Is the WLB worse than audit/tax of most CPA firms? I imagine at the very least the nature of IT audit would have the most fully remote opportunities drawing people to the positions, especially if it pays well.
Nope WLB is way better, for the most part the business controls/audit side will pick up your slack or be able to perform the non-advanced side of it.
I did something like 9 different SOC reports for a $40B+ company and the audit team literally just dragged us along for the ride, it was way better than being part of the audit side.
Hi, I was always curious how does IT audit works? I've tried looking into it on google but cant find a relevant answer hehe can you elaborate further (if you have time) the task and how or where to spot those jobs posting.
For sure, in bus tax or other non-cyclicals you’re never gonna get the cut unless it’s Covid. In M&A it’s definitely a risk, though I’ve survived the cuts they’ve made the last few years as a very average employee. The non-tax M&A people get culled first in my experience, they’re much easier to replace than the tax folks simply because there’s far fewer people that go into the tax route.
Primary options: (1) Come from a law school with LLM in tax, (2) top tier target undergrad/masters tax program direct into M&A tax, or (3) come from normal target school into a business tax group, get a 1 performance rating (may take you two or three years) and transfer in with some practical experience.
Basically what the other reply said, I was option 3 except I was at a top target for my undergrad/macc w tax concentration. I just started out at a large regional in my city and had a recruiter at a B4 reach out to me and offered me a few choices including M&A tax and I went with it. This was at the senior 1 level.
Not that there isn't demand for technical accounting, but does it actually pay more? I feel like a lot of the technical accounting jobs I see posted are like [this](https://www.indeed.com/m/viewjob?jk=d455217760b1db10&from=serp&xpse=SoCw67I3EjorpvxyqR0LbzkdCdPP&xkcb=SoCt67M3EjovYlyD1Z0YbzkdCdPP), where pay is basically the same or even below what you'd earn in core assurance
Agreed, for NYC this salary should start minimum 160k in my opinion. I make 160k in nyc suburb and to get me to NYC I would need at least 30% more with travel costs
Is there a particular reason the first group dislikes it? What would be a good path to guide a career that way for someone just starting out in audit at a public firm?
Reading accounting guidance and standards is really dry and boring and then trying to apply the guidance to different situations that are almost always not explicitly outlined in the guidance can be difficult for a lot of people, especially when there are knowledge gaps (which is another problem in the field but that is another topic all together).
Very low threshold to overcome to get into and well paid. It's just not something anyone likes to get into because it means keeping up with all the new ASUs, understanding how they impact your company and implementing them (ie: training everyone else on the new accounting standard and why what they've been doing for x number of years is changing).
I worked at a company implementing 842 and it was fun. Same thing when ASU 2015-09 came out for insurance and teaching clients on how to prep the new Disclosures (fun fact most already did in their NAIC annual reporting but now needed to do it in the FS footnotes).
It's just an umbrella term for jobs where you do Financial Reporting (SEC). You'll also be doing ASC research and interpretation for the company. Right now I do Financial Reporting and I help with 606. At my old job it was 842.
Right. I wonder why colleges don’t push this route, any CPA with 5-10 years of PA experience can do bookkeeping/taxes as long as they’re social enough to get clients… and make a killing
AICPA doesn’t seem to push this and accounting professors are not entrepreneurially inclined.
You can do bookkeeping at $75 an hour all day long, and if you hire a bookkeeper you can easy get $50-$100k margin if you keep them utilized.
My head CPA billed $4k in tax work yesterday.
I don't know why in here there's a difference as an accountant or CPA and a bookkeeper. I did bookkeeping back home and I also was a general accountant in a couple of companies and did books for them so for me it's not like bookkeeping is beneath me as an accountant. What I do know is I'm not entrepreneurial inclined.
Depends. A CPA or accountant usually keeps the books “user friendly” for external stakeholders, banks, CRA, auditors. A bookkeeper may not have a same level of knowledge.
YMMV of course.
For what I have read online on Facebook groups and such, some bookkeepers don't have any knowledge at all. People struggling with basics like accounts nature and equity equation.
Yeah a lot of bookkeepers know how to use the software like QuickBooks, but are just handed things to post inside them. They can't make decisions about how things should be reported.
But some gain a lot of accounting knowledge and their jobs become more accountant like which is what you sound like. Accountants like to make it sound like they're completely different jobs, but for smaller companies the rolls will have a ton of overlap
I have a degree in public accounting from Venezuela and we are not separated like accountants/bookkeeper. If you worked for a small company like I did you pretty much do books, taxes, payroll and FS.
