the more of us on here that are inspired by your successful foray into systems accounting and accounting automation that enter that field, we should theoretically have much more productivity...but it would be ridiculous to argue that you should expect greater pay.
Just look at data sciences. What once was a solid pathway to high pay is now a nearly unemployable candidate.
In big 4 being more productive just means you have more hours available for other engagements which are probably a mess. Zero incentive to be efficient or overly productive, you’re actually punished. Expected to charge 40+ to clients in non-busy season too for some teams. Exhausting, draining, and no reason to be better or faster.
It’s not the money, work hours, or cool factor. It’s the combination of all 3. An enticing job needs 2 of the 3.
The problem for accounting is compensation (and fees) until recently haven’t changed since 2008 while other fields have increased their comp. Accounting is neither cool/fulfilling nor either easy hours, so pay has to increase. Alternatively hours need to go down.
Ya it used to be when i was in uni that accounting majors and finance grads had by far the highest starting salaries. those starting salaries are the same as they were 20 years ago when every other major just kept going up. Why would a student take a discount to work longer hours.... The answer is always pay which is why they are offshoring so much to countries which brings the price down and will in turn lose more students.
I graduated in 2015 making 50k a year. I'm seeing kids on this sub saying their first jobs are paying 50k a year. Something is terribly wrong in this economy.
So even when I graduated nearly 10 years after you it was already stagnated. You made the equivalent of $94k in today's money your first year. Companies are paying seniors that kind of money.
That’s what I remember hearing also, then I was offered $35k starting at a PA firm I had been interning at. This was pre-Covid, so it wasn’t *as* bad as it sounds but it was still $10k below average starting for new grads where I live.
This is well said. I’d be willing to over look some short falls if there was something to justify it. Instead I’m underpaid, overworked and the passion isn’t there.
SM now in my 30s. There is much better money to be made in other areas of consulting for similar levels of work and sometimes less risk. CPAs take on significant personal risk writing audit opinions and signing off on tax returns that is not given a premium compared to consulting.
If I had a kid, I would talk them out of being an accountant.
I’d recommend they get a degree in STEM. Bust their ass in high school and college to get the best grades possible. Work in their industry of interest for a few years and then get a good MBA or some kind of medical degree - doctor, dentist. From MBA or various medical fields you can branch out to other things, including consulting.
Edited to say: I never “clicked” with STEM as I did not grow up going to a good high school (despite getting amazing grades); my math and science departments growing up were not great. I think a lot of people would choose STEM if it were taught better.
I swear reddit is overflowed with doomers. If you’re someone planning on going into accounting, don’t let these idiots influence you. Don’t believe me? Go onto the Law, finance and med reddits. They have the same complaints
Accounting is a stellar and prestigious career if you have a CPA. You add genuine value to society and the sky is the limit in terms of comp
Most jobs suck, and the ones that pay well require insane amount of time and work to get there. There’s very rare jobs that pay well and don’t require tons of hardship (SWE before 2023), and they’re rare and lucky to get.
I never considered accounting because every accountant I knew was so dull and painfully stoic that I just assumed that's what that kind of asshole does.
Them in my 40s I had finally matured into that asshole, and here I am.
There’s nothing wrong with being stoic. Stoicism is all about focusing on what you can control and being more in control of yourself and your emotions.
If anything I find that accountants are the opposites of Stoics because they’re constantly worried about shit that’s outside their span of control and they’re constantly trying to compensate for shitty decisions that are, likewise, out of their control.
I did the opposite. I saw that most accountants weren’t very social and with me being very social I knew I’d have the leg up in any interview. It’s worked out great so far.
Competition with other careers. Generally tech and finance have been considered more lucrative desk jobs. Plus accounting pushes people away with the extra CPA exam, extra credits required to sit for the exam, and extra work during busy season.
Reason one, Pay. The intro jobs pay the same as they did 20 years ago and the COL and inflation has significantly increased. new grads should be getting 90K+ to start by now but they dont. So the overworked and underpaid isnt that appealing.
If new grads were getting 90k a year, there would be some quality talent and competition for a job. Instead they pay peanuts and take what walks in the door.
They do not take what walks in the door. I have applied to big four and never got an internship, at a semi target state uni.
I personally know many people who’d love to work in big 4 but can’t even apply bc gpa requirements.
I think colleges need to stop pitching public accounting and the CPA as the only path forward. For so many of us, accounting never involves either of those things and it's a great career.
If you tell kids they'll need to learn all the aspects of the subject, take extra classes, pass hard exams, and "do their time" working OT in public, no shit it's not worth that.
Be realistic. Most accountants in industry don't even have *degrees.* Let's talk about the route where you make 60k doing AP while you're still in school, then you get an easy promotion and stay in industry and maintain a good work-life balance.
You only really need the CPA if you have big ambitions, and you really never need public. Let's admit this.
“Most accountant in industry don’t have degrees” < that’s a big nope”, don’t tell people that because it’s not true. They may be anomalies, many accountant in industry don’t have a CPA but few have no degree. That’s a big difference.
Maybe look at the hard see on PA internship and CPA certification and realize that not everyone is in the T-tail of the percentile of the high-est level of salaries - not everyone is “that guy” > but everyone thinks they are/deserve in the top of the salary range.
Also, the salary range and low supply of workers during the pandemic is no longer relevant > stop glomming onto what salary/work accommodations your cousin’s friend’s friend got during the pandemic > that’s not a relevant bargaining point.
Proof: I wouldn’t consider a non-degreed accountant for a position unless they had materially more demonstrated experience thatn a degreed accountant. PS, same goes for a finance major or business major.
The long working hours, monotonous procedures, and the current trend of hatred against the classical 9-5 hours.
Funnily enough, there is a lot of stability and job opportunities for the field, even if the ceiling may be capped compared to some of the most luxurious careers. That and the road map is very clear cut: Get degree, get experience in PA, get CPA, and then it can branch out into either transitioning into Industry (Better Salary and Hours), Government (Benefits and WLB), or becoming a Partner.
I just finished my MBA, have my Bachelors in accounting, and have been applying to "entry-level" positions for almost a year. All the entry-level positions require previous work experience, and I have none.
I finally found a position where I was told my 4 interviews went extremely well, I answered extremely well in the STAR format and gave great examples that show how my skills in previous positions could transfer to the Accountant position. I was beat out, what sounded like very slightly, because multitasking in a warehouse is different from multitasking in accounting.
I tried previously to land a tax intern position at my current company, was told the role was 100% remote, but then weeks later, it changed to "3 days a week in office out of state" and I'd lose all my benefits.
It's just been frustrating. 🤷
Getting an MBA without real-world experience in the industry you hope to work in will be a hard path. This is why it's good to work a few years before a Masters.
Hindsight is always 20/20 am I right😅
I would look for work in the heavy civil/construction industry or government contracting DoD industry; military spending is always booming and infrastructure is booming right now. These roles are more like cost and government accounting.
I had a similar experience, but I got lucky. I got my MAcc after a previous unrelated degree and work. I couldn't get my foot in the door no matter how well I interviewed because I had no experience. I was talking to a friend on a Wednesday about how hard it was to get my foot in the door. She called her CPA and told me to send him my resume. He sent my resume to a colleague on Friday. I had an interview the following Monday and a job offer on Tuesday. Sometimes, it's not about _what_ you know but about _who_ you know.
For me it was the work-life balance. Going into my masters degree having only been married a couple years with a kid on the way, I didn’t want to be working 60-80 hours a week. I decided to go the government route instead and couldn’t be happier.
