[justgivemea75]

Hi all,

I was wondering what level (i.e. job title or how many yrs of experience) you need to be in industry to actually start researching accounting policies and thinking about how to apply them? I thought auditing would involve doing things like this, but so far that hasn’t been the case. In school, we used to do case studies involving this and I thought it was pretty interesting because you had to think about the business, apply the laws, consider what is most “advantageous”, what the future implications were, model out how the method you apply will affect the statements, etc.

Is this just a case of me wanting to dive into the deep end without requisite experience, or is work like this more common even at lower-levels in industry vs public accounting? Actually, if there are any Big 4 managers/ex-managers on here, do you feel that you do more of the tasks I mentioned now that you’re further up the ladder in public?

FAR - 84
AUD - 76 (phew)
BEC - 88
REG - 77

DONE!

[Missy]

In my personal opinion (20+ years in industry) that is part of EVERYBODY's job. I don't care if you are an A/P clerk if you see a purchase order to an expense and you can justify it being capitalized, that is your job. There is no position in industry where thats all you will do, a company's accounting policies are usually well established all the way up the totem pole and changes can be made when they are justified.

Now as a manager at a small manufuacturer once or twice a month I am researching something, but its a very small part of what I do.

Licensed Massachusetts Non Reporting CPA since 2012
Finance/Admin/HR Manager

[justgivemea75]

Just to clarify, when you speak of “that being everyone's job”, do you mean researching policies, modeling out how a transaction will impact the financials, or what? Sorry for the dumb question, but I couldn't make out which part of my OP you were describing

FAR - 84
AUD - 76 (phew)
BEC - 88
REG - 77

DONE!

[Missy]

Meaning at a lower level nobody will ask you to do an analysis or research policies but that shouldn't stop you as long as you're getting your job done and well. For example when I was an AP clerk, I wanted to go paperless. On my own time I put together an analysis of the cost of document scanning vs. the square footage that would be saved by removing all filing cabinets and consolidating 2 offices/leases into one. It worked and the company went paperless and saved a fortune in rent. Nobody asked me to, was all my own doing but it helped me to get promoted. Don't wait to be asked if theres an opportunity but be very sure its not interfering with your regular job.

On the other hand, the harsh reality is that many times a transaction is never modeled. Example: making a decision to buy a $2m piece of equipment never discussed with the accounting department. Engineers are without a doubt the prima donna of industry and when they whine that they neeeeeeeeeeed this or that, the ball is rolling before you can throw together a future value formula in excel.

I do some research but its rarely necessary or requested of me. Usually its part of the budgeting function and a company may be big enough to have a person who does nothing else, or its a small part of another position like the finance manger.

Licensed Massachusetts Non Reporting CPA since 2012
Finance/Admin/HR Manager

[Anonymous]

Yeah. In industry when you come upon an unusual or atypical contract/transaction you have to account/code it correctly so it rolls up to the financials correctly. You'd be surprised about how many things come up. Meanwhile in auditing it is ur job to make sure your selections were accounted for properly. Kinda similar but in one you are just checking and in the other you are actually doing. In general, I never felt my auditing was very value add while in industry i do feel like going above and beyond does make a difference. Now if you are specifically talking about writing memos/white papers for material unusual transactions for a company, that's probably usually done at the mgr level although maybe senior level too.

[justgivemea75]

So I think here's what it comes down to and what I'm a little bit disappointed with auditing so far is that the work just isn't challenging at all and doesn't require much problem-solving. Again, this could just be based on me being at the bottom, but it's hard for me to really go above and beyond when the work is basically just making sure the amounts on receipts/ledgers match. The most you can really do is figure out how to use a process in the client's reporting systems to reduce the audit work, but that stuff just doesn't interest me. I'm more interested in learning about the numbers on the financial statements, how they got there, what they mean, and how to utilize them for future decision-making as opposed to getting “comfort” over the numbers. It's getting close to a year here for me at my big 4 and I don't really understand why this work is the gold-standard in an accounting career. If you want to be VP of Internal audit, then it's great, but I feel as though auditing and accounting are 2 separate skills that are related but still distinct. I don't think they're hand-in-hand enough that a great auditor will necessarily be a great financial accountant (looking at my FAR/BEC scores vs my AUD score only confirms this for me).

Therefore, I guess my main question is do you feel as though you do a lot more problem-solving/numerical analysis in industry vs public accounting? I feel as though this is what I'm good at but I don't get to demonstrate in auditing, which leads me to only getting average to above average reviews instead of being a standout.

FAR - 84
AUD - 76 (phew)
BEC - 88
REG - 77

DONE!

[Anonymous]

I mean… you pretty much answered your own question really. From the industry perspective, the goal can often be to come up with creative solutions that fall within proper accounting guidelines. Sometimes this requires doing additional research, etc. I'm sure that as you move up you will increase the likelihood that you encounter these”desired situations”, but I think it's pretty safe to assume that you just aren't going to experience it as often as you would being on the other side.

There are a number of individuals that would tell you they really only went into public accounting for the experience and that once you get around two years it is incredibly easy to transition into something that is a better fit. It sounds like you have a pretty good idea of what it is that you want to be doing which is good. I would recommend holding out for another year. It will look great on paper and you can give yourself a little extra time to see if anything else about the position piques your interest. Best of luck!

[Thrawn]

I started in industry in tax and during my first few weeks I was researching things that needed to get done because we were always short-staffed and my boss wanted a quick and dirty answer.

BEC 87 Feb 14
REG 84 Apr 14
FAR 82 Nov 14
AUD 86 Feb 15

[Author]

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