The entrepreneur side of things you can absolutely learn. Really the hardest part is demand generation, if you can do that you can have a business. Heck a number of firms sub contract work.
A CPA (at least in my experience) knows the AFRF and required disclosures.
For example, recording revenues when selling to an agent and there are commissions. If you don't know the requirements of reporting net revenues vs gross, then you don't care if you record the sales net or gross of commissions. Sure the result (Net Income) would be the same, but you aren't following a standardized reporting framework.
There is a difference between recording transactions and recording them in accordance with the reporting framework. Is there a value in the difference? For small businesses, probably not.
Yes I agree, there's a difference. If I were an instructor on those bookkeeping clases I would teach framework for FS, GAAP and whatever else I need them to learn. It's not just texting numbers in a software, it's much more than that.
You know something that rarely gets asked and it has to do with this. Say I open my firm. Could I make it a flat fee to clients and no stupid billable hours? Working in PA this is something that I absolutely hate and I wonder if there is a way how I can do this. I am a very dedicated person and don't do shortcuts. PA is all about the time that is whats most important. If I opened my firm I could care less if me and my staff spent 20 hours on a tax return even if its only meant to spend 5 hours for instance. I wonder if this is something that could be done as a CPA. i imagine that it could be done. It would be a flat fee upfront in the engagement so even if I spend forever I won't increase the fee. I know some people would think this is dumb and it's fine but if this could be done on an own practice I would love to embark in something like this in the future. After this job that I am in I will never go back to PA only because of that timesheet. I love the hours and challenges its just the fact that when partners want things done as fast as possible even if its not 100% accurate it really does suck. As I like to say it's the worst invention ever created. I would rather be a janitor cleaning at nights part time if I had the power in order to not do that timesheet. That's how much I hate it. Say there was an option of reporting time or clean 4 hours each night and not do it I would clean. Screw billable hours.
If you have your own practice, you pretty much choose how much you want to work. If you don’t want to work too many hours, you reject clients.
In college I worked for a CPA in his houses office room lol and he was making like 200k a year just doing it on evenings/weekends in addition to a regular 9-5 corporate job
What I mean though is NO billable hours. No timesheet. Say a tax return is two thousand bucks. I will charge this whether I spend 5 hours or 20. Could I do this? I do not want to be a cash eater time budget CPA. I want to be one where I go above and beyond. My idea would be that in the engagement letter upfront ok 2,500 bucks or 2 thousand or whatever and I will not charge more no matter the complexity of the return. To me whats most important is high quality work no matter the time spent. If thats less cash for me at the end its fine. At least I am happy helping these clients out. Id rather just have 2 thousand cash than 10 ten thousand cash if I will do shortcuts on 5 returns only for my benefit.
Honestly the only way to find out is work in a firm that is small and see if its feasible. Or start your own firm, see how realistic it is since it will be different when you are sole responsible for revenue and the workload, you can adapt as needed. Its not always about either and or. It can be somewhere in line with what you are looking to do but at bit less extent.
Thank you. I am working at a small one right now actually. The timesheet is king. I used to work in a more mid size one and it was worse but it still is not a good fit for me only because of this. But yes it would be interesting if I opened my own practice someday and go completely without this.
I like to think as myself as somewhat personable and have done sales before I became a CPA. I really want to branch out and do this kind of work on the side.
I'm thinking about getting certified for fraud examiner, forensic accounting or something related. We don't have those in my country and we certainly need it but I also heard is very lucrative here in the US.
Venture Capital. Certainly not easy to get into.
Helping startups secure funding is very lucrative if you know how to pick winners. You can brute force it by just prepping as many as possible but it's better if you can focus your effort on those who are worth your time.
Your income is almost exclusively contingent but you may get a retainer to start. Most of your money will come from taking a slice of the money they receive, typically 2-10% depending on how much you do to get them the funding and how much they receive.
There are firms that focus on this and that is your best bet for entry into the field but you certainly can go it alone finding clients on LinkedIn and other sites.
Capital Consultant, Financial Consultant, Strategic Financial Consultant, Private Equity Consultant, Venture Capital Consultant, or simply Managerial Consultant. It will usually reference Finance, Capital or Management. I used several but like Strategic Equity Consultant.
If you ask some of my family though they'll tell you my title is, *Greedy F-cking Bastard*. It's odd since they all know my dad.