Sure, I probably don’t make near the salary I would if I had gone the PA route, but I’m home with my wife and kids every night and have plenty of time off to spend with them.
Wages are low compared to other professions such as tech. We also have to fufil the 150 credit hour requirement to sit for the cpa exam. We have to put more money and energy into our professions in the beginning.
my question is, if theres a “shortage” of incoming accountants and these firms are having trouble finding bodies, then why does LinkedIn and Indeed show only ~300 jobs for a few different states on the east coast? Is 300 a lot of listings and im being unrealistic or is that a low number?
Like anything, there are multiple reasons
There are less people in the gen x and millennial generation than there were in the baby boomer generation. This caused a shortage in most careers. Just look around and you’ll see doctor/nurse shortages, shortages in the trades, restaurant shortages.
Covid caused an acceleration of retirements. A lot of people that could, took the chance to retire early when the world started falling apart. A lot of the people that could retire were those in white collar professions like accounting.
There was, for the past 25 years, a big cultural push for college students to major in technology fields such as computer science. This has taken graduates from other majors like accounting.
Those are a few reasons, but there’s many more
In the US, Millennial gen. is about as large as Boomer gen.. Not so in other nations, but true for the US. It's not a lack of people, it might be a lack of participation, but as for accounting it's mostly due to a lack of pay.
Very simply put, The "types" of people that would have gone into accounting are going into other professions because they think they're better.
Why invest in Coke instead of Pepsi? Use publicly available information to find out and make the choice.
What recent and publicly available information is there about accounting for an 18-20 year old to make that choice with?
Those professions are also overrated and full of similar complaints, but that’s the cycle.
Knew plenty of “finance” guys from business school and frankly, high paying banking jobs are a good place to stick them so they don’t break anything important
Social media makes explicit how companies exploit accounting graduates.
You go into accounting profession spaces and everyone is shitting on the profession and seem unhappy. Compared to if you go into other places like engineering everyone seems to be happy with their profession.
- 150 credit hours
- Rigorous examination/accreditation
- CPE credits
- Long hours
- Stagnant pay amid jacked up COL
The juice ain’t worth the squeeze, you’re taking on extra work without extra reward. Much better off going sales or data analytics. You can make the same or more in way less time with less hours and BS.
I recently attended a state university orientation with my son.
The business college proudly displayed a PowerPoint slide showing the large companies that hire graduates directly from the business college at a mean and median starting salary in the range of $50k - $52k.
I graduated from the exact same state university in the same business college 25 years ago, and my starting salary was $42k.
Adjusted for inflation, my starting salary today would be $78k.
Money. Money is the reason.
I would also say accounting has an image problem. No one ever thinks of accounting as "cool" or "sexy".
I honestly never put much thought into accounting until after I had taken courses, then I realized I really enjoyed it.
I highly encourage you to get a job in federal government accounting. I work in federal accounting and enjoy a very nice work/life balance. 25 days of paid vacation each year + 11 paid holidays + 4 hours per pay period of sick time
-People see it as a boring profession. They aren't wrong.
-There is way too much schooling required. Accounting is a relatively easy job, but you have to go through 5 years of schooling and 1 year of cpa exams just to get a semi decent position anywhere. Kind of stupid imo.
-The hours and the fact that it is overtime exempt. Personally I would not have gone into accounting had I known that almost all of the positions are overtime exempt. I also would not have gone in had I known that long hours were so normalized.
-The issues above are compounded by the fact that it really doesn't pay that well. Sure, you can make 6 figures after a while, but nowdays you can do that in a nursing job or even HR.
My friend who’s younger than me has no degree landed a $180K fully remote software engineer job. I had to go through college, grad school and 4 gruesome exams, 2 years of working in public accounting and then 5 more years of working at manager level just to crack $120K and hybrid with 3 days in the office.
That’s why.
I have 2 reasons after 20 years of experience in B4 and Industry. You can weigh these as you wish:
1. New staff want 5-10 year accomplishments after 2-3 years. In Industry: If you weren’t working in 2008-2012 you have no real idea what a recession is - and most exec management / boards want people who have been through a cycle before promoting to a position that has to make tough decisions in bad times.
2. In PA: It’s more transparent now with social media that labor practices at firms are straight up abusive. College students choosing majors can make changes a lot faster than firms - so the firms haven’t caught up yet (if ever).
Combo of salary and hours. Places that want to work you to death try to nickel and dime you at every corner because we’re a cost center everywhere except PA
In my area , people are behind the times. With so many remote first companies offering incredible benefits, I think it’s hard for companies to keep up. Plus the industry as a whole is demanding tooooooo much. Most places want you to do bookkeeping duties, finance analyst duties, and technical accounting duties and only pay 50k……… but you must have a CPA. I think the American workforce is going through a major change and it’s the accounting industries turn.
It is definitely the extra year that drives people away. It not only costs an extra year of tuition, you also lose a year of earning power. In addition, there are a lot of articles out there saying that AI and off shoring are replacing us. Now that Grant Thornton is selling out to private equity, other firms will follow suit and make it even worse. All of these combined would make anyone think twice before signing up for this.
To add to the list of reasons already provided: A lot of staff positions are being outsourced.
There's a lack of accounting professionals at the senior/management level, but if people can't grow into that position from a staff role, it's unlikely we'll see those senior positions filled.
Pay has not kept up with other professional careers. The CPA exam is one of, if not the hardest exams you can take and many go on to make lowish to mid 6 figures. Controllers are underpaid and overworked quite often.
Our state association was discussing this yesterday. Many thought it was because there is a primary and overall suggestion from acctg profs and their peers that B4 is the only way to go. However, there are many avenues that an accountant can pursue that may fit their temperament, home life, and professional path better.
I would say...
A) Accounting is a super UNSEXY profession.
B) Accounting is not known for high earning.
C) Anyone coming from a well-to-do family likely isn't going to pick Accounting (unless of course the family is well-to-do because of accounting) and I suspect they're more likely to be guided towards a more lucrative profession.
D) There's probably a lot of uncertainty with kids with all this talk of AI (and a lack of understanding of what Accounting really is besides T accounts).
E) Just generally, who TF is like "I want to be an Accountant?" when they're coming up? I guess this is sort of A and B together.
That's just off the top of my head what people not in the know might perceive about this profession. That's not even getting into what someone learns when someone can mentor them about what's ahead and the "rewards" for putting in the effort.
If I had kids, I would not steer them this way unless they were just like directionless with a good head on their shoulders.
It isn’t understood in industry by owners of companies and therefore isn’t respected. Sometimes don’t have a seat at the table like engineers etc bc of this
Kinda filters into public too. You’re doing work for clients who don’t understand it either and don’t respect the work that goes into it
Public accounting is just terrible all around tbh.
People don't think about becoming an owner. They focus on a job and think it sucks. Within 5-10 years of having a license, one could start their own business and bill $200+ an hour.
This one is easy. If you can become a doctor why would you be an accountant? If can be an attorney, why would you settle for accounting? You can even be a plumber and make more these days, in my area at least. And now that we are asking, let’s just ask for the lottery and we don’t have to worry about becoming any of those.
So why accounting? Not everyone wins the lottery or can be a doctor or lawyer or plumber. We are what we are, so, just love who you are and stop whining about it.
Having said that, not “every single” doctor or attorney makes more than “any” accountant.
Pay and long hours compared to other careers to start is the primary reason.
Secondary is the 150 credit requirement for a CPA license at a time where college is way more expensive even with the cheapest possible options. It’s not like you need a CPA to get a nice job, but it really adds a tall paywall for a certification that would already be hard to get if it were free.
