[futureCPA12]

I’ve been looking into alternatives to public accounting. For those of you who work as fund accountants, do you recommend any administrators to work for? Also, for someone with 3 years in financial services public accounting, what are the best roles out there for me – especially if I have more interest in private equity than hedge funds?

I’m looking for a job that doesn’t have a “busy season” per se and has a fairly decent work/life balance.

Thanks in advance for your input!

[Claudia408]

Future- what part of the country do you live in? I live in SF bay area and years ago worked for a PE fund administrator headquartered in NYC. There are more opportunities in NYC than SF since SF is move VC than PE. Not to say you can't find any in SF. However, working as a fund administrator you will most likely work A LOT. You never know when the fund (your client) will need to call contributions or make a distribution and you will have several clients so you will be working late til it gets done. If you have an interest in fund accounting, I suggest working in house, not as the administrator. Additionally, I had tried to move away from fund accounting and work as “real” accountant. I would get ZERO replies when I submitted my resume bc my experience as a fund accountant didn't translate into other areas of accounting, my experience was too niche.

BEC - 75 (3x)
AUD - 78 (3x)
REG - 67, 66, Aug 1
FAR - 54, Sept 8

[cpa1982]

Fund accounting is very niche industry. I used to work in tax for Fortune 500 company that provides fund and tax accounting services for investment companies. That was my first job right out of college and i didn't give much thought about the fund/investment industry. Its truly specialize industry. When i decided to move on, i had a really hard time getting into other areas of tax.

As far as busy season concerns, yes there will be busy season at the end of the year, when excise tax starts (Nov.-Dec.). If you work for in-house, there is possibility that you might have to stay longer. Once my director and manager had to stay until 2 at night since there were some issues with distributions for several funds. Busy season also depends on how many funds investment company has. Every funds have different year-end so some months you will be busy and some not so much.

[Author]

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