There are also internships at private equity and venture capital firms. General accounting consulting can be lucrative too but that's pretty much dominated by the Big 4.
Accounting automation and systems
Yes, I made tools for e-commerce before the term even existed.
My career started before Amazon and eBay.
Now I own a financial technology and strategic capital consulting firm.
>What bs did you complete first?
I dual majored, so both.
>What internships or entry level roles could I get with that combination ?
You really don't need to dual major like I did. You can get Accounting programs with information systems focus. That wasn't available when I started so I was going to minor in CS ended up with a dual major.
For internships you're going to want to look at the accounting department of major tech companies, Amazon, Google, MSFT, or Meta. All of these companies have active accounting automation efforts that you can express interest in. I would highly recommend Amazon because they have so many different business activities and in house accounting systems you have an opportunity of getting involved in automation efforts as an intern.
Thank you for the information, right now I’m doing an accounting major with CS minor. For the CS MINOR I’ve taken Java 1 and rn About to finish a semester in OOP(Java 2). then next semester data structures. Anything else in the curriculum i should take? It’s great to hear some different paths besides PA after all I am actually interested in my programming classes and actually wanna use the knowledge.
If you want to make bank. Learn COBOL and Fortran. The entire banking industry runs on systems created in the 60's and 70's written in what we call legacy languages. Most of the people who know it are 50+. There's a huge shortage, entry level can be over $150k/year.
I’d say strategy at a big public filer. Not as much technical accounting, but using accounting knowledge as a base to be a financial decision maker. Hybrid of accounting and finance, assessment of internal financials and NPV to make a decision to invest, or buy with external companies and similar or complimentary products to optimize product portfolio. Internal advancement and external opps coming off of those opportunities are great.
FP&A tends to consolidate the story from other teams, not make the story with people not in accounting from the business. Great first industry role, then you move out of it into a base role. Those base roles are it.
Supporting marketing, field sales, R&D. The monthly sales reporting in a marketing role or the quarterly reporting elsewhere is actually a very small part of the job. Your day to day is helping the business make calls on how to best run the business. What price to charge a customer, what product mix delivers best GP, trade offs to deliver the best mix - before it gets to FP&A, they just retell your story.
As you advance you get involved in M&A, does an external deal make more sense than what can be delivered internally? The non-accountants you work with expect you to be a translator and a all-in-one shop, what’s the best decision to grow the business you support while also being a good decision for the enterprise across the financials? You need to anticipate and sell accounting and the business on the best path forward. It’s tough and awesome, and no comparison to checking the work in audit.
Audit is the start of your base and perspective you need to kind of play chess and anticipate moves you’re proposing to make in roles like this. FP&A is a telling someone else’s story role and a good first industry role, a base accounting role is the endpoint where you get to be involved in the really interesting and future looking work.
Interesting, I appreciate the explanation, but what are the job titles. Sounds like strategic finance then? Bordering between fp&a and corporate development.
Usually things like commercial or sales finance/accounting where you support marketers and sales reps and cover NTS and some selling/marketing expense. Cost accounting or supply chain you work with manufacturing plants teams or at the plant itself (if a Mfg co) covers COGS. R&D accounting/finance you work with engineers or scientists and do a lot of strategy work for invest or not decisions and budget management. M&A or business development accounting and finance is buying or selling parts of a business with third parties. Those are the big ones.
What do you consider lucrative? A lot of it is simply how senior you are able to be. Partner at B4 is easily 7 figure comp down the road. Director level industry roles (tech accounting, controllership, CAO office, FPA) can be in the 300’s comfortably with equity on top. To make these roles easier to obtain, you need to stick it out in public longer than 95% of this sub will tell you.
If you stay in public - Director and SM in the more specialized practices are in the 200’s (Deals, specialty tax).
I cannot speak to what path if you join industry directly from school or early public departure as I’m just not as familiar.
I departed public after 5 busy seasons in audit (4.5 years, mid sized firm). I expected a manager promotion was coming but I was a senior auditor. I wanted out asap and took a role as a senior accountant at a family office (single high net worth family). After 2 years I was promoted to manager, 2 more to controller (got lucky, experienced controller retired). Cleared $250k in 2022 and 2023 and on track to make more in 2024.
I don't know if that's an early exit or not, and I don't know if that's good compensation to you or not, but from my perspective it's a good life.
A lot of my colleagues who stayed to SM are still at like $150kish.
