Certified Public Accountant – The Big 4 Accounting Firms

AICPA and CIMA Unveil New Logo and Branding

big4accountingfirms — Sun, 21 May 2017 02:29:39 +0000

As you may already know the AICPA and CIMA agreed to form a new association last year. At the end of March 2017, the AICPA announced that they would begin to implement some new branding as a result of the new association. This was announced in a letter from chair of the AICPA Kimberyl Ellison-Taylor and the CIMA President and chair Andrew Miskin. You can see the new AICPA logo below.

The AICPA made the following statement in the letter.

The look was developed through extensive testing with members and students who described it as professional, visionary, dynamic and influential. The same logo, colors and other attributes will appear across our brands to represent a consistent beacon of quality and integrity around the world.

There were also some reassurances in the letter that members will receive the same benefits under the new organization. This is most likely because many accountants fear change and are unsure of what this means for the future of the profession. If the AICPA is such a strong brand, then why did they need to form a partnership with CIMA.

AICPA used to stand for American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. Now it is confusing what it stands for.

Does it stand for American Institute of Certified Public Accountants or does it stand for Association of International Certified Public Accountants? It’s definitely a little confusing because the AICPA is still maintain their old AICPA.org website but there is also a new AICPAglobal.com website.

The new association is meant to help represent more than 600,000 current and future accounting professioanls.

AICPA members automatically get dual membership in both organizations through their annual dues. The AICPA and CIMA have come together and formed a new designation as well. That designation is the CGMA.

As you may know that the AICPA does not govern CPAs. It is the individual state boards that govern who is a CPA. So even though this is confusing, it is pretty clear that the designation of certified public accountant is still very much a USA designation.

AICPA and CIMA formation of a new association

Back in 2011 the AICPA and CIMA partnered together to launch a new association in 2011 and that is when they really launched the CGMA designation. The problem was that they didn’t really bond the two into a new association until 2017. The members of both organizations approved the merger in 2016.

AICPA CIMA Mutual recognition

The AICPA and CIMA both give mutual recognition the CGMA designation. In recent years both bodies have been pushing the CGMA designation. CGMA stands for Chartered Global Management Accountant. It is considered one of the premier designations for professional accountants working in business and government.

How does one obtain the CGMA designation? Both the AICPA and CIMA offer pathways to get your CGMA designation.

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The Best Companies to Work for as an Accountant

big4accountingfirms — Sat, 16 Apr 2016 20:16:29 +0000

Vault just released their annual ranking of the 50 best accounting firms to work for. Now the way Vault analyzes this is by surveying over 9,000 professionals in the accounting field. They ask accounting professionals in each of these firms to rank the other firms on a scale of 1 to 10 based on prestige.

The accountants were also asked to rate their own firm based on the following categories:

Culture
Compensation
Benefits
Training
Work/Life Balance
Number of hours worked
Diversity

The most surprising part of the survey was that the workplace scores increased significantly this year which means that the largest accounting firms are making investments in this area to retain employees.

Big Four Scores Versus Other Firms

The Big 4 firms score higher in the areas of training and diversity when compared to smaller or mid-size firms.

There were only a couple areas where other firms scored higher than the big 4 accounting firms. Those details are below.

Other Firms Advantage over the Big 4

Accounting firms outside of the Big 4 score much better in the area of quality of worklife balance. Now let’s get to the rankings of the top 5 accounting firms to work for based on Vault’s rankings and metrics.

The best companies to work for as an accountant

Best Companies to Work for As An Accountant

As you can see from the list above that the usual suspects are there. The Big 4 dominate the listing of the top accounting firms in the world to work for.

The surprising part of the ranking is that KPMG was surpassed by Grant Thornton. It is especially weird because KPMG is still ranked as the number four firm in the prestige rankings. I think what this shows is that Grant Thornton has been making significant investment in the quality of life metrics that Vault measures.

Based on the charts and information above, it appears that accounting firms are trying to improve the quality of life in order to attract and retain top talent.

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Life as a Big 4 Associate

big4accountingfirms — Fri, 08 Apr 2016 02:25:43 +0000

Working for the big 4 as an associate

As the Big 4 Accounting Firms blog, we wanted to provide guidance on what to expect as an associate at the Big 4. The Big 4 today is an ever changing environment. All firms are trying to cater to millennials as millennials make up most of the workforce. Therefore, as an associate you will feel like the Big 4 Accounting firms are centered around you as an associate.

