[steve777]

Only for people that have a job that they got with their accounting degree/cpa license. what do you do at your job?

[Anonymous]

I just started at a mid-size accounting firm. Usually I do nothing lol but I have done a draft, a compilation, AR confirms and a few other misc things. I can tell you from now though this isn't where I see myself long term. I give it to 2 years tops and I'll probably leave. I'm curious to here what others do on a daily basis also…

[northernlights]

I work at a small cpa firm, about 20 accountants. I do LOTS of things. In the last two years I have worked on audits, review, comps, 990, 1040, 1120, 1120S, 1065, general bookkeeping and bank reqs, and payroll. On any given day it could be any of the previously listed items, with of course more personal in the spring and more audit/reviews in the fall. But its November, and this morning I was working on a partnership return for one client, and a very past due (2008) personal return. Its really actually fun getting to do a little bit of everything.

FAR: 55, 52, 66
REG: 84*
AUD: 54, 70, 73, 72, 79!!!
BEC: 75*

*expired

[Anonymous]

I'm self employed and I have no employees so my day went something like this:

1. Created Google Spreadsheet for Daily Cash Count so owner, who lives in another state, and I could watch the cash deposits because the last two bank statements don't have any cash deposits, just checks and credit cards. Yeah, new employee has probably already stolen around $600 in cash. Tomorrow, I will go show that employee how to count in and count out the cash drawer. She will probably get mad and quit.
2. Sales Tax Returns for 3 clients
3. Payroll and direct deposit for client
4. Hour long phone call with client explaining why his business is losing so much money every month (COGS and Wages are way too high along with a former employee, owners brother, who stole around $19k this year and didn't pay the businesses bills). He will probably close down at the end of next week.
5. Monthly compilation for client
6. Reconciled another clients bank statement
7. Phone call with client after she reviewed Google spreadsheet
8. Set up files and fixed asset listing for a new client
9. Answered about 50 phone calls from politicians calling asking for my support, finance companies trying to loan me money, and sales reps wanting to know if I was happy with my current office supply provider
10. Washed the coffee cups in the kitchen, vacuumed the floor, and cleaned the bathroom
11. Completed half of my ethics CE course

And in between doing all of this I found my lost dog, who decided to go walk about last night, bought her a new collar, and gave her a bath.

I've been in business since April 1 and I've sort of carved out a niche for myself. If a business is struggling, has a cash flow problem, or thinks employees are stealing money, they come to me. I figure out how much is missing and tell them what they need to do to stop it. Sometimes they take my advice and sometimes they don't.

[Anonymous]

I work in an Office of Inspector General doing data analytics on recipients of federal grants. On a day to day basis, I'm talking to managers of sponsored programs at universities about getting data from their accounting systems and then pulling it in to our software and testing it against various rules or for fraud (it's more interesting than it sounds on the face of it). I also have to do some research of the rules and we always have random internal analytics projects for the rest of the office.

[ocarina]

IT auditor! && Security Consulting.

Help financial team with IT assessments, do SOCs and consulting here and there. After CPA I'm hoping to get some certs done and focus on infosec as a career.

FAR - 78
AUD - 82
REG - 79
BEC - 78

Study Materials: Becker Self Study, NINJA Notes, NINJA MCQ for review
Started March 2015 and finished December 2015 all on first attempt. Licensed CPA Jan 2016.

IT Auditor/CyberSec Consultant in Public Accounting
Future goals: Learn IT Network infrastructure, obtain CISA & CISSP

[Missy]

Everything. Small company ~5m revenue. Prepare financial reports for parent co in Europe, payables, credit decisions, budget,HR, contract review, shipping, grocery shopping and emptying trash barrels. Also an officer of the company. One direct report.

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

[Anonymous]

Insurance – oversee financials for two of the three companies – smaller company approx 50 million in premium, g/l analysis, monthly financials, annual statements, compliance, data analysis, loss analysis, product development teams, programming the g/l side of our core apps, oversight of three staff… And basically whatever big boss and big big boss tell me to do.

[Track55]

Eat cookies and go to meetings.

AUD - 74, 99 !!
REG - 74, 92
BEC - 83
FAR - 73, 86

Studying for Ethics exam

California candidate
Business and Industry

[Anonymous]

I like the sound of Track's job. 😎

Controller of a small college. Accounting staff: CFO, Controller, Accountant, Accounts Payable person, and Student Receivables person. Accountant's role is still about 75% AP, so basically any non-AP, non-AR accounting work is done by my or the CFO. CFO is also over several other functions (grounds, housekeeping, safety, technology, admissions, financial aid, etc.), so mostly the CFO does the budgeting and some accounting and I do the rest of the accounting. So…a little bit of everything. Today will be balancing out the store's POS system to the GL records for the store (always a nightmare – we switched POS systems about the time I started this job a year ago, and the POS and GL never reconcile…ever) so that I can get the sales tax return completed and mailed, since it has to be postmarked today or will be late. Then I need to work on typing up minutes from the Audit and Finance Committee meeting earlier this week. At some point today I need to work with the part-timer that we're borrowing this week from another part of campus and show her what I need done next on a task that I really don't like, so always put off but has to be done eventually. 😛 Good part of the day – I'm taking a slightly long lunch to go meet up with a friend from Canada who is going to be in town. 🙂 I also need to finalize by the end of today the job description for our Accountant position, because the person filling the role right now has resigned and we're re-organizing the department so need to re-do the job description before we post it. However, writing up this job description means figuring out what I want the other jobs (including mine!) to look like to know which tasks go where, and most importantly working out the segregation of duties chart because right now we don't have things segregated how I'd like to see them. I'd like to plan more into my day, but know every day is filled with “Hey, do you have a minute?” things or “can you get me these figures or this report real quick?” So, in reality, I won't get those things done, but I will do at least 15 other things that are urgent (at least to someone else 😛 ) and pop up at a moment's notice.

Despite what this might sound like, I like my job. A lot. But there's days it seems like the harder I work the progress, the further behind I get…!

[Gabe]

Internal audit- little bit of everything…international FCPA compliance audits, IT audits, internal investigations (fraud, theft, etc), SOX, assist external auditors with interim and YE testing, benefit plan testing. I really enjoy it. I think it's a nice balance of what I did in Public and having fantastic work/life balance.

CPA, CFE
CISA- Experience will be completed by August 2016

[fuzyfro89]

going on job #3 since graduating…

1) big 4 audit staff – 2 yrs
likes: fun start class (work and non-work social aspect), brand name, learning to deal with bullsh*t, thickening skin, etc.
dislikes: honestly not very engaging work (for long term), lack of resources, constant overwork

2) industry – internal audit – fortune 20 – 1.5 yrs
likes: global travel, new development into operations from purely financial statements, SOX and operating controls, process improvement
dislikes: gets repetitive eventually, writing reports is a good skill but gets tedious, dealing with ppl who don't really want you around but still more pleasant than public

3) industry – corp finance – same company as #2 – 6 months (current)
likes: move into finance, new skillset, interesting work projects (financial analysis, strategic planning, presentations, etc.)
dislikes: tight and unexpected deadlines, hours can ramp up when sudden requests from leadership come up,

Everything has got pros and cons. Depends on what you want to do (both near term and mid term) and if you are willing to have certain (potentially unpleasant) experiences to hopefully ease that transition as your career goes.

[jm962011]

Wow, these jobs sound way better than what I'm doing 🙁

[Author]

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