Any CPAs here? Need advice

[Thatrogueassdiaz]

Hey brehs,


I have never taken an Accounting course, but I'm thinking about getting a post-bac Accounting certificate after I finish grad school (lord willing). I am getting my master's in Health Administration, and I want to get as much training as I can to put me ahead of the pack when it's time to start applying for jobs.

Most administrators and directors handle company finances, so that's why I've really pondered getting this certificate. The only problem is I don't know how strenuous the math is and whether I'd be able to excel at it. I've always sucked at math. In undergrad I only took like 2 courses in math.

Anyways, if I do get the certificate, I can actually sit for the CPA license.

Can anyone let me know what to expect and how difficult a subject accounting is?

 

[Slaimon Khan Shah]

Accounting is pretty difficult. But if you study and pray to God you can get through it. I got a C in accounting last summer, and i didn't study much.

 

[Slystallion]

Accounting math is not hard at all man. It's just remembering what goes where on balance sheet income statements and cash flow chart when it comes to financial accounting which is basically just reporting your finances for audit purposes or general bookkeeping

Managerial accounting is more useful if your going to be dealing with a companies internal numbers and trying to forecast budgets and then checking the variances with the actual sales numbers controlling costs knowing the quantity of raw materials to order and how to deal with overhead costs

But the math is simple it's the rules you have to remember that might put it higher on the difficulty chart... Finance math is higher on the scale difficulty but it's not engineering math no where near it

 

[Slaimon Khan Shah]

Accounting math is not hard at all man. It's just remembering what goes where on balance sheet income statements and cash flow chart when it comes to financial accounting which is basically just reporting your finances for audit purposes or general bookkeeping

Managerial accounting is more useful if your going to be dealing with a companies internal numbers and trying to forecast budgets and then checking the variances with the actual sales numbers controlling costs knowing the quantity of raw materials to order and how to deal with overhead costs

But the math is simple it's the rules you have to remember that might put it higher on the difficulty chart... Finance math is higher on the scale difficulty but it's not engineering math no where near it

I guess it can depend on the person as to how difficult accounting is for them. Something that almost always works for me, is praying to God to get me what i want. Pray to God, Pray to God, Pray to God.

 

[Brown_Pride]

accounting isn't hard at all. Math wise if you can add, subtract, divide and multiply you'll be straight.

At this stage it really is more of a conceptual thing. Hell even now when i'm sitting with other accountants in the department and we are trying to think through journal entries I use letters instead of numbers. Once you get the concepts down the math is the easy part.

You might take Accounting I and II at a community college if you haven't taken any already, it really isn't that hard though. It's more logical than anything else. If you're good with logic you'll get accounting. Debits Left, Credits Right.

And it is a big leg up to have functional knowledge of accounting in whatever you do. No matter what your job is if you understand accounting you're more of an asset to your company.

 

[Yogi]

Like others have posted, the math is not hard at all. The hard part is learning the concepts and keeping up with constantly changing accounting standards.

 

[kevm3]

Math in accounting is pretty much add and subtract. What makes accounting difficult is the sheer amount of information thrown at you and knowing which account has to be debited and credited and ultimately making sure that the balance sheet actually balances. The statement of cash flows is no joke.

 

[unit321]

Hey brehs,


I have never taken an Accounting course, but I'm thinking about getting a post-bac Accounting certificate after I finish grad school (lord willing). I am getting my master's in Health Administration, and I want to get as much training as I can to put me ahead of the pack when it's time to start applying for jobs.

Most administrators and directors handle company finances, so that's why I've really pondered getting this certificate. The only problem is I don't know how strenuous the math is and whether I'd be able to excel at it. I've always sucked at math. In undergrad I only took like 2 courses in math.

Anyways, if I do get the certificate, I can actually sit for the CPA license.

Can anyone let me know what to expect and how difficult a subject accounting is?

I have a business management degree and the math courses that were mandatory were not that hard. They didn't get into calculus so if you are scared about that, then you don't have to worry. But every school is different. Anyway, I took two math courses for business which was mainly algebra applied to story problems. If a train is going 100 MPH and uses 10 MPG, blah blah blah. Figure it out.

I took two accounting courses. The accounting classes were not a walk in the park. It may be hard to grasp, it may be easy to grasp. It wasn't easy for me.
For a class called Financial Accounting, everyone was assigned a semester long project using an accounting program to make accounting entries (revenue, expenses, adjustments, etc.) into a general ledger for a fake company, and at the end, you were judged on if your general ledger was balanced, as in $0 difference between assets and liabilities (and owner's equity). Student in another business class who sat next to me was off by $20+. Let's just say I was off by $40,000+. I wasn't the worst but I was well behind the bell curve.