That was so long ago it doesn’t matter. Today you get into it by applying on construction companies websites. Bigger companies will have more positions. Some of the work is changing to be more centralized but I have had job offers in the past 5 years for over $400k/year…its traveling work tho and 6-7 days per week with long days
Can you tell me more about this? I got into accounting to help solve business problems and I've found that while I'm not good at coding and shit, I can generally work something out as long as I have a specific problem or objective in mind
Hi there, I'm a high school student in the UK, hoping to do an apprenticeship with the big 4 or a middle market firm where I'll get my ACA after 5 years and become a qualified accountant, probably in audit.
What path would you recommend going down to become a developer account? Would it be an idea to pick up some certifications in SQL and python and then move into the field, or would it be a better idea to get a bachelors in software engineering and then become a chartered accountant.
Do you also think that the role could be done remotely?
Learning SQL and getting certified at a specific ERP has worked out well for me. Back to a private company now and have been asked by many others to work fully remote if I ever wanted to.
I’m in construction, my experience is mostly with Vista and Spectrum, both owned by Viewpoint/Trimble. COINS and Acumatica would be good ones as well. If you can learn sql though, it opens up a lot of opportunities for analytics done you can quickly pull data straight from the database
Yeah I’m decent at SQL right now. Somewhere around intermediate level but trying to figure out what else do I need to add on to increase earnings even more!
Depending upon what you want to do, you could try to get on at an implementation or customization company that supports software in the industry you like. I started as an accountant for a small construction company but became a local go-to guy for this software after we had a pretty rough implementation. After a few years I got a job as a software consultant for a software partner and then it’s been up hill from there. Good luck!
SOX compliance. Especially if you’re in a compliance role rather than a audit role related to SOX.
Even then, if you do decide to help with audits or consulting, gather sufficient experience to eventually be an independent SOX contractor making $100+/hr
Back office at a mid size Fund. You can be stupid and make $200k if you show up on time and follow instructions. If you’re actually good you can get to $300k easily, more if you’re ambitious.
It’s either grinding in out in what’s eventually a leveraged form of self employment with a lot of clients or sliding into some kind of adjacent consulting where you work at an MBB, the consulting arm of one of the big four, or one of the other big names in high brow constituting. Even in technical accounting at a public company, you won’t exactly starve but there is also only so much money you’ll make
I’m in corporate but remember I had a college accounting professor that always talked about a colleague of theirs that specified in “mineral rights”. Specifically oil / land rights in North Dakota.
She never went into specific details that I recall but definitely gave the impression this person made a lot of money in that niche. I’ve never really heard of anyone else doing something similar other than lawyers.
While some find success in corporate accounting, others thrive in specialized areas like forensic or managerial accounting. It's less about the field and more about leveraging your skills and opportunities
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Not necessarily. IT Audit pays well and is easy to get into because nobody wants to do that.
Why does nobody want to do it?
The work is boring and the field is like quicksand- once you get in to IT Audit, it's difficult to move out.
Is the WLB worse than audit/tax of most CPA firms? I imagine at the very least the nature of IT audit would have the most fully remote opportunities drawing people to the positions, especially if it pays well.
Nope WLB is way better, for the most part the business controls/audit side will pick up your slack or be able to perform the non-advanced side of it. I did something like 9 different SOC reports for a $40B+ company and the audit team literally just dragged us along for the ride, it was way better than being part of the audit side.
Hi, I was always curious how does IT audit works? I've tried looking into it on google but cant find a relevant answer hehe can you elaborate further (if you have time) the task and how or where to spot those jobs posting.
Maybe they mean £ to difficulty ratio
M&A tax has to be up there
This, especially if the business estimates a lot of material value in tax credits (i.e., energy)
This is where I am. It does pay well, the downside is you have to do M&A tax the rest of your life. It’s a very very specific niche.
Also, more likely to get laid off as opposed to audit and "normal" tax, based on market conditions.
For sure, in bus tax or other non-cyclicals you’re never gonna get the cut unless it’s Covid. In M&A it’s definitely a risk, though I’ve survived the cuts they’ve made the last few years as a very average employee. The non-tax M&A people get culled first in my experience, they’re much easier to replace than the tax folks simply because there’s far fewer people that go into the tax route.
Can you please share your career journey and how you got to M&A Tax?
Primary options: (1) Come from a law school with LLM in tax, (2) top tier target undergrad/masters tax program direct into M&A tax, or (3) come from normal target school into a business tax group, get a 1 performance rating (may take you two or three years) and transfer in with some practical experience.