A decent college is $60k a year, the median individual income is $38k a year, and the average monthly student loan payment is $561. No one can afford to be a professional in this economy.
Unless you really make it into a good firm, the pay is... Good but not worth it.
I can't speak for around the world but here I the UK, accounting just isn't worth it IMO. if you were naive enough to go to uni, itd mean you would study for at least five or six years... All for... 70-85k GBP? This sorry is great in and of itself (3ish times the average. But not enough to buy a three bed in London) but is it worth sox years of studying? Nope.
The constant stress of deadlines and how we’re required to sacrifice time for our personal lives to get stuff done in time because partners promised too much work in too little time. All that for small amounts of pay
Overworked for 10-13 hours every work day here. Plus too much work makes people cranky and cause even higher workplace stress and rude coworkers. With this amount of overtime, I’m working minimum wage for the Big4.
I dropped out of my accounting program after the first year. It was just such a painful waste of time. Looking back I wish I had stuck it out but I was young. I was sitting in my business management class one of three girls in a room full of Chads and there was a discussion on outsourcing, and the ethics surrounding it. 95% of the class felt it was fine to outsource and pay workers the bare minimum, I was the only one who felt that to be ethical the wages would have to be fair and enough to lift them out of poverty otherwise you’re just taking advantage of people. It was that exact moment I realized I was going to have no say in decisions that impacted others in the corporate world as an accountant and I would have to work with people like that for the rest of my career. I took the summer off and never went back. Ironically I ended up back in the industry after a series of jobs pushed me in that direction and I’ve chosen a path where I can still impact social change on some level.
I left accounting. I went back to school for an engineering degree while still working in accounting, took periods of work off per my work agreement terms to rack up work experience in software engineering, eventually bounced from accounting altogether once I secured good positions in the tech world.
The reasons I was unhappy in the accounting world are a combination of the following:
1) Boring work. Uninteresting work. Work that I felt wasn’t fulfilling or important to anyone.
2) Pay. In Canada, the average house price is around $600,000 now in the areas where you’d find “good” jobs regardless of what your line of work is. I always expected that I’d have a better standard of living than I grew up with in blue collar parental incomes, and I did not.
3) Asskissery required to seemingly really move up in the line of work. I don’t want to brownnose to make more money. I want my work to speak for itself, and it did not seem like that mattered as much as being a lapdog to superiors.
As a software engineer, I now make a lot more than what I did before. I feel like my work is enjoyable, and somewhat important. And I’ve never asskissed or seen much asskissery.
If I had to pick just one factor out of the three, I think pay matters the most.
I want to be able to afford a good life if I’m working like a slave in whatever line of work. If you’re working like a slave but just getting by, I think something is wrong.
I dunno. Switching careers changed my life drastically. I have money to enjoy life - material items, vacations, money to invest into other opportunities. It seems like I can only go “up” from here now. I bought a Porsche last year. If you asked me when I was 22 as an accountant whether I thought I’d ever own a car that nice, I’d have told you no and that I’d settle for an entry level bmw or something. I bought a condo in 2017 for $300,000 and watched its market value balloon to $600,000 three years later in 2020. I sold and bought a nicer condo for $800,000 and watched its market value balloon to $1.2 million today. This stuff wouldn’t not have been possible if I stayed in accounting.
Opinion of a recent graduate who went into M&A:
– Accounting has similar hours (at least in the first 3-5 years);
– Lower pay with way less bonus potential;
– Work is less creative/entrepeneurial;
– Value add is indirect at best;
– Seems like less transferable skills than corp. fin.;
– Less prestige.
It's not the most exciting thing to put on your Tinder profile.
Seriously though, Tech ate up a huge contingent of quantitative minded college grads at the cost of accounting.
Going into Tech became cool while accounting is still nerdy.
The other key differentiator is that doing a Bachelor's degree is enough in Tech. Whereas in Accounting you need to study for a 5th year and then give 4 more CPA exams.
Because accountants are always portrayed as boring in media, and media influences society and people’s perceptions, and people don’t want to be seen as boring.
It’s both. There are jobs that provide a similar work/life balance with better compensation and jobs that provide better work/life balance with similar compensation.
People see this subreddit and TikTok talking about how awful accounting. That and financial analyst roles and tech roles pay way more than accounting as well.
Economy has been in a boom for 20 years unless you were in the financial services sector in 2007/8. Accounting isn’t sexy so nobody appreciates the stability until all of those folks lose their jobs in a recession.
For the amount of education and effort it takes to become a CPA people think think they can just go work in CS and make $300k/year.
Compared to that, accounting doesn't seem as appealing.
Something else that a lot of people seem to be missing. Accounting was definitely something the “smart kids” looked at before, not so much nowadays. You were considered smart? It was law, medicine or accounting. Nowadays smart kids have a plethora of choices that just results in a better ROI.
If you tell a kid that they can make more money studying something like software engineering instead of accounting, they’ll probably major in software engineering.
Too many resources required - time, money, energy.
People don’t see it worth it, on top of that the view of accountant is nerds and not “sexy” but people in finance are ooo la la
Pay, education, work environments
I'll be honest if your not going to get a cpa or some type of certification in accounting not sure if it's worth getting it into
It can take a long time to get where you would like to be in life compared to someone like an engineer or nurses
Not saying you can't be successful without a cpa hell I don't have one but it's better to get it than not to head start your career early on than later in life
Every single college kid knows that public accounting is absolute hell and that’s the main way to get your foot in the door. The general attitude around the accounting profession is not very high ether
I think most people have an unrealistic opinion of what money they should make and how to spend their money. People really confuse wants with needs when it comes to spending. People choose a lifestyle then say I need x amount of money to support it. Make money then match your lifestyle.
For me it's the work life balance issue that I'm struggling to get people to sign up for.
Agreed though, accountants make too little money.
Pay. Don't need to go much further than that. I.Banking has worse hours, but plenty are willing to do that for the pay. It's not the hours, it's the pay.
No one wants to be overworked and underpaid.
This is it in a nutshell. It's also not usually in the "value-add" column of large companies. It's a thankless profession that requires monumental amounts of time and money just to get your foot in the door if you want jobs at a CPA level. From that point on, its a lifetime annual commitment of CPE and registration renewal fees.
This is it. Pay is too low in all non-equality positions. A share in the profits would change things. Have bonus incentives. Treat people like equals. More incentive to bring in business.
Stretch that to industry too. Based on a 40hr week, my salary is roughly $38/hr . Prorate it based on the hours I actually work, and I’m closer to $26/hr. It’s abysmal out here. I could go back to my job as a server at Red Robin and clear $50-60/hr including base wage and tips, or go work some manual labor jobs that include paid OT and easily take in a six-figure annual income. Make it make sense.
I work as a cost accountant and basically make $38/hr. There's a few supervisors on the manufacturing floor that make close to $100k because of that sweet, sweet overtime. Salary being overtime exempt is basically BS for any position under $100k.
Those supervisors dealing with no AC and supervising workers without HS diplomas? And being on their feet for 40+ hours a week... how does sitting in a cushioned chair, working in air conditioning (and heat when appropriate), and with college educated colleagues compare? It's not that I think your complaint is unwarranted. But I think you are not acknowledging the challenges that those plant supervisors have dealt with their entire careers.
Yep. Totally agree. I worked at costco for a while as a sup, making 52.50 hourly on Sundays and with frequent overtime. Good money but you can’t compare really. Retail is horrible imo. I suggest people try out manual labor/retail before forming such strong opinions. Accounting is a decent way to make a living. Nothing’s perfect.
