Sometimes you just need the right phone number.
Most of the responses I received were ridiculous. The most memorable was: "Don't you know what you want to do? You got a degree in accounting, and then you go back for one in computers?" Another: "Why would we hire you if you're not sure what you want to do?"
I recall seeing job ads that I immediately responded to with the understanding that they can't possibly find anyone with my qualifications. Many jobs read ACCOUNTANT: Required B.S. in accounting or computer science, with one year of accounting or computer programming. I still could not get called in for an interview.
This was in the mid-1980s. Most people were terrified of needing computer skills or having to learn them on the job. Computer use was not ubiquitous then as it is now.
Math
Lost my tax accountant last year...he decided to do only business accounts. It takes fewer clients to make the same or more money.
*PING*
There is no taste for accounting......................
1. Exorbitant fees for work that is one step above bookkeeping.
2. Requires mastery of one unique area of accounting, which this accountant has not demonstrated to my satisfaction.
I'll go one step further and say that my own experience with accountants I've dealt with in my small business world tells me that the entire profession is highly overrated.
Isn’t AI supposed to solve this?
I have a BS in Info Systems and Accounting. I liked studying Accounting but preferred programming.
Actually the issues described by the author have been happening in numerous other fields.
In the accounting profession there are additional/other issues.
Many excellent accountants are lousy at supervising/managing other people. And the AICPA has a long history of marginalizing “small operators”; politics prevails in the efforts to glorify the efforts/accomplishments of women and minorities.
What has happened in most other professions and careers Has happened in accounting as well. Well, the exceptions might include:
Garbage trucks
Oil rigs and oil wells
Maritime shipping
Long haul trucking
The world is a messed up place.
As someone who entered the profession in 1979 and is still working in it, this has not been my experience. Not at all. The problem with public accounting is the tradition of leveraging and churning low paid recent grads so that a relative few at the partner level can make big. It’s all about efficiency. That’s why the PCAOB announced findings today that 1/3 of 2022 audits contain errors.
COVID started the trend of remote in public accounting and now it’s near impossible to directly reach an accountant and bad client service is the new norm.
And no, I can’t make ends meet charging you $300 for a tax return.
Answer in article: too white, too male
Tax prep for individuals is a dying industry. At seminars there are virtually no young people. And why should they devote themselves to a career that will be obsolete in 15 years? The IRS will do it all.
I was an accountant. IRS/Revenue Canada are just legal schemes by elite bureaucrats. FAIRTAX works great. Not GST.
I passed the CPA exam and got my certificate and license in 1976. Since then the Pennsylvania Board of Accountancy has made it out increasingly difficult to become a CPA and practice accounting by adding ever more education requirements and requirements for practicing accounting. They made it all but impossible for me, a sole practioner to perform audits. Pennsylvania and Maryland agreed to recognize each other’s CPA’s, but Maryland made it impossible for sole practitioners to do so. I’m happily retired.
I took the easy out. I married a gal with an accounting degree. The fact she’s of Scottish descent is an added bonus.
-You're targeted by your own company as they try to bend or break the rules.
-You're targeted by the government as they conspire with companies to bend or break the rules.
-Your clients want you to make the impossible happen and do it part time.
-Your clients don't want to follow the simplest of procedures, keep receipts, or pay attention to details that affect finances.
Sometimes you just need the right phone number.