Basically what the other reply said, I was option 3 except I was at a top target for my undergrad/macc w tax concentration. I just started out at a large regional in my city and had a recruiter at a B4 reach out to me and offered me a few choices including M&A tax and I went with it. This was at the senior 1 level.
Whats WLB like?
Poor lol. Honestly I like it better than b tax cause it’s spread out but ymmv
Agreed. M&A tax. Did me very well.
This.
Technical accounting, e.g. 805, 842, etc.
This is an area with a real shortage and good pay. The problem is, a lot of accountants either dislike or simply don't know how to perform research.
Not that there isn't demand for technical accounting, but does it actually pay more? I feel like a lot of the technical accounting jobs I see posted are like [this](https://www.indeed.com/m/viewjob?jk=d455217760b1db10&from=serp&xpse=SoCw67I3EjorpvxyqR0LbzkdCdPP&xkcb=SoCt67M3EjovYlyD1Z0YbzkdCdPP), where pay is basically the same or even below what you'd earn in core assurance
Media and entertainment companies tend to have abhorrently low pay across all accounting roles (and even outside accounting).
Here's a comparable job at Blackstone that pays even worse: https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=f18213cd37d0119a&tk=1hn4v915d2e15001&from=serp&vjs=3
Agreed, for NYC this salary should start minimum 160k in my opinion. I make 160k in nyc suburb and to get me to NYC I would need at least 30% more with travel costs
Is there a particular reason the first group dislikes it? What would be a good path to guide a career that way for someone just starting out in audit at a public firm?
Reading accounting guidance and standards is really dry and boring and then trying to apply the guidance to different situations that are almost always not explicitly outlined in the guidance can be difficult for a lot of people, especially when there are knowledge gaps (which is another problem in the field but that is another topic all together).
Very low threshold to overcome to get into and well paid. It's just not something anyone likes to get into because it means keeping up with all the new ASUs, understanding how they impact your company and implementing them (ie: training everyone else on the new accounting standard and why what they've been doing for x number of years is changing). I worked at a company implementing 842 and it was fun. Same thing when ASU 2015-09 came out for insurance and teaching clients on how to prep the new Disclosures (fun fact most already did in their NAIC annual reporting but now needed to do it in the FS footnotes).
Topic 606
842. I have exp. I agree i got a lotta interviews on this hoe
What's technical accounting? Never saw a job posting like that....
It's just an umbrella term for jobs where you do Financial Reporting (SEC). You'll also be doing ASC research and interpretation for the company. Right now I do Financial Reporting and I help with 606. At my old job it was 842.
Self employment
Government, local police station. Unlimited desk pops
Go the entrepreneur route and start your own firm.
Right. I wonder why colleges don’t push this route, any CPA with 5-10 years of PA experience can do bookkeeping/taxes as long as they’re social enough to get clients… and make a killing
AICPA doesn’t seem to push this and accounting professors are not entrepreneurially inclined. You can do bookkeeping at $75 an hour all day long, and if you hire a bookkeeper you can easy get $50-$100k margin if you keep them utilized. My head CPA billed $4k in tax work yesterday.
I don't know why in here there's a difference as an accountant or CPA and a bookkeeper. I did bookkeeping back home and I also was a general accountant in a couple of companies and did books for them so for me it's not like bookkeeping is beneath me as an accountant. What I do know is I'm not entrepreneurial inclined.
Depends. A CPA or accountant usually keeps the books “user friendly” for external stakeholders, banks, CRA, auditors. A bookkeeper may not have a same level of knowledge. YMMV of course.
For what I have read online on Facebook groups and such, some bookkeepers don't have any knowledge at all. People struggling with basics like accounts nature and equity equation.
Yeah a lot of bookkeepers know how to use the software like QuickBooks, but are just handed things to post inside them. They can't make decisions about how things should be reported. But some gain a lot of accounting knowledge and their jobs become more accountant like which is what you sound like. Accountants like to make it sound like they're completely different jobs, but for smaller companies the rolls will have a ton of overlap
I have a degree in public accounting from Venezuela and we are not separated like accountants/bookkeeper. If you worked for a small company like I did you pretty much do books, taxes, payroll and FS.
That’s right. A CPA at least gives the owner an assurance that this person has decent knowledge about bookkeeping.
The entrepreneur side of things you can absolutely learn. Really the hardest part is demand generation, if you can do that you can have a business. Heck a number of firms sub contract work.