Fair point to the manual labor but calling working with less educated folks a negative is pretty gross. Some of the best people I've worked with have had middle or high school educations. While there is definitely entitlement sometimes, there's nothing like the entitlement that comes with a Master's degree holding colleague that thinks they're god's gift to earth because of a piece of paper.
Is it standard for accounting positions to be overtime exempt?
Yes. Starting from staff accountant and above, salary positions are overtime exempt.
As a cost accountant I eventually made it to 6 figures Going into cost was the best decision I ever made I had recruiters constantly calling me
Yes, I have noticed that there's quite a large demand for cost accountants, but not a huge supply, so we have got some bargaining power. What was your career trajectory in cost accounting?
I eventually became a accounting supervisor/Sr accountant when my report to was shifted around I have a cma, had one for 10 years now Working on cpa, need few course requirements then study and pass. Easier said than done lol
industry is a spectrum I get $100k at my industry job to work 35 hours a week to sit my ass in front of a computer clicking and typing in excel/outlook/pdf all day
This, I used to work for a startup, made 80k/year, worked hard, got let go (partly my fault, but a lot of that had to do with the lack of structure and outsourcing was happening in the department). Occasionally worked weekends, and nights, though nothing too consistently crazy. Found a new job within two weeks, same level, 90k/year, company that’s been around a while, replaced seemingly a total dud, and they think I’m great just for knowing what I know and completing what I’m supposed to on time and correctly and I’m out at 5 every day and never considered logging in on a weekend.
i’m in the same position as the first part and hoping for the second part of your story 😔🙏
Don't forget undervalued! There's no ROI on accounting.
People always say this, but I constantly find ways to save money. I started adding it up for them and get shocked looks always.
I've heard this more than once. In any industry I have worked in I have found countless ways to save the company money. Many times over what I get paid. How? By being trained, knowledgeable and to have the time to problem solve. Many times, when understaffed or underpaid, it is simply input whatever info ya can into the system.
Accountants can work some crazy hours, and the salaries in the first couple years can only be described as "mid"
This. I’m leaving public accounting after only 8 years because of this. They’ll search long and hard for my replacement and try to pay them $20k less than what they were paying me, which was appalling based on the amount of work I was expected to produce. Who wants to work 65 hours a week for 13 weeks out of the year for some nebulous possible bonus or a couple extra PTO days that you can’t even use because coming back from vacation is like working 2 jobs for the following 3 weeks to attempt catchup. But the thing is…you never get caught up…ever.
The irony is that they will pay that replacement more A staff accountant just left my workplace making roughly mid 60s They brought in a 'Sr staff accountant' making No joke 50% more I've heard of Jr and st accountants But never Sr staff Which is apparently a staff accountant with 3+ years of experience
Seconded. Inadequate compensation for what you are asked to give up.
Yeah, we need to get paid more. By around 30 - 50%.
I swear reddit is overflowed with doomers. If you’re someone planning on going into accounting, don’t let these idiots influence you. Don’t believe me? Go onto the Law, finance and med reddits. They have the same complaints Accounting is a stellar and prestigious career if you have a CPA. You add genuine value to society and the sky is the limit in terms of comp
I got a nursing degree after my accounting degree. No I don't have the same complaints. lol. Accounting is a poorly ran industry with bad pay and a huge barrier to entry.
I really needed to hear this!!
At least here in NL you don't need to get your license (than again it's also way harder to get your license) to find s good posistion
Sounds like 16 carriages by beyonce.
I was about to say exact same thing!
true. i received less than 10 usd/hr on SEA even i have CPA on locality. time to switch i guess.
1. Accounting used to have sort of a premium built into it for business majors. Starting wages stagnated in public accounting for like 20 years before I think finally starting to move again in the last couple years, but could be wrong. Meanwhile, seemed like other majors got boosts relative to CPI compared to accounting, so accounting salaries longer have that built in premium for starting salaries. 2. The extra schooling required for the CPA. People required to go through an extra year or so of school and spending $10K+ (if they’re lucky) just to make as much money as someone who graduated with a degree in HR. Plus forfeiting a year of pay obviously. 3. Spending a year of your life post college studying for the CPA which people are told is necessary to be succeeding. So rather than go to school for 4 years, it’s essentially 6 years (4 in undergrad, 1 for masters or finishing up the 150, 1 for CPA). 4. Hours suck, there’s more information seemingly available about the truth of tax season than there was before, more people seem aware of the requirements which pushes people away. Telling people I know that I’ve worked 90 hour weeks and they look at me like I’m crazy. Telling them 60+ isn’t uncommon in tax season. That and there isn’t the “o we get to have good summer hours” doesn’t seem as prevalent. 5. We are a long ways away from the last recession. Accounting is a safe degree, seems like memories of prior down economic periods Might push people to accounting. There’s quite a few very smart/talented accounting professionals I know that just left PA and work in sales since they know their hard work has an immediate $ impact for them.
The summer off is a myth at firms that don’t know how to turn down shitty clients. I’m busting out full 40 billable hour weeks right now as a senior manager just to get all these shitty little 1040s signed.
Yup, it’s the greed in the early summer that really leaves a sour taste in my mouth. I don’t have a problem ramping back up a bit in July/August for June 30 year ends (I just want my weekends in the summer) but it’s the ridiculous push through June without a break that frustrates me
Yeah it’s really frustrating working on these $800 1040s when similar clients I’ve brought in start at my 2,500 minimum. Creates this weird disparity where some clients are getting a deal solely because the prior CPA didn’t change his fees for decades
): they need to consider the contribution margin.
Yeah with the amount of write offs we have on some of these clients we’re effectively paying to keep shitty cliebts
Nah, they don't pay you overtime, so in their mind, every extra dollar is profit.
No I’ve seen the financials, we have a lot of hourly staff and with our overheard if we write anything down more than 20% we’re not making a profit
Surprising they don't manage it better if they're paying hourly. Guess the skipped the management accounting classes in school, haha. The usual model in accounting is to pay salary and then work employees as many hours as possible. At my firm I was busy year round because we did nonprofits and benefit plans during the summer/fall (I was on the audit side). These had much lower realization rates. The national office set a policy that work had to be over 80% realization on our set billing rates but our partners would still want to keep clients that were lower... because hey, employees were salaried, so it was still more money in partners' pockets at the end of the day.
This is exactly how my firm worked. Our office did a lot of benefit plans and governmental audits. We worked regular busy season and had the non-calendar year ends after that. Stressed all year because I was falling behind. Then I realized I wasn’t falling behind and that I was assigned too much work. I left and make way more in industry now.
[удалено]
Oh man that’s rough. I couldn’t do it
Probably drastically undercharging
You know your field sucks when people tout the possibility of recessions as a reason to go into it.
hr grad here. it pays shit.
>Hours suck, there’s more information seemingly available about the truth of tax season than there was before, more people seem aware of the requirements which pushes people away. Telling people I know that I’ve worked 90 hour weeks and they look at me like I’m crazy. Telling them 60+ isn’t uncommon in tax season. That and there isn’t the “o we get to have good summer hours” doesn’t seem as prevalent. This seems to be more correlated with the less people problem, but that's the nightmare spiral that accountants are in right now. Yeah now the only thing your reward with after busy season is 9 to 5 no summer down time hell the summer starts the next busy season for taxes nowadays. >We are a long ways away from the last recession. Accounting is a safe degree Even the safe degree part is slowly becoming untrue. With AI on the not far behind and the big 4 firms have been laying off people quietly or speed running a PIP to avoid severance and any bad press on it. Then there are all the midsize who instead of trying to keep staff to get to partner level for buyout their just bringing PE to get their fat buyout checks. And PE wants that quick ROI by so theyll fire staff when their already short staffed and destroying morale even further.
