My Wife Wants to be an Accountant

brandotheninjamaster

This is a great thing! I have always wanted my wife to embark on a career that she would be happy in. She told me the other day that she really like numbers and accounting seems like something that she would enjoy. Of course she needs education, we're looking into that right now. My question for you guys/girls is: Is there any reading or a website that she could get a window into the world that is accounting? Or any other general advice for that matter. I ask this because I don't want her to be unhappy, and I want to make sure this is what she wants to do. I would hate for her to be unhappy in her career because we jumped into something feet first without doing any research. I await your responses, and thanks in advance!

-Brando

Arikado

I work in a corporation as a Marketing Assistant and temporary mail clerk. About 80% of the people who work here are Accountants. This is what I've noticed:

1) Due to the economy and a recent merger, all the accountants here have been staying 2+ hours over time and coming in on weekends. While not all companies are the same in size, I've heard nothing but complaining from most of them.

2) Most of the accountants here AND my previous jobs are smokers or end up smoking.

3) Most companies require a degree in accounting as far as I know.


That's all I can offer, really. Money is good but the stress and work will vary. Liking numbers is only half the job. Accountants are dealing with banks, vendors or with affiliate companies on the phone for the other time. Then there's the stereotypical office environment or busted printers, lack of supplies, and retarded bosses. If she wants to deal with anything Accounting throws at her, then more power to her.

mugginns

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certified_Public_Accountant

At some point I believe she'll want to take the CPA test, at least that is what all the bidness majors I knew in college did if they were an accountant.

Cruix

Congrats to your wife on finding something she enjoys doing! I know that's a lot easier said than done, phew.

My dad is a CPA and has his own busines (as a CPA specializing in divorce cases), and I worked at his office for probably five years and have been around that pretty much my whole life. Anyway, from the first thing I gather it's this: there are quite a few different things you can do with accounting, if you want to. My dad specializes in divorce, as I said. There are all kinds of avenues she can look into going down, there's no need to just do tax work and things along those lines if she decides she wants something more than that, just so you know that option is out there.

Secondly, she'll of course want to get her degree in accounting. She'll also really really want to get her CPA license, I think. At least, this has been my experience from working with my dad -- there simply aren't as many options available for accountants without their CPA license. It opens a lot of doors for you.

Accounting is also one of those "continuin education" jobs -- the really good accountants out there are the ones who go to seminars and meetings when they can, ones that update them on what's going on with new rules/laws/etc.

I know this has been sort of broad and I don't know exactly how helpful it is, but if you have any specific questions feel free to ask and if I can't answer you, I can ask for you.

starmanbrand

I am currently on this path, as well. I work for my stepdad, who is an accountant and probably the reason I am doing it.

Basically, as an accountant, there are two "major" paths. CPA and CMA. Certified Public Accountants are what you think of when you think of accountants. CMAs are managerial accountants and usually work specifically for one corporation and do major things for them like projections and estimates.

Both have a wide variety of offshooting branches. As someone said, a CPA that specializes in divorce. My stepdad used to specialize in citrus growing, and is now moving towards contractors. I am currently looking into auditing or forensics, but really want to land a job with one of the big four accounting firms(Basically like being drafted into accounting NFL.)

A funny saying that I seem to hear quite often is "An accountant spends one fourth of their time doing work, and the other three fourths of the time they are traveling to someone, or explaining their work to someone." but I suppose this is pretty much geared towards accountants who work for themselves.

As far as research goes, first check out bls.gov and then go to the accountants and auditors page. Then from there head to the resources they link. One will be the CPA association and a few others. Check them all out, then search google for newsgroups or forums based on it so you can get a stronger feel for it. I don't have any sites currently bookmarked, though. Sorry.

Basically, she has to be the person who is INTO doing office work. Some people hate it, some people love it. Liking numbers does not especially mean anything as far as accounting goes. Accounting isn't just adding revenue minus cost equal profit or loss. It's more the entire system behind it. I do not like math very much, but love accounting.

As someone mentioned, good accountants go to seminars to stay at the forefront? Well that is actually required. You have to do a certain amount of hours every year to just keep your CPA license.

So, to get back to your actual question, check out labor statistics site and then their resources to find out more information about becoming an accountant. Also, update this or PM me with any further questions and I can try to help.

Rook

It's kinda ground that people have already trodden on, but there's a huge difference between Accountant and someone who works with Accounts. If she's really more interested in the latter then there's probably some short courses on business management. I'm currently helping tutor just a short course on such where people get introduced to it, to the point where they could do the accounts for their own business. And if she's interested enough it's definitely worth looking into. There's a lot of people who just panic as soon as they see numbers so there's a lot of work out there for someone with basic accountancy knowledge, not just fully qualified accountants.

Boutros

My mom is a CPA, and she started out as an auditor with one of the big 6 accounting firms (or however many there were then), then she became a controller and eventually a CFO of a smallish (but fairly sucessful) company. She really did not enjoy auditing that much, mainly because she had to travel all over the place to crappy little villages in Alaska to do her work. When she got into the corporate side of things she was a lot happier.

Accounting is not really a completely uniform profession, someone who mainly does tax accounting has a very different job from an auditor or a controller. There are a lot of accounting type jobs that don't require a degree or certification, but getting a CPA is going to net you a lot more money.

LadyM

I'm not an accountant, but have worked closely with accounting departments for eight years. My advice is to inquire about the average workload / length of "year end" procedures when she's looking for a job. At my old job year-end was fairly stressful . . . balancing the accounts for the end of the year, printing W-2s and 1099s, etc. For a few weeks everyone was busy and stressed out. At my CURRENT job, year-end procedures last three months and people are frequently having to work weekends to keep up with the workload. For a quarter of the year! It's nuts!

Also, she might check out USAjobs.gov , the federal government's official job site. Working for the government gives you good benefits and it's pretty easy to transfer from one job to another if the fancy takes you.