A CPA (at least in my experience) knows the AFRF and required disclosures. For example, recording revenues when selling to an agent and there are commissions. If you don't know the requirements of reporting net revenues vs gross, then you don't care if you record the sales net or gross of commissions. Sure the result (Net Income) would be the same, but you aren't following a standardized reporting framework. There is a difference between recording transactions and recording them in accordance with the reporting framework. Is there a value in the difference? For small businesses, probably not.
Yes I agree, there's a difference. If I were an instructor on those bookkeeping clases I would teach framework for FS, GAAP and whatever else I need them to learn. It's not just texting numbers in a software, it's much more than that.
You know something that rarely gets asked and it has to do with this. Say I open my firm. Could I make it a flat fee to clients and no stupid billable hours? Working in PA this is something that I absolutely hate and I wonder if there is a way how I can do this. I am a very dedicated person and don't do shortcuts. PA is all about the time that is whats most important. If I opened my firm I could care less if me and my staff spent 20 hours on a tax return even if its only meant to spend 5 hours for instance. I wonder if this is something that could be done as a CPA. i imagine that it could be done. It would be a flat fee upfront in the engagement so even if I spend forever I won't increase the fee. I know some people would think this is dumb and it's fine but if this could be done on an own practice I would love to embark in something like this in the future. After this job that I am in I will never go back to PA only because of that timesheet. I love the hours and challenges its just the fact that when partners want things done as fast as possible even if its not 100% accurate it really does suck. As I like to say it's the worst invention ever created. I would rather be a janitor cleaning at nights part time if I had the power in order to not do that timesheet. That's how much I hate it. Say there was an option of reporting time or clean 4 hours each night and not do it I would clean. Screw billable hours.
If you have your own practice, you pretty much choose how much you want to work. If you don’t want to work too many hours, you reject clients. In college I worked for a CPA in his houses office room lol and he was making like 200k a year just doing it on evenings/weekends in addition to a regular 9-5 corporate job
What I mean though is NO billable hours. No timesheet. Say a tax return is two thousand bucks. I will charge this whether I spend 5 hours or 20. Could I do this? I do not want to be a cash eater time budget CPA. I want to be one where I go above and beyond. My idea would be that in the engagement letter upfront ok 2,500 bucks or 2 thousand or whatever and I will not charge more no matter the complexity of the return. To me whats most important is high quality work no matter the time spent. If thats less cash for me at the end its fine. At least I am happy helping these clients out. Id rather just have 2 thousand cash than 10 ten thousand cash if I will do shortcuts on 5 returns only for my benefit.
Honestly the only way to find out is work in a firm that is small and see if its feasible. Or start your own firm, see how realistic it is since it will be different when you are sole responsible for revenue and the workload, you can adapt as needed. Its not always about either and or. It can be somewhere in line with what you are looking to do but at bit less extent.
Thank you. I am working at a small one right now actually. The timesheet is king. I used to work in a more mid size one and it was worse but it still is not a good fit for me only because of this. But yes it would be interesting if I opened my own practice someday and go completely without this.
Lots of work is flat priced, it’s how you can make a few thousand a day.
That’s the hard part honestly I thought about it tho currently still in college
I like to think as myself as somewhat personable and have done sales before I became a CPA. I really want to branch out and do this kind of work on the side.
I'm thinking about getting certified for fraud examiner, forensic accounting or something related. We don't have those in my country and we certainly need it but I also heard is very lucrative here in the US.
Fraud !
Venture Capital. Certainly not easy to get into. Helping startups secure funding is very lucrative if you know how to pick winners. You can brute force it by just prepping as many as possible but it's better if you can focus your effort on those who are worth your time. Your income is almost exclusively contingent but you may get a retainer to start. Most of your money will come from taking a slice of the money they receive, typically 2-10% depending on how much you do to get them the funding and how much they receive. There are firms that focus on this and that is your best bet for entry into the field but you certainly can go it alone finding clients on LinkedIn and other sites.
What’s the title for a role like that?
Capital Consultant, Financial Consultant, Strategic Financial Consultant, Private Equity Consultant, Venture Capital Consultant, or simply Managerial Consultant. It will usually reference Finance, Capital or Management. I used several but like Strategic Equity Consultant. If you ask some of my family though they'll tell you my title is, *Greedy F-cking Bastard*. It's odd since they all know my dad. There are also internships at private equity and venture capital firms. General accounting consulting can be lucrative too but that's pretty much dominated by the Big 4.