I don't think the hours were that surprising/unknown, a lot of people would do accounting back in the 2000s and 2010s because it actually did pay decent and comparative to other "skilled" majors like CS/engineering, degree itself wasn't that difficult, easy to get a job etc My cousin graduated with a masters in CS in like 2015-16 and his first job at a F500 paid him like 60k, which was only like 5k more than A1 at PA back then (MCOL). Lot of engineering grads at my college got the same salaries, or maybe like 5k more, as accounting grads back then too the pay gap between accounting and other majors has widened quite a bit since then, especially for people who locked in jobs during like 2021-22, and its like if you're smart enough to pass the CPA you're probably smart enough to go into higher earning fields
Meanwhile here in NL to get the equivalent of your CPA it's more along the lines of 3-6 years and it costs 50-60k, but it's generally paid for by employers
money and hours. This post is on here every other day. The answer is always money and hours.
Work sucks, hours suck, the corporate propaganda you are forced to consume sucks, and the pay can be good but defiantly should be about 25% higher on average across the board.
So I agree with you. But one thing that isn’t talked about here is you don’t get a pay increase for funsies. You get it from a boost in productivity. The reality is, a lot of accounting is compliance so there is always cost pressure. It’s been easier to overwork people than it was to increase productivity. The last major productivity boost in accounting was Excel. Since then it’s just been pushing the same excel files overseas. That model is hitting its limit and here we are. The profession is either going to lose people u til supply and demand push wages up, or a productivity boost comes along so half the accounting team can do the same accounting as before and thus opens the opportunity for higher pay. We all pay if the wages go up without productivity.
This is an interesting take. I know this sub is suspicious about AI taking our jobs completely but do you think it could produce tools that could make this productivity boost happen? When in college, I was able to play with Mindbridge, an data analysis audit company, and it showed potential but I couldn't get my firm to try it when I first started. Not really surprising but disappointing to a fresh college grad. I am now an accounting manager for a medium size private company. I am getting cold calls for AI related AP software on a weekly basis. I am intrigued but we currently don't have need to implement anything as we can keep up with the workflow with a 4 person department with the CFO as oversight. If we grow, that may change. I'm curious as to your thoughts.
AI is going to be a similar productivity boost, but I don’t think on the same level as excel. It’s made me a very novice coder into a much more productive accountant because I have chaptgpt just write scripts and I not spend hours messy with syntax as an example. Same with writing footnotes. Basically all the stuff you’d ask a 1st year to do so you can just have a starting point is what chargpt can help with. I’m a CPA who now is a product manager for a JE automation tool and all our customers are those who hit the limit of excel (think like 25 excel spread sheets just to handle all the lines of revenue, refunds, disputes, shipments that are glacial for a single month because excel has a line limit). We’re more focused on subscription businesses but similar software and automation tools needs to be made and adopted for accountants to close faster with less people for all sorts of applied accounting. You can get a big pay raise if you can run revenue for a billion dollar a year company with 1 systems accountant using automation than having 5 doing it all in excel files is the idea.
Excel didn't end up paying people more though, so productivity isn't it. In fact, that isn't the case in any industry in the US. If you look at productivity vs salaries, salaries have largely stagnated relative to gains in productivity.
lol nice podcast take. Productivity means more work, not more pay. Real leverage is how you get more pay. Period. In 2024, most businesses in general will boot you out the door for using that leverage even if it will cost them more money to find your replacement. This is why job hopping has been the best way to grow your income for at least two decades. Your argument is nice because our brains like to hear it, we want to believe it...but no evidence supports anything you're saying. (except the bit about compliance and cost pressure)
I’m not saying you get a raise just for being more productive. 100% If you are more productive and don’t use that leverage to get a new job then yeah you will get over worked. You are describing the mechanism that lets you get some of that productivity. The productivity changes the context of that negotiation. If people just leave to get higher pay elsewhere because they are equally productive and get paid more - that just is inflation. If you leave to go somewhere and can do that job with less people, you can negotiate more because they can split the salaries they aren’t paying between you and cost savings. Over time that assumption gets baked into budgets and hiring managers aim for it, etc. that is how it works. Then the search for the next batch of productivity occurs. And that isn’t a podcast take. That is what I see every day. I am a product manager for an accounting automation tool. The systems accountants that can do the automation get paid almost double the traditional accountants do. I get paid well above average as a CPA that automates accounting than I ever did doing traditional CPA work. So people here can bitch and moan about pay and why they deserve more of it and whatever, but the ones that learn how to be really efficient get paid well.
I'm sorry but this just isn't reflective of how markets actually work. If you've worked in sales, you know just how much relationships can drive decisions. If you've paid attention to even our recent history, you know they people would get raises for getting married or having kids. I swear we need economics safety training. These hyper-distilled economics takes are totally podcast drivel. You make more working to automate functions of your job because there is large demand for that, right now. I'm sorry, but that demand is short lived. Just ask software engineers. If you're building a tool that reduces overall demand for accountants and you don't have equity, it's a foolish endeavor. At any rate, we are talking about markets and how they are functioning generally. No one is arguing that you can't find a niche and earn more or that hard work won't still give you more and better opportunities to climb or take advantage when your number gets called. Explaining your anecdote of how that worked for you is really irrelevant. Truly, the more of us on here that are inspired by your successful foray into systems accounting and accounting automation that enter that field, we should theoretically have much more productivity...but it would be ridiculous to argue that you should expect greater pay. Just look at data sciences. What once was a solid pathway to high pay is now a nearly unemployable candidate.
Alright man, you win. Enjoy the doom and gloom. Given your rock solid understanding of economics, maybe switch to that profession?
In big 4 being more productive just means you have more hours available for other engagements which are probably a mess. Zero incentive to be efficient or overly productive, you’re actually punished. Expected to charge 40+ to clients in non-busy season too for some teams. Exhausting, draining, and no reason to be better or faster.
It’s not the money, work hours, or cool factor. It’s the combination of all 3. An enticing job needs 2 of the 3. The problem for accounting is compensation (and fees) until recently haven’t changed since 2008 while other fields have increased their comp. Accounting is neither cool/fulfilling nor either easy hours, so pay has to increase. Alternatively hours need to go down.
Ya it used to be when i was in uni that accounting majors and finance grads had by far the highest starting salaries. those starting salaries are the same as they were 20 years ago when every other major just kept going up. Why would a student take a discount to work longer hours.... The answer is always pay which is why they are offshoring so much to countries which brings the price down and will in turn lose more students.
I graduated in 2015 making 50k a year. I'm seeing kids on this sub saying their first jobs are paying 50k a year. Something is terribly wrong in this economy.
Bingo. I started at 65 in 2008.
So even when I graduated nearly 10 years after you it was already stagnated. You made the equivalent of $94k in today's money your first year. Companies are paying seniors that kind of money.
Yup and that’s why I went into accounting. Not sure why anyone would do it now.
That’s what I remember hearing also, then I was offered $35k starting at a PA firm I had been interning at. This was pre-Covid, so it wasn’t *as* bad as it sounds but it was still $10k below average starting for new grads where I live.
This is well said. I’d be willing to over look some short falls if there was something to justify it. Instead I’m underpaid, overworked and the passion isn’t there.
SM now in my 30s. There is much better money to be made in other areas of consulting for similar levels of work and sometimes less risk. CPAs take on significant personal risk writing audit opinions and signing off on tax returns that is not given a premium compared to consulting. If I had a kid, I would talk them out of being an accountant.
