[Anonymous]

Hello all…I received my score last week and I have passed the CPA Exam! But now it seems like I have more questions than I did before I passed. Let me explain my situation:

I am currently employed as a staff accountant at a publicly traded bank, now that I have the CPA exam under my belt I want to move to public accounting. I do not have any recent public accounting experience, and the experience I do have from about eight years ago is in tax. I live in MA, where I can get a “non-reporting” license with a Master’s degree in Accounting (which I will have in December) and no public experience – basically I would be a licensed CPA but would be restricted from signing off on financial statements – and after a year of public experience in audit and attest I would qualify for a full reporting license. I am in my mid 30s with a family, and I am pretty reluctant to apply to the Big 4…judging by what I’ve seen on the forums the Big 4 is more of a young man’s game. Ideally I would like to work in a firm where I can do a little bit of everything and not be pigeon-holed into one specific area, but if I had to pick one area I would lean toward tax.

I guess my questions are: does Big 4 experience really make that much of a difference? As a family man, would the Big 4 even be a good fit for me? I feel like a smaller regional firm would be a better fit for me than a Big 4 firm…do you agree? Are there regional firms that would give a wide range of experience, or are you strictly an audit guy or a tax guy? Any opinions or advice would be greatly appreciated! 😀

[Anonymous]

IMO, I dont think the Big 4 would be a good fit for you. The demands of the job and the amount of travel could take you out of town away from family too much. But even a regional firm if you are in audit can have the same out of town travel demands. I worked at a small regional firm with 2 offices and 120 employees, and I was out of town 6-7 months out of the year! If you work in public accounting for a small regional firm in a tax position, there is ALOT less travel, and your busy season is pretty much restricted to tax season (unlike audit where you can have two or more busy seasons in a year depending on you client's year end). For the most part, you are either an audit or tax guy just because it's more effecient to have people specialize, but Im sure if you find the right firm they will give you the opporutnity to do both. If it were me, I would look for a local firm that had a big tax practice and maybe a smaller audit practice that I could still get some experience in.

Although, staying at the bank and moving up might not be such a bad idea either…the full reporting license is really only necessary if you want to work in audit. From what I understand, the non reporting license means you cant sign an opinion or perform attest work, but you can still prepare financials statements.

[kandisjoy]

I'm also a staff accountant at a publicly traded bank, and I also just passed the CPA exam. 🙂 How weird. Anyways, I've chosen to stay at my current position. I worked in public accounting and I have no desire to go back to it. I enjoy my 40-50 hour work week. I also like the people that I work with a lot more, and the type of work. Also I believe that there is definitely room to move up here, considering there are only two other CPAs at the bank (one being my boss the controller, and the other the CFO). But to each their own. 🙂

If you're completely set on switching to public accounting, I agree with you that you should try a regional firm or smaller. At smaller firms, you can get experience in both tax and audit (it's usually seasonal) and then later choose your preference when you get to senior/manager level. However with your prior experience in tax, they might be willing to have you specialize in tax right away. If you do end up doing audit, you WILL be required to travel quite a bit. I worked at a regional CPA firm. One audit season and I was gone for 10 weeks out of 12 weeks. In crappy places like Modesto. No bueno! Also the hours will still be hell. I was working 60+ hours per week consistently, for both audit and tax seasons. I wouldn't wait to work in public accounting, especially audit, if I had a family. Unless I hated my family. 😛

FAR: 71, 77
BEC: 70, 82
AUD: 62, 78
REG: 71, 68, 85

CA Licensed 11/2011

[goodluck2everyone]

my advice to you is…

Go home and be a family man

*Guile's theme plays in background*

BEC- 80
REG- 68, 71, July
AUD- 61 , 84
FAR- -- 75 🙂

[lindjlny]

@ Kandisjoy, what review course did you use?

[kandisjoy]

@lindjlny – Luckily I just posted this somewhere else, so I'll copy paste my study method here for you. 🙂

I used CPAexcel self-study and I swear by it. Here's exactly how I used the Ninja notes and CPAexcel together.

I did every CPAexcel study section ON TIME. If I got behind schedule, I usually failed my exam. I printed up any of the text that I felt like I needed to (if there wasn't enough in the Ninja notes). I printed up all of the Ninja notes and put them in a binder, then I inserted any of the CPAexcel text that I printed up in the appropriate section in my Ninja notes. Also I took most of my notes on note cards, so that when I was done studying a section, I would have a great study tool to use afterwards. I went through each note card and if it was easy, I put it in the Easy Pile. Kept studying until all of my note cards were in the Easy Pile.