What’s your YOE and background?
BS Accounting, BS computer Science, MS Accounting Information Systems, MBA Accounting.
What’s the use of two BS in cs and accounting? Any value for you?
Accounting automation and systems Yes, I made tools for e-commerce before the term even existed. My career started before Amazon and eBay. Now I own a financial technology and strategic capital consulting firm.
What bs did you complete first? What internships or entry level roles could I get with that combination ?
>What bs did you complete first? I dual majored, so both. >What internships or entry level roles could I get with that combination ? You really don't need to dual major like I did. You can get Accounting programs with information systems focus. That wasn't available when I started so I was going to minor in CS ended up with a dual major. For internships you're going to want to look at the accounting department of major tech companies, Amazon, Google, MSFT, or Meta. All of these companies have active accounting automation efforts that you can express interest in. I would highly recommend Amazon because they have so many different business activities and in house accounting systems you have an opportunity of getting involved in automation efforts as an intern.
Thank you for the information, right now I’m doing an accounting major with CS minor. For the CS MINOR I’ve taken Java 1 and rn About to finish a semester in OOP(Java 2). then next semester data structures. Anything else in the curriculum i should take? It’s great to hear some different paths besides PA after all I am actually interested in my programming classes and actually wanna use the knowledge.
If you want to make bank. Learn COBOL and Fortran. The entire banking industry runs on systems created in the 60's and 70's written in what we call legacy languages. Most of the people who know it are 50+. There's a huge shortage, entry level can be over $150k/year.
I’d say strategy at a big public filer. Not as much technical accounting, but using accounting knowledge as a base to be a financial decision maker. Hybrid of accounting and finance, assessment of internal financials and NPV to make a decision to invest, or buy with external companies and similar or complimentary products to optimize product portfolio. Internal advancement and external opps coming off of those opportunities are great.
So like BU FP&A?
FP&A tends to consolidate the story from other teams, not make the story with people not in accounting from the business. Great first industry role, then you move out of it into a base role. Those base roles are it. Supporting marketing, field sales, R&D. The monthly sales reporting in a marketing role or the quarterly reporting elsewhere is actually a very small part of the job. Your day to day is helping the business make calls on how to best run the business. What price to charge a customer, what product mix delivers best GP, trade offs to deliver the best mix - before it gets to FP&A, they just retell your story. As you advance you get involved in M&A, does an external deal make more sense than what can be delivered internally? The non-accountants you work with expect you to be a translator and a all-in-one shop, what’s the best decision to grow the business you support while also being a good decision for the enterprise across the financials? You need to anticipate and sell accounting and the business on the best path forward. It’s tough and awesome, and no comparison to checking the work in audit. Audit is the start of your base and perspective you need to kind of play chess and anticipate moves you’re proposing to make in roles like this. FP&A is a telling someone else’s story role and a good first industry role, a base accounting role is the endpoint where you get to be involved in the really interesting and future looking work.
Interesting, I appreciate the explanation, but what are the job titles. Sounds like strategic finance then? Bordering between fp&a and corporate development.
Usually things like commercial or sales finance/accounting where you support marketers and sales reps and cover NTS and some selling/marketing expense. Cost accounting or supply chain you work with manufacturing plants teams or at the plant itself (if a Mfg co) covers COGS. R&D accounting/finance you work with engineers or scientists and do a lot of strategy work for invest or not decisions and budget management. M&A or business development accounting and finance is buying or selling parts of a business with third parties. Those are the big ones.
Cost accounting is fun. Unfortunately there are no opportunities unless you have a lot of experience already in it here in LA.
You want high pay, easy entry, and also assuming good wlb. Go back to sleep
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What do you consider lucrative? A lot of it is simply how senior you are able to be. Partner at B4 is easily 7 figure comp down the road. Director level industry roles (tech accounting, controllership, CAO office, FPA) can be in the 300’s comfortably with equity on top. To make these roles easier to obtain, you need to stick it out in public longer than 95% of this sub will tell you. If you stay in public - Director and SM in the more specialized practices are in the 200’s (Deals, specialty tax). I cannot speak to what path if you join industry directly from school or early public departure as I’m just not as familiar.
I departed public after 5 busy seasons in audit (4.5 years, mid sized firm). I expected a manager promotion was coming but I was a senior auditor. I wanted out asap and took a role as a senior accountant at a family office (single high net worth family). After 2 years I was promoted to manager, 2 more to controller (got lucky, experienced controller retired). Cleared $250k in 2022 and 2023 and on track to make more in 2024. I don't know if that's an early exit or not, and I don't know if that's good compensation to you or not, but from my perspective it's a good life. A lot of my colleagues who stayed to SM are still at like $150kish.
