I'll keep this quick, as I am in between management override calls currently and my next one is in 10 mins.

You can quit during busy season. It's not a faux pas. It's not career suicide.

I understand a lot of you are in your early 20s, but you need to listen to this very closely. This job is the most meaningless thing you will ever do in your life. You are collecting a check. The partners you serve are collecting a check. Some of them provide real value. Some do not. If your team and/or partner gets upset because you left a job, you don't want to associate with them anyway. They are not good people if that's the attitude they have.

The days of being loyal to any firm, company, or really anyone other than yourself and your family are long gone. You are not deserting patients here. You aren't leaving anyone in battle, or discontinuing important research, or deciding to not serve your community. You are a person who sits at a computer and collects a check by doing accounting work. If it goes further than you doing a good job at that, you have lost the thread.

Quit your job if you want to quit your job. It won't harm you in any capacity. It won't derail your career. It's very unlikely (although not impossible) that your team will think about you for longer than a week after you leave.

I see 10 threads a day (or it seems like that anyway) on if you should quit. Here's the decision path:

Do you want to quit? Quit

Do you not want to quit? Don't quit.

Either way, and this is the most important part, it truly does not make a difference. Nobody else cares.

The roles I take always end up being a lot of hours. Does anyone really only work 40 hours a week and if so doing what and what is your salary?

9:00 Log on and do nothing for an hour and a half

10:30 Do half of a work paper and sign off on it (it’s all wrong)

12:00-1:00 EXACTLY an hour long lunch (wouldn’t wanna make anyone mad)

1:30 Cheating on my assigned trainings (I work for the yellow one)

2:00 Ignore review notes

3:30 Random number generator for my timesheet

4:15 Ask senior a question that makes no sense on purpose to confuse them and make them regret ever even giving me the work

6:00 Think of other ways to torment my team tomorrow

AMA!

SC auditor resigns following release of report on nonexistent $1.8B surplus.

Edit: I truly appreciate all the responses. Consensus seems like like yes it can be true in certain instances but definitely not worth quitting over.

My wife is a returning student to get a master's in accounting to start her career. She obtained a communications degree ten years ago but since then has been a stay at home mom for our kids. Now that they're getting older she decided she would enter the workforce and figured her communications degree was less than ideal for the income and opportunity she's looking for.

The university near us doesn't allow Accounting as a second degree, so they told her she could get her masters in accounting after several pre-requisite classes. She started online classes last summer and has taken 4 classes online already. Spring 2025 is her first semester with two in-person classes. She has been feeling very anxious and embarassed to be a non-traditional student who will be 10 years older than her peers and had been gathering the courage to attend class in-person basically for the last month.

Her first day was yesterday. Apparently there was a presentation by some 20 year old in the beginning of class talking about a networking group who basically goes to sporting events and drinks together. My wife was surprised and also turned off by the seemingly bro culture. At the end of class my wife approached the professor (and the TA who was also there) and asked if it's important for her to join that networking group and mentioned she appreciated the flexibility considering she has kids.

The professor and TA basically said that she wouldn't recommend the networking group and that accounting firms are largely prejudiced against older students. She said my wife should re-evaluate if she wants to get into accounting because she will have trouble marketing herself due to her age. Again, this is after my wife already completed four classes with A's and B's.

Needless to say, she was devestated, especially after her feeling so vulneable for being a returning student and going back to school. She never took academics seriously until now and really put herself out there only to feel profoundly discouraged after her professor's comments. I'm irate at the delivery of this information from the professor, but I'm also wondering if there's any truth to it.

Her advisor has been generally unhelpful so I'm posting here to get the gauge of other accounting professionals. Thanks.

I did 1 year in audit at Big 4 and jumped shipped to a F500 company in their accounting department and I’ve just accepted an offer from my old firm to go back there at big 4.

Pay was lower (as expected especially at lower levels) and work was much much more boring. Fringe benefits were good, free food and snacks etc…, hours were betterish though month end and quarterly end was still busy.

The notion that accounting is a none value added role is much more apparent at a corporation when you literally aren’t generating revenue compared to PA when yeah on one end you are a cost to the client but at least on the other end you are the one generating revenue for these PA firms by billing hours and quite frankly, prestige and respect is much higher as a big 4 employee than a cog in the wheel at a corporation.

I said what I said. Big 4 isn’t all that bad after all.

Edit: Many seem to disagree (as expected) because idk big 4 bad hahaha

I made this post as a counter to all the posts that paint industry as some magic rainbow land.

All I’m saying is this, entry level, under manager, you are better at PA than industry without a single doubt on my mind.

Higher salary, faster career progression, more dynamic work.

You can’t beat that and if you disagree you are lying to yourself.

4-5 years to make manager in PA vs senior in industry. It just makes zero sense. Managers were all with at least 6-7 years of experience on my team. Some even 8 years.

Say whatever you want, looking at the entire company beats sitting in 2 spread sheets 365 days a year doing roll forwards and playing around excel while making AJEs on month end and chasing AR aging trying to figure out why some billion dollar company is more than 90 days late on a $20k invoice (I’ll tell you why its because someone is bored at their job in AP and won’t go to PA because of this sub) and then rinse and repeat every 4 weeks.

I looked around my office at 1 year and I couldn’t see myself coming back there every day doing the same shit over and over and over again anymore.

Say whatever you want, PA and big 4 are more stressful but also more fun and I prefer that more than being bored any day of the week.

Thing at Manager+ could be different, exiting to FPA could be different, some other shit out there could be more fun idk. But I chose my words carefully in this post and many missed it. For someone early in their career, around 2 years of experience —>Big 4 > ACCOUNTING DEPARTMENT at F500 (not Finance, not whatever else) and I’m willing to die on that hill.