The firms will be trying to show off all their shiny new toys that they have for their new staff. For PwC, it’s Google technology. For other firms, it’s flexible working arrangements.

Don’t be fooled by all of this though. At the end of the day, the Big 4 Accounting Firms still have the basic model of Rate Per Hour * Number of hours = Revenue. If you don’t take anything else away from this article take that away. This means that you will still have to work a ton of hours. The Big 4 firms try to increase the number of hours by making people work a lot of hours and hiring tons of people.

Related Content: What is Utilization?

You will have to work all these hours while people are telling you that your working arrangement is flexible. When you think of flexible, you think of working smarter and not harder. Well be careful if you think you can work less because you would defy the basic principle of increasing the number of hours worked. This means that you have to observe your superiors and learn their working styles. Then build your schedule around theirs. Don’t come in later than them and don’t leave earlier than them.

You will also have to deal with the internal politics. Internal politics means that you will be doing all the work while your senior and managers take credit for your work. Additionally, since the firms have made it seem like you matter so much, you will wonder why no one pays attention to you in the day to day hustle. The firms can be condescending and hypocritical. Understand that and get over it if you want to be successful. If you learn to set expectations before you start, you can succeed. What many of your peers will do is switch groups or switch jobs thinking that the grass is greener somewhere else. That is not always the case. Working is tough in general. Working at the Big 4 can be even tougher, but that does not mean that all workplaces are better than the Big 4. If you are motivated and hard working, then the Big 4 can be the place that you belong. You will just have to get used to the strengths and weaknesses of the Big 4. Some strengths and weaknesses are included below:

Strengths

1.Many opportunities to work on different projects and different clients

2.Good raises and promotion paths

3.Young and motivated workforce

4.Partners make a lot of money compared to their industry counterparts

5.Accountants are in high demand

Weaknesses

1. Large workforce so it is easy to feel like you don’t matter

2. Lots of admin work like billing, setting up meetings, and requesting documents

3. Commuting between different clients and workplaces

4. Lots of internal politics

5. Priorities of your firm and group change all the time as leadership changes frequently

This is a brief outline of what to expect in the Big 4 as an associate. If you manage your expectations before joining the Big 4, you can have a successful career.

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2016 CPA Exam Changes & Updates

big4accountingfirms — Sun, 27 Mar 2016 17:51:08 +0000

2016 CPA Exam New Simulation Type: Document Review Simulation (DRS)

The AICPA announced that beginning as early as July 2016, a new task-based simulation, known as the Document Review Simulation (DRS), will be integrated into the CPA Exam.

This new style of task-based simulations are updated to match real world assignments of a newly licensed CPA. The changes are to reflect the profession’s evolution and to more closely tie to task expected to be perform on the job.

The Document Review Simulation is an appendage of the Task-Based Simulation that will appear on the AUD, FAR, and REG sections of the CPA Exam.

The AICPA has not yet confirmed whether the 2016 DRSs will be taken into consideration as apart of the exam grade, therefore, candidates should prepare for this new simulation as if it will be graded.

So what will the DRS section look like

The DRS will provide a primary document such as a memo for the candidate’s review. The document will have highlighted words, phrases, sentences or even paragraphs that will direct you to selection options. Here, you must determine if the original text is correct, if it should be deleted, or if there is a better option. Related source materials such as exhibits and authoritative literature will be available in separate tabs to assist with this section.

Sample Document Review Simulations are available on the AICPA website

Document Review SImulation

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Which CPA Exam to Take First (2017)?

big4accountingfirms — Sat, 12 Mar 2016 05:24:53 +0000

Becoming a CPA is not an easy task mainly because of the CPA test. The CPA pass rates for the exam have been right around 50% for the past few years. This might be discouraging to some but proper planning can help you get past this initial discouragement. When planning around the CPA there are many questions that you have to ask yourself. One of these questions is which CPA exam to take first. Let’s see if I can help you answer that question by taking you through my own trials and tribulations.

Questions to ask before you start your journey

People struggle with questions like:

What review courses to use to help them with the exam
Where should they study?
When should they study?
Who should they study with?

People also struggle with the question of which CPA exam sections are the easiest and which to take first.

What was my decision?

The answer for me as far as which test to take first was REG. I decided this because REG is related to tax, and tax was the area I was specializing in at school (I was getting a masters in taxation). I should also mention that I took two parts of the CPA exam while I was still in school, and I took the other two parts while I was working a full time job as a public accountant at one of the big 4 accounting firms.

