Any CPAs here? Need advice

[Slystallion]

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.

Every aspect of the company has some sort of value, but an accountant isn't going to create a new product or an invention that changes the world...that's what engineers do. And on the scale of people who are figuring out where to move the company going forward the accountants aren't on the list but what they do is valuable for the people making the decision since you need to stay on top of the financial information of the company to gauge the company's decisions

I definitely made an over statement that definitely came off as looking down on accountants but i will stick with my statement that accountants don't change the world they just keep it organized lol

 

[Sensitive Blake Griffin]

It can get very hard, but like anything worth getting a degree in, if you put the effort and time in you can do fine. I have 4 accounting classes left til my bachelors. I'm gonna try hard to smash these last few classes out the park so I can finish with a decent GPA. The hardest part is just remembering the "steps" of solving a certain kind of problem. Sometimes you'll have to do a problem that requires 9 different steps that don't necessarily make intuitive sense. And if you get a bad teacher, god help you.

 

[Thatrogueassdiaz]

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.

Man don't troll in a serious thread like this

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.[/quote]

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

Exactly. I'm just trying to learn as many skills as I can, that will help in the long run.

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.

Again, I'm thinking about myself in terms of value

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

Thanks for the book recommendation.

 

[Black smoke and cac jokes]

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

I see what you are saying but an Auditor goes through levels. You don't get assigned to doing financial or managerial accounting, you progress. 1st year - 2nd year - 3rd year (Senior) - 4th year (Senior) - 5th year (possibly manager/senior) - manager etc all the way up to director or partner. The managerial accounting that you are constantly referring starts when one reaches senior level.

 

[kevm3]

Man don't troll in a serious thread like this

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.

Exactly. I'm just trying to learn as many skills as I can, that will help in the long run.



Again, I'm thinking about myself in terms of value



Thanks for the book recommendation.[/quote]



Get that book to start off with and make sure you work through all the problems. By DOING accounting is really the only way it will start to make sense. A lot of accounting textbooks are trash for learning because they throw too many extraneous details at you while not giving you enough problems to work through while being able to see your result immediately and seeing if you did it right. That's what makes the various Schaum's guides so excellent. They give you a ton of problems to work through and you can check your answer to see if what you are doing is correct. If you don't have a lot of problems to work through in whiich you can double check your results, accounting will seem very intimidating because one mistake can throw everything off since all of the financial statements are interconnected. The statement of cash flows affects retained earnings on the statement of stockholder's equity, which is in turn put on the balance sheet. Conceptually, basic accounting isn't that difficult. It just requires a high level of precision.

For an online resource that keeps things simple, also look at http://www.accountingcoach.com/. I'd also consider purchasing a course from a site by udemy, so you will always have the lecture to refer back to:

https://www.udemy.com/introductory-financial-accounting/

also, this is only $10 if you get it before the end of today:
https://www.udemy.com/quickbooks-pro-2013-training/

Click on "redeem a coupon" and type in take10

 

[Dr Dre's ProductionSkills]

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?

as far as the cpa licence... no... you bascially need a sh1t load of units in accounting and business... here in cali and i think in most states its the great 48... 24 units in accounting and 24 units in business (anything business)... that and your bachelros in whatever you want

i majored in some wack major and went back to school for acct certificate and am planning to take the test soon.... i basically never took a accounting /business class during my bacehleros and had to practically start over... your certrficate is prob at most 20 some units.. you def need 48 minium...

and even worse news... here in cali the standards to become cpa have changed... you basically need a minium of 150 units plus a bachelors... it goes now 24 acct 24 units buisness related, 20 extra acct study (this is really broad and a bunch of different major classes that are not acct /bus can qualify) then 10 semester untis of ethics.. i think this is the standard for all 50 states... cali was the last ones to swtich.. but check your state...

all this plus a shi1t load of hours to become a cpa once you pass the test.... bbut to sit for the test you just need a bachelors and 48 units..

its easy math... no real formulas... if you can balance your checkbook its pretty much that on steroids... i took liberal arts math .. not even algerbra and ive aced all my acct classes.. its not anyway near traditainal math...

plus to be honest... all people in acct that i know (clerks to cpas) all tell me the same thing... hardest part is passing the test.. once you pass the test when you enter the field you bascially wil just be entering info (glorified data entry) into templates and spitting out info or reports...

cost/managerial accts do more with the info (aka buy stuff or not buy stuff or allocate resources) but its not super hard...

ive always been told accts collect the data and organize it and the finance guys decipher it lol

 

[ComputersPutin]

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

I still dont get the glorified counters part. A company's accountants and etc are only worried about recording their company's transactions and producing financial statements for the company to track results and budget. Their main focus is recording these transactions in accordance with accounting standards and any other regulations they most follow based on their industry and reporting requirements. (Grants, etc etc) Auditors have to come in knowing accounting standards probably at a higher level, understand any other regulations the specific company they are auditing must follow, and then audit in accordance with auditing standards. For an auditor do there job they must know all levels of the accounting, auditing skills, and even tax and legal implications.

If you look at accounting job postings you will see alot of companies find public accountants as highly attractive candidates because to provide a service like that you most have a more expanded range of accounting skills and knowledge, including the ability to make good professional judgement.

I definitely made an over statement that definitely came off as looking down on accountants but i will stick with my statement that accountants don't change the world they just keep it organized lol

I'm not getting out on you though lol I just disagree. For products and organizations to do anything, change, or evolve.... money or some type of transaction is needed. Any thing that deals with money and transactions an accountant is a must so without an accountant anything business wise will not happen. You can have the best engineer in the world but they cant produce anything with out obtaining the resources along with actual production which causes the needed for some type of business transaction. Accountants.