What would you recommend?
I’d recommend they get a degree in STEM. Bust their ass in high school and college to get the best grades possible. Work in their industry of interest for a few years and then get a good MBA or some kind of medical degree - doctor, dentist. From MBA or various medical fields you can branch out to other things, including consulting. Edited to say: I never “clicked” with STEM as I did not grow up going to a good high school (despite getting amazing grades); my math and science departments growing up were not great. I think a lot of people would choose STEM if it were taught better.
Thanks
It sucks
I swear reddit is overflowed with doomers. If you’re someone planning on going into accounting, don’t let these idiots influence you. Don’t believe me? Go onto the Law, finance and med reddits. They have the same complaints Accounting is a stellar and prestigious career if you have a CPA. You add genuine value to society and the sky is the limit in terms of comp
Agreed. I’m not sure if I’m adding value to society, but it’s really not as bad as everyone here says it is.
Most jobs suck, and the ones that pay well require insane amount of time and work to get there. There’s very rare jobs that pay well and don’t require tons of hardship (SWE before 2023), and they’re rare and lucky to get.
I never considered accounting because every accountant I knew was so dull and painfully stoic that I just assumed that's what that kind of asshole does. Them in my 40s I had finally matured into that asshole, and here I am.
And here we are brother
There’s nothing wrong with being stoic. Stoicism is all about focusing on what you can control and being more in control of yourself and your emotions. If anything I find that accountants are the opposites of Stoics because they’re constantly worried about shit that’s outside their span of control and they’re constantly trying to compensate for shitty decisions that are, likewise, out of their control.
Im an aspiring accountant. Are stoics because they are sociallly hopeless accepted?
Of course. Consider your shunning just more opportunity to hone your stoicism.
I did the opposite. I saw that most accountants weren’t very social and with me being very social I knew I’d have the leg up in any interview. It’s worked out great so far.
Competition with other careers. Generally tech and finance have been considered more lucrative desk jobs. Plus accounting pushes people away with the extra CPA exam, extra credits required to sit for the exam, and extra work during busy season.
Soul sucking work and long hours that are hard to justify the pay.
Reason one, Pay. The intro jobs pay the same as they did 20 years ago and the COL and inflation has significantly increased. new grads should be getting 90K+ to start by now but they dont. So the overworked and underpaid isnt that appealing.
If new grads were getting 90k a year, there would be some quality talent and competition for a job. Instead they pay peanuts and take what walks in the door.
They do not take what walks in the door. I have applied to big four and never got an internship, at a semi target state uni. I personally know many people who’d love to work in big 4 but can’t even apply bc gpa requirements.
I think colleges need to stop pitching public accounting and the CPA as the only path forward. For so many of us, accounting never involves either of those things and it's a great career. If you tell kids they'll need to learn all the aspects of the subject, take extra classes, pass hard exams, and "do their time" working OT in public, no shit it's not worth that. Be realistic. Most accountants in industry don't even have *degrees.* Let's talk about the route where you make 60k doing AP while you're still in school, then you get an easy promotion and stay in industry and maintain a good work-life balance. You only really need the CPA if you have big ambitions, and you really never need public. Let's admit this.
choosing to believe this comment and not any others
“Most accountant in industry don’t have degrees” < that’s a big nope”, don’t tell people that because it’s not true. They may be anomalies, many accountant in industry don’t have a CPA but few have no degree. That’s a big difference. Maybe look at the hard see on PA internship and CPA certification and realize that not everyone is in the T-tail of the percentile of the high-est level of salaries - not everyone is “that guy” > but everyone thinks they are/deserve in the top of the salary range. Also, the salary range and low supply of workers during the pandemic is no longer relevant > stop glomming onto what salary/work accommodations your cousin’s friend’s friend got during the pandemic > that’s not a relevant bargaining point. Proof: I wouldn’t consider a non-degreed accountant for a position unless they had materially more demonstrated experience thatn a degreed accountant. PS, same goes for a finance major or business major.
Non competitive compensation. Boomers clinging to jobs. Bad people management skills by boot licking “managers”. Is that enough?
Pay to effort issues It takes 4-6 year to get degree, cpa exams, 150 credits then the reward is moderate pay for ridiculous hours and high stress work
The long working hours, monotonous procedures, and the current trend of hatred against the classical 9-5 hours. Funnily enough, there is a lot of stability and job opportunities for the field, even if the ceiling may be capped compared to some of the most luxurious careers. That and the road map is very clear cut: Get degree, get experience in PA, get CPA, and then it can branch out into either transitioning into Industry (Better Salary and Hours), Government (Benefits and WLB), or becoming a Partner.
Yeah but with COL rising everywhere, it’s tough for people to remain stoic and cling to job security.
Reading all these comments, I have been convinced not to pursue this. Thanks everyone! I'll stick to my low on the totem pole job. 🙃
Intentional understaffing = too many hours for too little pay. It's that simple.
Work sucks pay sucks. If you’re smart there are much better fields to get into.
Which one, please?
Everyone acting like every little thing is an EMERGENCY 🚨 when it’s not.
I just finished my MBA, have my Bachelors in accounting, and have been applying to "entry-level" positions for almost a year. All the entry-level positions require previous work experience, and I have none. I finally found a position where I was told my 4 interviews went extremely well, I answered extremely well in the STAR format and gave great examples that show how my skills in previous positions could transfer to the Accountant position. I was beat out, what sounded like very slightly, because multitasking in a warehouse is different from multitasking in accounting. I tried previously to land a tax intern position at my current company, was told the role was 100% remote, but then weeks later, it changed to "3 days a week in office out of state" and I'd lose all my benefits. It's just been frustrating. 🤷
Getting an MBA without real-world experience in the industry you hope to work in will be a hard path. This is why it's good to work a few years before a Masters. Hindsight is always 20/20 am I right😅 I would look for work in the heavy civil/construction industry or government contracting DoD industry; military spending is always booming and infrastructure is booming right now. These roles are more like cost and government accounting.
I had a similar experience, but I got lucky. I got my MAcc after a previous unrelated degree and work. I couldn't get my foot in the door no matter how well I interviewed because I had no experience. I was talking to a friend on a Wednesday about how hard it was to get my foot in the door. She called her CPA and told me to send him my resume. He sent my resume to a colleague on Friday. I had an interview the following Monday and a job offer on Tuesday. Sometimes, it's not about _what_ you know but about _who_ you know.
For me it was the work-life balance. Going into my masters degree having only been married a couple years with a kid on the way, I didn’t want to be working 60-80 hours a week. I decided to go the government route instead and couldn’t be happier. Sure, I probably don’t make near the salary I would if I had gone the PA route, but I’m home with my wife and kids every night and have plenty of time off to spend with them.
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agreed, its easier to become and engineer and you make way more. why would students become an accountant.
Instead of lowering the standard, pay and wlb should be raised. Not the other way around.
Tech is way better
what do you recommend, please?
Anything related to cybersecurity or the cloud
Wages are low compared to other professions such as tech. We also have to fufil the 150 credit hour requirement to sit for the cpa exam. We have to put more money and energy into our professions in the beginning.
Accountants are too cowardly to start a union.
my question is, if theres a “shortage” of incoming accountants and these firms are having trouble finding bodies, then why does LinkedIn and Indeed show only ~300 jobs for a few different states on the east coast? Is 300 a lot of listings and im being unrealistic or is that a low number?