You remember how I said I took REG first because it was my specialty — I got an 87 on REG and was immediately flying through the roof with excitement. I was saying things like, “Hey this will be like all other standardized tests that I take — a piece of cake”. That did not last long! I took BEC next and got a 77 on that exam, but I did not study much for it because I heard it was easy. Since I didn’t study much for it, I was convinced that this was just a minor hiccup on my road to CPA success.

FAR and AUD Sections of CPA Exam

Let’s move on to the next two CPA exam parts — Audit and FAR. Out of those two CPA exam sections, I decided to take FAR first because I felt like I just needed to get that out of the way to prevent my other sections from expiring. If I saved FAR for last and couldn’t pass it right away, I did not want to risk the section expiring. Needless to say, I failed FAR the first time. I was completely devastated.

What made it worse was that I used one of the more popular CPA reviews courses on the market. My firm paid thousands of dollars for this course so why didn’t it make get me that passing grade? Well I was determined to hunker down and pass it now. I wasn’t going to let some standardized test get the better of me. Boy was I wrong again. This was about the time that being an associate in a public accounting firm hit me like a stack of bricks. Being full time and in busy season drained all my energy and free time. I struggled getting through the FAR study materials as they were so boring and long. I failed once again. DARN!

I was completely devastated now. I tried to dedicate more time to the test the third time around, but I could only squeeze a few extra hours of studying in, and I finally passed with a 75. Man that was exhausting. Lastly, I took AUD and received a 76, much to my chagrin. I underestimated the CPA exam and barely squeezed by on all the parts. Don’t make the same mistake as me. Plan which section to take first!

Conclusion

What can you learn from my experience about the which CPA exam section to take first? As you can see from my struggles that you should take whatever section you anticipate to be the hardest for you during a time frame where you have the most flexibility in your schedule. You need to have enough time to study for the section that will be the hardest for you. If you don’t have time in your schedule right now, then don’t take the hardest section for you. Take the easiest section instead – whatever section that may be. FAR was the hardest section for me because I did not take that many advanced accounting courses in college. I focused all my graduate studies in tax. If all your focus in school was on financial accounting, then FAR would probably be your strongest. You might consider taking FAR when your schedule is a little less flexible.

If you use my story and guidelines, you should be able to determine which CPA exam section you should take first.

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What Training Is Needed to Become an Accountant

big4accountingfirms — Sat, 12 Mar 2016 03:55:39 +0000

“What training is needed to become an accountant” is a good question and probably prevents many people from becoming an accountant in many cases. People often think that being an accountant is convoluted and too hard. I disagree. I think being an accountant can be challenging at times, but it can also be enjoyable if you are well prepared and motivated.

Now back to the question of what training is necessary to be an accountant. Well the answer is a bit complicated. It depends on what type of accountant you want to be. If you want to be a CPA you typically have to attend college and obtain 150 credits in order to sit for the cpa exam. If you simply want to be a staff accountant, you only need a college degree.

In some cases you might not even need a degree. For example, if you just want to help a bookkeeper out, you don’t need to have a college degree. You can use this experience to learn about whether you really want to be an accountant or not.

If you want to be a simple bookkeeper yourself, you really only need to get an associate’s degree from a community college or a similar college from Devry or University of Phoenix. I would warn against getting a degree from one of those online universities like a Devry or Univeristy of Phoenix as they are very expensive and will most likely put you into significant college debt. Community college is good enough for a simple bookkeeping position.

Accountants are in high demand these days as not many people want to be accountants anymore. Whatever type of accounting path you choose, you will have a high degree of employability.
As far as other training to become a successful accountant, there are many things you can do to train yourself. You can train yourself by taking a variety of excel courses on Lynda or Youtube. Whatever type of accountant you choose to become will largely hinge on your use of excel. Being a master of excel will set you apart from your peers.

Another type of training you will need to become an accountant is CPE. CPE stands for continuing professional education. If you want to know what it is truly like to become an accountant, you should test out some free CPE courses online in various accounting subject.

CPAs need to take CPEs in order to stay current with their CPA certificate. CPE courses range in all different subjects. They can cover topics such as: taxes, auditing, managing, international accounting standards, fraud examination,etc.

Your company will also make you take soft skill training such as being able to manage people, dealing with clients and other skills that pertain to your company’s business. It really depends on what type of accountant you are. For example training for a public accountant versus a bookkeeper would vary greatly.

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