[Anonymous]

Okay, so I’m trying to determine whether a CPA firm is considered small, medium or large. How many accountants does a firm usually employee to be considered a small, medium or large firm?

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't necessarily go by the number of CPAs working at the firm, I would look at the size of the clients that the firm services. Are they services smaller companies with only a few million in annual revenues? or giant companies with international operations, multiple locations, and a billion in annual revenues?

[Anonymous]

@CalCPASoon, good questions! So do you not really know these answers unless you ask someone at the particular firm? I guess I could look up different firm's websites for some info. too.

[Anonymous]

Yea, unless you talk to someone at the firm, it's hard to know specifics. When I was researching firms to apply to, I read through the local business journals and news papers, some of the firms had hiring annoucements or annoucements for adding a new location, you could see what firms were growing (hiring alot, new locations), struggling (layoff announcements), etc. I also purchased a list of the top accounting firms in that area, (sorry, can't remember where I purchased the list from, i think there was a link from the local business newspaper.) and it ranked the top 30 firms in that local area, including number of offices, number of employees, client size, etc. This type of information also generally comes out in the interview process when you talking to the partner (or person doing the interview) about your career goals and what you are looking for in choosing a firm.

[jelly]

A lot of the time, the more segregated the specialties, the larger it is. For instance, in a small shop you might do audit and tax. In a slightly larger place, you may do more of one than the other. In regionals, it gets more segregated b/n audit and tax, although you might do audit and consulting. In mid-size, you have separate audit and consulting groups, although the consulting arm might be relatively small. In very large places, you get very distinct groups, let's say, consulting for commodity clients.

Couldn't pass again!

[nszucs]

Most medium to small firms don't like to publish a lot about themselves. I would look for national rankings. Accounting Today ranks the top 100 accounting firms every year. Just go to google – Accounting Today firm rankings and you'll get a pretty good breakdown of the top 100. They can help give you an idea which firms are growing and which firms are strongest in a particular region. I would definitely recommend payint attention to fee splits. Your chances of getting hired are better when applying to a practice that makes up a larger percentage of a firm's overall fees.

FAR (4/25/11) 94
AUD (5/23/11) 93
REG (8/22/11) 84
BEC (8/30/11) 92

[Author]

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