Did I mention that CPAexcel never expires? And you get an updated version every year?

This is what worked for me. You might have to tweak it to work for you, or create something completely different. Good luck. :o)

FAR: 71, 77
BEC: 70, 82
AUD: 62, 78
REG: 71, 68, 85

CA Licensed 11/2011

[Herbieherb]

Lol @guiles theme. I also chose to stay in private. The thought of working 60 hr weeks is not worth it. I did get a new job with higher pay, less hrs, and better benefits…cpa is great LOL…My supervisors are both former big 4 cpas, so I know this kind of job where high powered types go when they can't deal with the long hours anymore. If you want to be CFO of a fortune 500 you need the big 4 exp. I'm ambitious but, not that much.

NEW YORK- DONE

[hilaryh_88]

So after all of this time and money I was hoping for a nice letter regarding my passing. Instead I got the typical Uniform CPA deal that just says, CREDIT< CREDIT< CREDIT< CREDIT

Will I ever get a nice congratulations letter from anyone or not until I'm officially licensed? I feel like I at least earned a “YOU ARE NOW DONE WITH THE CPA EXAM” but no!

AUD - 82 Becker
BEC - 75 Becker
REG - 71, 82 Becker
FAR - 66,61,71,74,70 and #6 80!!!! FINALLY DONE!!! 9/20/12
Yaeger and Yaeger CRAM for the final battle!

[Skippy1997]

I believe NASBA will send your official results to your state board of accountancy, which will (in theory) be the “Good job, now apply to us for licensure” report.

AUD - 05/27/11 - 81
FAR - 07/05/11 - 83
REG - 08/06/11 - 91
BEC - 08/29/11 - 87
Ethics - 95

[Herbieherb]

@Hillary you get one don't worry I framed both

It says something like on behalf of your state CONGRATS…and lists your exams dates and all the scores. Info on how to get licensed will be included

NEW YORK- DONE

[Megan]

I've only worked at small firms, but one firm that I worked at, we were either audit & tax people, or tax people. Tax people almost never drifted into audit, but audit people always were pulled into tax during busy season.

At the small firm I am at now (albeit bigger than the previous firm), everyone is either strictly tax or strictly audit. I am an auditor, and have been for 4 years. I can't attest for all firms out there, but I have a really great family/life balance. I'm a mom to two little kids (3 year old and 5 month old), nursing, and a wife supporting her husband through his second bachelor's. Both small firms were/are very flexible and although I rarely work less than 40 hours, it's very very rare that I'm working any more than 50, and 50/hr weeks are only during super busy time.

I travel some, but it's not terrible and I'm still home almost every night to put the kiddos to bed. It's very very rare that I am at work later than 6 or 7.

I can tell you that I am able to complete an audit from engagement letter/SAS 114 letter to issuing reports, and I'm not sure I would have that much experience if I were at a Big 4.

BEC 52, 61, 74, 77
AUD 80
REG 75
FAR 50, 60, 70, 74, 83...DONE!!
..Texas.. Baby #2 born 4/11/11

[Anonymous]

Thanx for all of the advice!! I was kind of leaning toward a tax career path, but now I think that's definitely the way I want to go…

@kandis – that is really weird!! I'd like to stay at the bank…but I've kind of peaked there and I'd need to wait around for another five years or so for a promotion to controller. It might be worth it, but I guess I'm just impaitient and ready to move on 🙂

[kandisjoy]

@duker8012 – I hear ya. 🙂 Good luck in your endeavors. Let us know what you end up doing.

FAR: 71, 77
BEC: 70, 82
AUD: 62, 78
REG: 71, 68, 85

CA Licensed 11/2011

[hilaryh_88]

Herbieherb – Thanks for the info! I plan to frame them as well.

AUD - 82 Becker
BEC - 75 Becker
REG - 71, 82 Becker
FAR - 66,61,71,74,70 and #6 80!!!! FINALLY DONE!!! 9/20/12
Yaeger and Yaeger CRAM for the final battle!

[makinthemagic]

thanks for the info

Bec 4/11/11 91
Aud 7/11/11 75
Reg 8/31/11 80
Far 5/24/11 86
Ethics - 98
California Licensed CPA
Illinois Registered CPA

[Author]

Replies