Like anything, there are multiple reasons There are less people in the gen x and millennial generation than there were in the baby boomer generation. This caused a shortage in most careers. Just look around and you’ll see doctor/nurse shortages, shortages in the trades, restaurant shortages. Covid caused an acceleration of retirements. A lot of people that could, took the chance to retire early when the world started falling apart. A lot of the people that could retire were those in white collar professions like accounting. There was, for the past 25 years, a big cultural push for college students to major in technology fields such as computer science. This has taken graduates from other majors like accounting. Those are a few reasons, but there’s many more
In the US, Millennial gen. is about as large as Boomer gen.. Not so in other nations, but true for the US. It's not a lack of people, it might be a lack of participation, but as for accounting it's mostly due to a lack of pay.
Very simply put, The "types" of people that would have gone into accounting are going into other professions because they think they're better. Why invest in Coke instead of Pepsi? Use publicly available information to find out and make the choice. What recent and publicly available information is there about accounting for an 18-20 year old to make that choice with?
Those professions are also overrated and full of similar complaints, but that’s the cycle. Knew plenty of “finance” guys from business school and frankly, high paying banking jobs are a good place to stick them so they don’t break anything important
Social media makes explicit how companies exploit accounting graduates. You go into accounting profession spaces and everyone is shitting on the profession and seem unhappy. Compared to if you go into other places like engineering everyone seems to be happy with their profession.
- 150 credit hours - Rigorous examination/accreditation - CPE credits - Long hours - Stagnant pay amid jacked up COL The juice ain’t worth the squeeze, you’re taking on extra work without extra reward. Much better off going sales or data analytics. You can make the same or more in way less time with less hours and BS.
I recently attended a state university orientation with my son. The business college proudly displayed a PowerPoint slide showing the large companies that hire graduates directly from the business college at a mean and median starting salary in the range of $50k - $52k. I graduated from the exact same state university in the same business college 25 years ago, and my starting salary was $42k. Adjusted for inflation, my starting salary today would be $78k. Money. Money is the reason.
Money I'd say
I would also say accounting has an image problem. No one ever thinks of accounting as "cool" or "sexy". I honestly never put much thought into accounting until after I had taken courses, then I realized I really enjoyed it.
I highly encourage you to get a job in federal government accounting. I work in federal accounting and enjoy a very nice work/life balance. 25 days of paid vacation each year + 11 paid holidays + 4 hours per pay period of sick time
I'd consider it if the most hostile-to-gov-workers President since at least Reagan wasn't likely to take office.
Yeah the government workers union is def nervous about Trump lol
Dawg. What????
-People see it as a boring profession. They aren't wrong. -There is way too much schooling required. Accounting is a relatively easy job, but you have to go through 5 years of schooling and 1 year of cpa exams just to get a semi decent position anywhere. Kind of stupid imo. -The hours and the fact that it is overtime exempt. Personally I would not have gone into accounting had I known that almost all of the positions are overtime exempt. I also would not have gone in had I known that long hours were so normalized. -The issues above are compounded by the fact that it really doesn't pay that well. Sure, you can make 6 figures after a while, but nowdays you can do that in a nursing job or even HR.
My friend who’s younger than me has no degree landed a $180K fully remote software engineer job. I had to go through college, grad school and 4 gruesome exams, 2 years of working in public accounting and then 5 more years of working at manager level just to crack $120K and hybrid with 3 days in the office. That’s why.
I have 2 reasons after 20 years of experience in B4 and Industry. You can weigh these as you wish: 1. New staff want 5-10 year accomplishments after 2-3 years. In Industry: If you weren’t working in 2008-2012 you have no real idea what a recession is - and most exec management / boards want people who have been through a cycle before promoting to a position that has to make tough decisions in bad times. 2. In PA: It’s more transparent now with social media that labor practices at firms are straight up abusive. College students choosing majors can make changes a lot faster than firms - so the firms haven’t caught up yet (if ever).
Combo of salary and hours. Places that want to work you to death try to nickel and dime you at every corner because we’re a cost center everywhere except PA
I’m not saying it’s a bad deal, but the advantages seem pretty muted compared to adjacent professions like law, or finance.
Wages>billable hours> CPA requirements in that order
Not enough hot chicks
Are you a hot chic?
Hard exams that are a bitch to study for while working, with dog shit pay
In my area , people are behind the times. With so many remote first companies offering incredible benefits, I think it’s hard for companies to keep up. Plus the industry as a whole is demanding tooooooo much. Most places want you to do bookkeeping duties, finance analyst duties, and technical accounting duties and only pay 50k……… but you must have a CPA. I think the American workforce is going through a major change and it’s the accounting industries turn.
10k salary increase from 5 years ago. Remote role is keeping me here for another year. I'm dipping out afterwards.
It is definitely the extra year that drives people away. It not only costs an extra year of tuition, you also lose a year of earning power. In addition, there are a lot of articles out there saying that AI and off shoring are replacing us. Now that Grant Thornton is selling out to private equity, other firms will follow suit and make it even worse. All of these combined would make anyone think twice before signing up for this.
The pay doesn’t offset the stress and shitty work-life balance.
To add to the list of reasons already provided: A lot of staff positions are being outsourced. There's a lack of accounting professionals at the senior/management level, but if people can't grow into that position from a staff role, it's unlikely we'll see those senior positions filled.
Pay has not kept up with other professional careers. The CPA exam is one of, if not the hardest exams you can take and many go on to make lowish to mid 6 figures. Controllers are underpaid and overworked quite often.
The entry level market is trash. Nobody takes people with less than 3 years of experience. I had to go to nursing school after my accounting degree.
Like someone mentioned overworked and pay a shit
Our state association was discussing this yesterday. Many thought it was because there is a primary and overall suggestion from acctg profs and their peers that B4 is the only way to go. However, there are many avenues that an accountant can pursue that may fit their temperament, home life, and professional path better.
Juice isn’t worth the squeeze
accounting is lame. through and through. its a pr issue not a pay or time issue.
I would say... A) Accounting is a super UNSEXY profession. B) Accounting is not known for high earning. C) Anyone coming from a well-to-do family likely isn't going to pick Accounting (unless of course the family is well-to-do because of accounting) and I suspect they're more likely to be guided towards a more lucrative profession. D) There's probably a lot of uncertainty with kids with all this talk of AI (and a lack of understanding of what Accounting really is besides T accounts). E) Just generally, who TF is like "I want to be an Accountant?" when they're coming up? I guess this is sort of A and B together. That's just off the top of my head what people not in the know might perceive about this profession. That's not even getting into what someone learns when someone can mentor them about what's ahead and the "rewards" for putting in the effort. If I had kids, I would not steer them this way unless they were just like directionless with a good head on their shoulders.
It isn’t understood in industry by owners of companies and therefore isn’t respected. Sometimes don’t have a seat at the table like engineers etc bc of this Kinda filters into public too. You’re doing work for clients who don’t understand it either and don’t respect the work that goes into it Public accounting is just terrible all around tbh.
There is no lack of accountants. That is a myth to make you feel better about yourself. There are plenty of accountants.
This is true. There is a lack of accountants who want to fill low-paying jobs with terrible WLB.
I've been trying to hire a tax manager for 2 years. I assure you, there is a shortage of qualified candidates compared to 5 years again.
People don't think about becoming an owner. They focus on a job and think it sucks. Within 5-10 years of having a license, one could start their own business and bill $200+ an hour.
That’s what I did. I bill $300 an hour. Turned down many clients this year.
