[Anonymous]

I’m mostly wondering about condition, but possibly certain types of vehicles as well. If you are part of an audit team and you need to travel to a client, does your employer care what you drive? Would your employer be hesitant to send you over there in your multi-colored, rusted, busted 1995 Civic? And what about the opposite end of the spectrum? Say you owned some kind of high-end flashy sports car. Is that sort of discouraged? Is a nice, but modest car really encouraged by your accounting firm if it’s likely that clients will see what you show up in?

[Anonymous]

Good question!

[tomq04]

If an employer told me I had to buy a new car, I would be looking for a new employer.

REG- (1) 76
FAR- (2) 64, (5)74, (7)83 (Over achiever!)
AUD- (3) 70, (4) 75
BEC- (6) 75

[Anonymous]

If an employer told me I had to buy a new car, I would be looking for a raise.

[taxman89]

my VP was giving my shit for my car (his car is easily 10X that cost of my car) and was telling me all the cars i should get. I told him the car was above my pay grade but he could easily fix that. lol

Aud-75 3x I knew i never liked you
Bec-77 1x being in the bubble is stressful
Reg-82 4x its not me its you...and no we cant be friends
Far-78 1x easiest section

[Anonymous]

I'm mostly concerned about unsightly damage. My car is a 2002 with 160,000 miles and so it's pretty much completely depreciated. I was involved in a fender bender last week when someone backed into me. His insurance company is cutting me a check for the cost of repairs. My car is (was) in great shape, but I'd rather pocket the cash than pour the cash into repairing strictly cosmetic issues on a car that old with that kind of mileage. I will be looking for a new job soon and don't want a bent hood and cracked bumper to be an issue since I'm looking to get into auditing.

[Anonymous]

Considering we are all just starting out they don't expect us to have the best vehicles. If they ask just tell them how much you are saving by driving the college car instead of buying a new one. Any accountant should be able to appreciate being a little tight with the wallet.

[Mamabear]

As a client, I can honestly say that I don't have a clue what kind of car our auditors drive and they spend a lot of time here at interim and at year end.

CPA Exam - Finally DONE (November 2014)
BEC (08/10/13) 80
AUD (08/24/13) 65 (11/13/13) 85
FAR (04/12/14) 81
REG (07/19/14) 69 (11/29/14) 87!!

[acamp]

Well they won't ask about your car lol.

I like to believe that what you drive does not impact impressions, but it does. I drove a beater until fairly recently, do people know that I carry no debt and that my kids cost me the equivalent of a Porsche payment? Of course not. They might assume that my finances are a total mess or on the other side assume I'm very conservative with finances.

Point is, you don't know if it arriving in a beater will change perceptions. Park in the back of the lot. LOL

Ninja + Wiley Test Bank: [FAR - 81] [REG - 76] [BEC - 88] [AUD - 73](doh!)

Becker Videos: [AUD - 82]

California CPA

[floacct]

I believe that as educated people, CPA's and other professionals owe a “duty of care” to society to leave the earth in a better condition than we found it. That being said, you want to impress me, show up to my office in a hybrid or some sort of electric vehicle. Show up in a bucket getting 9 miles to the gallon and you're finished!

[titoav15]

My ex employer (hated the company with my guts) was more concerned about brown bagging a lunch more than anything when it comes to clients. I also knew a guy that worked at the same company that always had problems with his car it was a POS… i.e. it wouldn't not even start sometimes, the employer did not care even when he carpooled.

Don't worry about being cheap, one of the partners had a reputation for taking the audit team for lunch to McDonalds… yeah that cheap… mr penny pincher… so it could be worse!

BEC: 5/21/14 82! PASSED HALF WAY THERE!
FAR: 4/2/15 80! Almost there!
AUD: 69, 74, 4/3/14 81! PASSED
REG: TBD

[KBinMN]

Ha! “Duty of care to society”

That's good. I drive a Prius most days and an F150 when it snows, if I need to haul stuff or if I just want to drive my truck.

I'm glad I could impress while also being fired at the same time…

[gt5717b]

My boss told me I needed a new car, but he also gave me a raise to help pay for it. Of course this was 10 years ago and I still drive the same car and work for the same boss. I do have to drive and meet clients so appearance does matter.

REG - 89
FAR - 84
AUD - 73, 86
BEC - 89

GA Licensed CPA

[StephAV]

A lot of accountants are fiscally conservative and drive POS cars. I don't think any employer will care. My boss drives an old Sentra with tape or sticker residue on the side, like he had a big sign on it. Our COO, who makes oh maybe 6 times more than me, drives an older Accord. Especially after the last 5+ years I think it is in style to be cheap/fiscally conservative. Or that is what I tell myself. I think having boat loads of debt or bad credit due to over extending yourself financially is more likely to have negative effects on your career.

When I was in public accounting, I worked with this guy who was so cheap he bought a sandwhich off of one of those lunch trucks one day and talked about it for the whole rest of our audit engagement. We were annoyed, it's like it was $3.50 get over it!

FAR - 7/13 - 72, 11/13- 74, 2/14- 82!!! Best score ever (for me)!!!
BEC - 1/14 - 75!!! Perfect score! First Pass! YAY!!!
AUD - 8/14 - 80!!!
REG - 5/14 - 72, 10/14 - 66, 1/15 - 78 - DONE FOREVER!!!
I did 5 of the UNA and CPAExcel classes to earn units.

[Anonymous]

Can't get much worse than what I drove… my mom's old minivan with 170,000 miles on it. Just upgraded to a 2014 Mazda 3. I actually found my old van to be a fun topic of conversation!

[Anonymous]

Your employer shouldn't care about your car, however, I drove plenty of partners and “big wig” management people to/from airports and train stations as a staff/senior. I was on a big client so we had the CEO of my Big 4 firm visit the client and I had to pick him up at the airport and drop him off at the end of the day. I was very thankful I had a clean, not beat up POS car.

[Author]

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