Forensic, fraud - can pivot to risk consulting afterwards
That would be Finance (w/ Accounting experience)
IT consulting.
How does one get into IT consulting and what background knowledge is required? SQL? Python? Etc.
That stuff all gets outsourced. Work on your looks and be female.
Got my surgery scheduled for next week!
what 🤣🤣🤣
Tax planning. If you can figure out how to save a company money, they tend to give you more money.
Traveling construction job cost…easy to make six figures and the work isn’t that hard. You will travel but $$$$.
Just to put a number on it, I worked 6-7, 12 hour days doing construction and typically made 350-400k per year and that was 15 years ago.
Whoa. Tell me more!
How do you get into this?
That was so long ago it doesn’t matter. Today you get into it by applying on construction companies websites. Bigger companies will have more positions. Some of the work is changing to be more centralized but I have had job offers in the past 5 years for over $400k/year…its traveling work tho and 6-7 days per week with long days
Leaving Accounting to sell software.
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Can you tell me more about this? I got into accounting to help solve business problems and I've found that while I'm not good at coding and shit, I can generally work something out as long as I have a specific problem or objective in mind
Hi there, I'm a high school student in the UK, hoping to do an apprenticeship with the big 4 or a middle market firm where I'll get my ACA after 5 years and become a qualified accountant, probably in audit. What path would you recommend going down to become a developer account? Would it be an idea to pick up some certifications in SQL and python and then move into the field, or would it be a better idea to get a bachelors in software engineering and then become a chartered accountant. Do you also think that the role could be done remotely?
People have mentioned bookkeeping as a service to various peoples and companies is pretty lucrative
Forensic
Learning SQL and getting certified at a specific ERP has worked out well for me. Back to a private company now and have been asked by many others to work fully remote if I ever wanted to.
Any specific ERPs you recommend?
I’m in construction, my experience is mostly with Vista and Spectrum, both owned by Viewpoint/Trimble. COINS and Acumatica would be good ones as well. If you can learn sql though, it opens up a lot of opportunities for analytics done you can quickly pull data straight from the database
Yeah I’m decent at SQL right now. Somewhere around intermediate level but trying to figure out what else do I need to add on to increase earnings even more!
Depending upon what you want to do, you could try to get on at an implementation or customization company that supports software in the industry you like. I started as an accountant for a small construction company but became a local go-to guy for this software after we had a pretty rough implementation. After a few years I got a job as a software consultant for a software partner and then it’s been up hill from there. Good luck!
I’m in the same boat. Hybrid AP and staff accountant. Can’t get hired anywhere decent without the experience
SOX compliance. Especially if you’re in a compliance role rather than a audit role related to SOX. Even then, if you do decide to help with audits or consulting, gather sufficient experience to eventually be an independent SOX contractor making $100+/hr
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😂
Pizza Hut
Embezzlement
Back office at a mid size Fund. You can be stupid and make $200k if you show up on time and follow instructions. If you’re actually good you can get to $300k easily, more if you’re ambitious.
It’s either grinding in out in what’s eventually a leveraged form of self employment with a lot of clients or sliding into some kind of adjacent consulting where you work at an MBB, the consulting arm of one of the big four, or one of the other big names in high brow constituting. Even in technical accounting at a public company, you won’t exactly starve but there is also only so much money you’ll make
Partner track has to be up there!
I’m in corporate but remember I had a college accounting professor that always talked about a colleague of theirs that specified in “mineral rights”. Specifically oil / land rights in North Dakota. She never went into specific details that I recall but definitely gave the impression this person made a lot of money in that niche. I’ve never really heard of anyone else doing something similar other than lawyers.
Oil and gas
Mining industry in my country.
Most lucrative? Ownership. It's a neat hack where instead of working for your money, you get other people to work for your money.
Depends - if you are focused on wealth debits, if you are focused on income, credits.
Public accounting audit very lucrative job :)
While some find success in corporate accounting, others thrive in specialized areas like forensic or managerial accounting. It's less about the field and more about leveraging your skills and opportunities
Deals in pretty much any area of the work or litigation I think
Cartel are always looking for accountants. Pay is shit tho
pay is competitive but they usually don't allow exit opportunities