 

[Thatrogueassdiaz]

as far as the cpa licence... no... you bascially need a sh1t load of units in accounting and business... here in cali and i think in most states its the great 48... 24 units in accounting and 24 units in business (anything business)... that and your bachelros in whatever you want

i majored in some wack major and went back to school for acct certificate and am planning to take the test soon.... i basically never took a accounting /business class during my bacehleros and had to practically start over... your certrficate is prob at most 20 some units.. you def need 48 minium...

and even worse news... here in cali the standards to become cpa have changed... you basically need a minium of 150 units plus a bachelors... it goes now 24 acct 24 units buisness related, 20 extra acct study (this is really broad and a bunch of different major classes that are not acct /bus can qualify) then 10 semester untis of ethics.. i think this is the standard for all 50 states... cali was the last ones to swtich.. but check your state...

all this plus a shi1t load of hours to become a cpa once you pass the test.... bbut to sit for the test you just need a bachelors and 48 units..

its easy math... no real formulas... if you can balance your checkbook its pretty much that on steroids... i took liberal arts math .. not even algerbra and ive aced all my acct classes.. its not anyway near traditainal math...

plus to be honest... all people in acct that i know (clerks to cpas) all tell me the same thing... hardest part is passing the test.. once you pass the test when you enter the field you bascially wil just be entering info (glorified data entry) into templates and spitting out info or reports...

cost/managerial accts do more with the info (aka buy stuff or not buy stuff or allocate resources) but its not super hard...

ive always been told accts collect the data and organize it and the finance guys decipher it lol

? http://catalog.gmu.edu/preview_program.php?catoid=19&poid=17594&returnto=4105 <<<<<Not what my school says.

 

[Thatrogueassdiaz]

as far as the cpa licence... no... you bascially need a sh1t load of units in accounting and business... here in cali and i think in most states its the great 48... 24 units in accounting and 24 units in business (anything business)... that and your bachelros in whatever you want

i majored in some wack major and went back to school for acct certificate and am planning to take the test soon.... i basically never took a accounting /business class during my bacehleros and had to practically start over... your certrficate is prob at most 20 some units.. you def need 48 minium...

and even worse news... here in cali the standards to become cpa have changed... you basically need a minium of 150 units plus a bachelors... it goes now 24 acct 24 units buisness related, 20 extra acct study (this is really broad and a bunch of different major classes that are not acct /bus can qualify) then 10 semester untis of ethics.. i think this is the standard for all 50 states... cali was the last ones to swtich.. but check your state...

all this plus a shi1t load of hours to become a cpa once you pass the test.... bbut to sit for the test you just need a bachelors and 48 units..

its easy math... no real formulas... if you can balance your checkbook its pretty much that on steroids... i took liberal arts math .. not even algerbra and ive aced all my acct classes.. its not anyway near traditainal math...

plus to be honest... all people in acct that i know (clerks to cpas) all tell me the same thing... hardest part is passing the test.. once you pass the test when you enter the field you bascially wil just be entering info (glorified data entry) into templates and spitting out info or reports...

cost/managerial accts do more with the info (aka buy stuff or not buy stuff or allocate resources) but its not super hard...

ive always been told accts collect the data and organize it and the finance guys decipher it lol

But thanks for your input on the level of difficulty of accounting. I was really worried about that. Sounds like you were able to adapt and do well

 

[ComputersPutin]

plus to be honest... all people in acct that i know (clerks to cpas) all tell me the same thing... hardest part is passing the test.. once you pass the test when you enter the field you bascially wil just be entering info (glorified data entry) into templates and spitting out info or reports...

cost/managerial accts do more with the info (aka buy stuff or not buy stuff or allocate resources) but its not super hard...

ive always been told accts collect the data and organize it and the finance guys decipher it lol

Not really. The only people that just enter info all day are clerks who really don't actually getting into the accounting process like that. Bookkeepers mostly record daily transactions to produce financial reports but its not really tossing information in templates and spitting out reports.

Accountants actually decipher data which is the point of producing the financial statements to begin with. Also a lot of accountants are actually financial analyst

someone is downplaying accounting to you But accounting is no walk in the park but people just dont have a sense of where the difficulty actually comes from and just get stuck in the thought of working with numbers.

 

[CrimsonTider]

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

Never speak on this topic again

Cost accountant provide information for internal users and decision makers

Financial account provide information for external users and decision makers

Auditors attest financial statement to see if they are a reasonable and fair representation of the companies standing for shareholders and creditors

You also have tax accountants and auditors

 

[Slystallion]

Never speak on this topic again

Cost accountant provide information for internal users and decision makers

Financial account provide information for external users and decision makers

Auditors attest financial statement to see if they are a reasonable and fair representation of the companies standing for shareholders and creditors

You also have tax accountants and auditors

i've already made that distinction idiots the second paragraph i talk about how managerial accountants to me are more valuable because its internal information

 

[CrimsonTider]

i've already made that distinction idiots the second paragraph i talk about how managerial accountants to me are more valuable because its internal information

They not more valuable.

That's just dumb

Their main focus is the value of ending inventory anyway

You only need that function in a business that makes its on product

 

[Brown_Pride]

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

really? I love that shyt. It's like a puzzle. We just converted our accounting software and these fuks when they were designing things didn't really take into account intra company transactions so now i'm going back and trying to figure out how to handle intra company transaction where there's a shared bank account vs two separate bank accounts AND learn how to do it in our new system. Shyts mad challenging and is basically a puzzle.

Data entry is boring, just entering information into the system sucks, thinking through process and such is fun IMHO. Like I said if you like puzzles and are good with logic accounting, in the right environment, can be fun.

 

[FreshFromATL]

When I was in Business school accounting was easy but it put me to sleep 9/10 times.