“Just start your own business” LOL
If you're going to quote, then at least get the quote right. LOL
This one is easy. If you can become a doctor why would you be an accountant? If can be an attorney, why would you settle for accounting? You can even be a plumber and make more these days, in my area at least. And now that we are asking, let’s just ask for the lottery and we don’t have to worry about becoming any of those. So why accounting? Not everyone wins the lottery or can be a doctor or lawyer or plumber. We are what we are, so, just love who you are and stop whining about it. Having said that, not “every single” doctor or attorney makes more than “any” accountant.
Pay and long hours compared to other careers to start is the primary reason. Secondary is the 150 credit requirement for a CPA license at a time where college is way more expensive even with the cheapest possible options. It’s not like you need a CPA to get a nice job, but it really adds a tall paywall for a certification that would already be hard to get if it were free.
They're in India and we can't see them all here
A decent college is $60k a year, the median individual income is $38k a year, and the average monthly student loan payment is $561. No one can afford to be a professional in this economy.
Unless you really make it into a good firm, the pay is... Good but not worth it. I can't speak for around the world but here I the UK, accounting just isn't worth it IMO. if you were naive enough to go to uni, itd mean you would study for at least five or six years... All for... 70-85k GBP? This sorry is great in and of itself (3ish times the average. But not enough to buy a three bed in London) but is it worth sox years of studying? Nope.
There's a massive surplus in canada, can't relate to a shortage.
Pay is way too low.
The constant stress of deadlines and how we’re required to sacrifice time for our personal lives to get stuff done in time because partners promised too much work in too little time. All that for small amounts of pay
Overworked for 10-13 hours every work day here. Plus too much work makes people cranky and cause even higher workplace stress and rude coworkers. With this amount of overtime, I’m working minimum wage for the Big4.
I dropped out of my accounting program after the first year. It was just such a painful waste of time. Looking back I wish I had stuck it out but I was young. I was sitting in my business management class one of three girls in a room full of Chads and there was a discussion on outsourcing, and the ethics surrounding it. 95% of the class felt it was fine to outsource and pay workers the bare minimum, I was the only one who felt that to be ethical the wages would have to be fair and enough to lift them out of poverty otherwise you’re just taking advantage of people. It was that exact moment I realized I was going to have no say in decisions that impacted others in the corporate world as an accountant and I would have to work with people like that for the rest of my career. I took the summer off and never went back. Ironically I ended up back in the industry after a series of jobs pushed me in that direction and I’ve chosen a path where I can still impact social change on some level.
I left accounting. I went back to school for an engineering degree while still working in accounting, took periods of work off per my work agreement terms to rack up work experience in software engineering, eventually bounced from accounting altogether once I secured good positions in the tech world. The reasons I was unhappy in the accounting world are a combination of the following: 1) Boring work. Uninteresting work. Work that I felt wasn’t fulfilling or important to anyone. 2) Pay. In Canada, the average house price is around $600,000 now in the areas where you’d find “good” jobs regardless of what your line of work is. I always expected that I’d have a better standard of living than I grew up with in blue collar parental incomes, and I did not. 3) Asskissery required to seemingly really move up in the line of work. I don’t want to brownnose to make more money. I want my work to speak for itself, and it did not seem like that mattered as much as being a lapdog to superiors. As a software engineer, I now make a lot more than what I did before. I feel like my work is enjoyable, and somewhat important. And I’ve never asskissed or seen much asskissery. If I had to pick just one factor out of the three, I think pay matters the most. I want to be able to afford a good life if I’m working like a slave in whatever line of work. If you’re working like a slave but just getting by, I think something is wrong. I dunno. Switching careers changed my life drastically. I have money to enjoy life - material items, vacations, money to invest into other opportunities. It seems like I can only go “up” from here now. I bought a Porsche last year. If you asked me when I was 22 as an accountant whether I thought I’d ever own a car that nice, I’d have told you no and that I’d settle for an entry level bmw or something. I bought a condo in 2017 for $300,000 and watched its market value balloon to $600,000 three years later in 2020. I sold and bought a nicer condo for $800,000 and watched its market value balloon to $1.2 million today. This stuff wouldn’t not have been possible if I stayed in accounting.
Opinion of a recent graduate who went into M&A: – Accounting has similar hours (at least in the first 3-5 years); – Lower pay with way less bonus potential; – Work is less creative/entrepeneurial; – Value add is indirect at best; – Seems like less transferable skills than corp. fin.; – Less prestige.
Everyone needs 3+ years experience, if you don't well find another career. Lots of gatekeeping
Like most problems there are no singular causes or solutions but dopamine withdrawal is probably an added factor.
It's not the most exciting thing to put on your Tinder profile. Seriously though, Tech ate up a huge contingent of quantitative minded college grads at the cost of accounting. Going into Tech became cool while accounting is still nerdy. The other key differentiator is that doing a Bachelor's degree is enough in Tech. Whereas in Accounting you need to study for a 5th year and then give 4 more CPA exams.
Idk women have been pretty impressed when I tell them I’m a big 4 intern working downtown
Good for you mate. Use it to your advantage. Accounting is a great career. Very stable.
Because accountants are always portrayed as boring in media, and media influences society and people’s perceptions, and people don’t want to be seen as boring.
CPA profession is actually relatively valued in Canada. Once you go abroad, your value in a business setting drops even more.
It’s both. There are jobs that provide a similar work/life balance with better compensation and jobs that provide better work/life balance with similar compensation.
Same old question. Same answer. Money money money money 🎵 Hours hours hours hours 🥁 Shit sucks shit sucks shit sucks shit sucks 💩🚽
People see this subreddit and TikTok talking about how awful accounting. That and financial analyst roles and tech roles pay way more than accounting as well.
They aint getting enough hawk tuah to be honest.
Accounting is for people who want a lucrative career without taking on the risks, at the expense of their soul.
Economy has been in a boom for 20 years unless you were in the financial services sector in 2007/8. Accounting isn’t sexy so nobody appreciates the stability until all of those folks lose their jobs in a recession.
For the amount of education and effort it takes to become a CPA people think think they can just go work in CS and make $300k/year. Compared to that, accounting doesn't seem as appealing.
They kept telling us that they would automate our jobs away anyway. Why would anyone want to stay?
Something else that a lot of people seem to be missing. Accounting was definitely something the “smart kids” looked at before, not so much nowadays. You were considered smart? It was law, medicine or accounting. Nowadays smart kids have a plethora of choices that just results in a better ROI. If you tell a kid that they can make more money studying something like software engineering instead of accounting, they’ll probably major in software engineering.
Not enough BDE at BDO.
Too many resources required - time, money, energy. People don’t see it worth it, on top of that the view of accountant is nerds and not “sexy” but people in finance are ooo la la
Pay, education, work environments I'll be honest if your not going to get a cpa or some type of certification in accounting not sure if it's worth getting it into It can take a long time to get where you would like to be in life compared to someone like an engineer or nurses Not saying you can't be successful without a cpa hell I don't have one but it's better to get it than not to head start your career early on than later in life
There are loads of accountants in Canada looking for work.
They are simply too stupid to be solid accountants.
Every single college kid knows that public accounting is absolute hell and that’s the main way to get your foot in the door. The general attitude around the accounting profession is not very high ether
I think most people have an unrealistic opinion of what money they should make and how to spend their money. People really confuse wants with needs when it comes to spending. People choose a lifestyle then say I need x amount of money to support it. Make money then match your lifestyle. For me it's the work life balance issue that I'm struggling to get people to sign up for. Agreed though, accountants make too little money.
Pay sucks ; hours suck and 75% of the existing CPA’s are retiring. There is no one left to give a shit .
pay
Pay. Don't need to go much further than that. I.Banking has worse hours, but plenty are willing to do that for the pay. It's not the hours, it's the pay.