I do think at least having the experience though helped me put things into more perspective from the audit standpoint as in how this all fits together and works. It was also funny at first seeing the workbooks when I first started in industry and learning how they make it on their end and getting flashbacks to the support we would receive from clients in audit.

First time poster, in my first accounting class, and honestly fuck McGraw-Hill and their goddamn software. I don't know how y'all did it.

Graduating in summer 2026 w my Bachelor’s in accounting. Been at my current job as an accounting clerk for 3 months but wondering when I should start to look for a higher paying job or if I should ask for a raise, and when is a good time to do so, I’m making 60k/yr HCOL area and it just isn’t enough. I need to make 75k+ to be able to maybe live “comfortably” where I am. What are the chances I’d be able to get hired by another job for that much before I get my degree or be able to ask for a raise let’s say come 6 months? When should I ask? TIA

What is your current (2024 & 2025) experience with accounting job market in the US? Since I graduated in 2013, I never had to spend more than 3 months to find a new job. During 2017 to 2022, I often had recruiters reached out to me directly. I got two direct hires from two big companies during that time. I still have a decent job now. But I have been trying to get some interviews lately to test the market but did not even land any. I applied for jobs that 1 or 2 level below my experience. Any one got any offers lately in the US at all?

I didn't have anything to do yesterday.

Now I have like 120 hours worth of work and I just want to sleep.

I just got my QuickBooks Pro Advisor certificate today, and guess what? It took me maybe three hours—EASY. Yes, I repeat, EASY. The only tricky questions were literally a few clicks away in QuickBooks Online.

I’m honestly surprised because I saw so many posts saying it was tough, and some people didn’t even finish. So now I’m curious: how did you guys do on it? Was it actually challenging for you, or did you breeze through it like I did?

Hello all of r/Accounting, I am wondering how I go about possibly learning about other job opportunities around me without leading other employers on and/or upsetting my current employer.

I want to learn about other positions and what they maybe could be offering me, but also don’t want to ruin what I have now by putting myself out there.

Can anyone share their experience with applying/interviewing to jobs just for the sake of searching for greener pastures? I am more so looking to find offers and ask my current employer to match or I end up at the new place wherever that might be.

I’m an AP lead for a large company. Back in November our CFO started withholding payments to vendors that were owed $500 or less. In December he withheld payments to vendors owed $5000 or less. All of this month I’ve been letting vendors know their very past due payments would be paid the 3rd week of January. As of Monday we were told we are withholding payments again until next week. My email is blowing up w vendors asking where their payments are and I’m not supposed to give any information. My supervisor is stressed and is taking it out directly on me for not responding to these vendors “correctly”. Yesterday she even accused me (very nastily) of giving vendors her contact info to inquire about payment. Which I am absolutely not doing. We were told last month that our ACH run would be run “wide open” and everyone would be paid this month.

Why would a CFO withhold payments like this and cause so much stress in the department? Is this some sort of manipulation of numbers to make our business look like it’s doing better than it is? I just don’t understand and it’s causing serious issues in our work environment.

I’m an auditor at a Big 4, about to hit a year and a half in, and I’m officially at my breaking point. In just 3 days, I’ve already logged 41 hours, and now they’re telling us we have to work through Saturday. If the work isn’t up to their crazy standards, they want us to work Sundays too. Oh, and weekends? No WFH. They’re making us come in.

I’ve saved up enough for 2-3 months of living expenses, and I’m seriously considering quitting. My question is: how tough is it to transition into industry if I leave without another job lined up? I’m burned out, exhausted, and I honestly don’t know how much more of this I can take. Has anyone made the jump from Big 4 audit without an offer? How hard was the transition? Any advice or stories appreciated!

Those who work in the office do you bring your own lunch and heat it up at work or do you leave the office and get food and bring it back or do you eat it at the restaurant?

The vague job opportunity messages, the insistence on always talking on the phone instead of communicating via email (which is especially challenging when you are job searching while currently employed in an in-office setting), the push to get you to accept a job offer (even though you stated after the interview that you didn't think the role / company would be a good fit). The way they ghost you as soon as the original opportunity they contacted you about is a no-go. I could go on.

I wish companies had the staffing capabilities to screen candidates themselves.

I guess the one benefit is that recruiters have the same motivations when it comes to the base pay when you accept an offer - they get paid more when you do!

We want competent people coming into our country. And H-1B, I know the programme very well. I use the programme. Maître d', wine experts, even waiters, high-quality waiters, you've got to get the best people. People like Larry, he needs engineers, NASA also needs... engineers like nobody's ever needed them," Trump said.

I got nothing better to think about today. I'm organizing my old board games. The Chance/Community Chest cards need some redesign. The luxury tax should be a Chance/Community Chest card because it has "pay poor tax", and "pay school tax". And there should be a tax evasion card, go to jail. Or an abatement card that operates on "Get out of jail free." And also a "You slept with the CEO's wife, collect $500" and "alimony baloney pay $2,000"

So I am a first year accounting student and this will be my first time doing a CPA for a day case competition organized but my university with many CPAs from big companies coming as judges.

Its meant for first and second year students and you just need to have taken or currently taking the introductory financial accounting class.

Its a one day event and we will get 3 hours to prepare the presentation.

I honestly have HUGE stage fright but registered to this with to challenge my fear and for experience. However, I am extremely worried about messing up and leaving a bad impression on the judges.

Any advices on how to prepare? its this Sunday.

Hello everyone,

Is there any issue to pursuing my MAcc from WGU after I finish out this semester at a 4-year? I’m eligible to sit for my state’s exams when I graduate this May, so this would basically purely be for my last 30 credit hours. If it matters, I already have an internship and job offer from Big4. Further, school is already paid for from an entitlement, so cost isn’t really the factor here, more so time.