 

[john goodman]

Accounting isn't shyt but memorizing rules... Throw logic in the bushes

 

[Slystallion]

Accounting isn't shyt but memorizing rules... Throw logic in the bushes

Auditers are glorified bean counters who are necessary in the post Enron GAAP world. Switched my major when i realized its a skill that over time pays well but doesn't add real value to the world or the company you work for, your not being innovative or making decisions on what to do with the company, other people make decisions based on the data you input

however having a grasp and keeping your company organized with managerial accounting and internal numbers is pretty damn valuable when it comes to controlling costs and figuring out wages

 

[Black smoke and cac jokes]

Auditers are glorified bean counters who are necessary in the post Enron GAAP world. Switched my major when i realized its a skill that over time pays well but doesn't add real value to the world or the company you work for, your not being innovative or making decisions on what to do with the company, other people make decisions based on the data you input

however having a grasp and keeping your company organized with managerial accounting and internal numbers is pretty damn valuable when it comes to controlling costs and figuring out wages

I don't think you know what an auditor does. They don't input any data, they review the company's data.

Also, the low-level auditors is not supposed to make anything innovative, they are simply there to analyze the information given. You should go read up some bloomberg, wsj, or the economists articles and to see what auditors has attributed to the financial industry.

Your second paragraph contradicts your first.

 

[TheBigBopper]

Accounting is necessary in business, but also fukking boring

Take it from someone who spent almost a damn hour today tryna get a financial model to balance

 

[ComputersPutin]

Auditers are glorified bean counters who are necessary in the post Enron GAAP world. Switched my major when i realized its a skill that over time pays well but doesn't add real value to the world or the company you work for, your not being innovative or making decisions on what to do with the company, other people make decisions based on the data you input

however having a grasp and keeping your company organized with managerial accounting and internal numbers is pretty damn valuable when it comes to controlling costs and figuring out wages

What are you talking about? How can you say auditors dont add real value to the world and the company you work for? Every major company has internal auditors which directly benefit the company they work for. How could you mention Enron and then say External Auditors add no value to the world? ........Everyone in here is a taxpayer.....the government has auditors with your interest at hands to make sure the taxpayer dollar is being spent correctly ......Forensic Accountants...catch criminals....

to the Auditors.


The CPA is a beast.... Who ever said its memorizing rules..is wrong....the majority of accounting is the correct application of those rules. Which is why so many accountants got in trouble with "special accounting" they were cooking books with. Accounting is deep there are so many types of accounting and they are always changing something.

 

[Slystallion]

I don't think you know what an auditor does. They don't input any data, they review the company's data.

Also, the low-level auditors is not supposed to make anything innovative, they are simply there to analyze the information given. You should go read up some bloomberg, wsj, or the economists articles and to see what auditors has attributed to the financial industry.

Your second paragraph contradicts your first.

managerial accounting and financial accounting are different. The first is cost accounting and deals with internal numbers and projecting budgets and costs. And yes the auditors review the data from the company's financial accounting statements that their accounts do but they aren't managerial accounting they are simply dealing with the financial statements of the company the ones in charge of the financial statements within the company are counting up the inventory and inputting the data of accounts receivable cash assets and debits like whats owed to suppliers and what not.

absolutely necessary stuff for organization purposes and knowing where they stand but not exactly the innovative arm of the company or even a part of the team thats there making the decisions of what the company should do moving forward.

and like i said the auditors are the financial police making sure there is no mistakes made by the company's accountants and the information is valuable to investors and company valuations for mergers and acquisitions

but they are glorified counters who have to learn a lot of regulations and laws

this is just the financial accounting side...lets not get into tax as the strategy is about strategy to limit tax liability to the least legally possible

managerial accountants are different since they have access to numbers that aren't going on the financial statements and part of the in team at the company dealing with cost strategy and its a team where the marketing department gives you projected sales data and the finance team is running a project evaluation model to decide which project is more worthy of going forward with for example

 

[kevm3]

Financial Accounting 101 may be easy, but when you get into intermediate and beyond and have to deal with things like deferred tax liabilities and pensions, you better be on point. Advanced accounting is even worse with consolidations... Don't take accounting if you're just looking to make money. You have to be able to at least have some sort of liking for it. Anyways, a nice resource to use is those 'schaum's' books. They simplify a lot of the information that these textbooks have