careers in accounting

2006-12-01T08:48:00.000-08:00

One contributing factor to me choosing the field of accounting for my major is the job outlook for the field. According to the U.S. Buearu of Labor Statistics http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos001.htm#outlook, the job outlook for auditors and acountants is expected to grow faster than average. This means that is expected to be a 18-26% increase in the demand for accountants and auditors in the near future. There are many contributing factors to the rise in the need for accountants and auditors. While Enron, and scandals like it, shed a bad light on the accounting field, they have also resulted in a whole new world of regulations. These new regulations have increased the need for small and large businesses to audit their financial statements more often to ensure that there is no foul play when reporting their profits to investors.

2006-11-30T20:08:00.000-08:00

There are four major firms in the U.S. They are Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Ernst and Young, KPMG, and PricewaterhouseCoopers. These firms handle sccounting responsibilites for some of the largest corporations in the United States and the rest of the world. The responiblities that these frims handle go way beyond preparing financial and annual reports. These companies advise the clients they are employed by in new endevors and they offer financial an investment advice. The big four employ the entire spectrum of accounants from entry level to senior accountants. Links to all of the big four can be found at http://www.taxsites.com/firms.html.

2006-11-30T19:03:00.000-08:00

Accountants have a wide range of responsibilites from recording daily entries to preparing financial statements for a firm. In a job description from Monster.com a few typical responsibilites for and accountant include

In this role you will:

Assist with compilation and analysis of Corporate budget and forecast data.

Consolidate division budget/forecast data into Pillar software and create upload files.

Record daily Corporate cash transactions and make bank deposit as necessary.

Analyze monthly Corporate G&A operating statements.

Record monthly G&A expenses.

Prepare Corporate accounts receivable billings and account reconciliations.

With such a wide range of responiblites and tasks the accounting field seems hard to be boring.

2006-11-30T18:47:00.000-08:00

The field of accounting one of the most broad pay ranges. An entry level accountant in the Fort Wayne and surronding areas ranges between $35,000 and 43,000 with the median being around $39,060. These firgures are from http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/layouthtmls/swzl_narrowbrief_FA01.html. The national average for entry level accounting positions requiring only a two year degree are only slightly lowering paying than the lower average, around $30,000, this information comes from http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/layouthtmls/swzl_narrowbrief_FA01.html.

2006-11-28T20:54:00.000-08:00

Accounting software has also advanced at the corporate level in the past several years, the days of a group of accountants all in a room pouring over endless mounds of paperwork and working every entry by hand is basically over. One of the more popular software titles for small to medium size businesses has been the Peachtree accounting series, http://smallbusiness.sagesoftware.com/about_us/. Because of this software many firms have been able to eliminate the need for employing their own accountants. The Peachtree software has been able to help business owners who have a slight knowledge of the accounting process to manage the financial side of their own businesses. This software has also allowed accounting firms to streamline their operations and serve their clients with the most efficent service possible.

2006-11-28T19:56:00.000-08:00

In the past few decades accounting software has evolved greatly, now instead of every average joe having to try to navigate through endless and impossible tax forms every February. Companies such as H&R Block, who is best known for personal accounting and tax preperation, are now offering user friendly tax preperation software. Software like H&R Block's TaxCut software found at http://www.hrblock.com/ can speed along any individuals tax preperation by not only assisting in actual preperation of forms, but also finding additional deductions that the typical person may miss and speeding along the e-file process and in the end allowing refunds to come to the user quicker. There are many other software programs, some of which can be found at http://tax-software-review.toptenreviews.com/, in the end almost any tax preperation software is designed to serve the same purpose, that is to speed along the tax filing process and minimize the mistakes made by the average person while preparing their taxes.

2006-11-27T10:41:00.000-08:00

Enron has not been the only corporation in the news recently for scandal's involving accounting frauds and deception. Starting in 2001 the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) started to file inquiries with MCI Worldcom questioning some of their accounting processes and personal loans made to top officers of the company. The way in which this deception differed from the Enron situation is that MCI Worldcom made personal loans to their tops officers at and then the officers did not pay the money back. This led to misreporting of accounts recieveable and made the compnay look more profitable than it really was. This is another example of executives overcome by greed and using their positions in successful companies to make them selves more wealthy. In order to become more wealthy they sold their integrity and nothing in my mind is worth that. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,150521,00.html

2006-11-26T18:42:00.000-08:00

The Scandal involving the Enron corporation thurt the field of accounting into the public eye. Typically accountants and what they do is behind closed doors and all most people ever encounter is the finished products in the shape of annual reports or balance sheets and documents of that sort, but when the Enron scandal surfaced in late October 2001 Accounting and accounting practices were instantly under public scrutiny. In the Wikipedia article outlining the Enron scandal outline, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Enron_scandal, there is a detailed step-by-step outline of what happened leading up to and the aftermath of the Enron scandal. What some referred as "creative accounting" is what led to the entire scandal, this involves the misreporting of loses which results in inflated profits for a short period of time. The resason why the Enron scandal was as big as it was was greed, a few creative accountants saw a way to fool millions of people into investing billions of dollars and in the process sold their integrity. Because of the few people the field of accounting has changed enormously in the years following, more oversights and audits have been set in place to prevent another mishap of the same proportions. Integrity is the only thing that makes somewhere worth anything and many of the people involved witih Enron and the scandal sold their integrity for money.

2006-11-20T06:41:00.000-08:00

Aside from accounting for a government agency or for a private business there are many large and small accounting firms. Accounting firms contarct out their services to companies who do not employ thier own accountants. According to http://www.nacpaf.com/, thee National Associated certified public accounting firms, accounting firms not only deal with a businesses daily bookkeeping, but they also assist in investment and a wide range of financial advisment. Another group of accounting firms, the Internaional Group of Accounting Groups (IGAF), offers services to their clients such as litigation assistance, system planning, and fiscal managemnet supports as stated in their mission statement http://www.igaf.org/about/overview.htm. Accounting firms are simply another alternative within the accounting genre of carrers.

2006-11-17T09:37:00.000-08:00

The field of accounting has almost a limitless chance for opportunities. Accountants can handle anywhere from the highest level transactions in a corporation to the payroll for a mom and pop grocery store. http://www.pcdi.com/courses/aa/career.html, this wesite oulines several different fields that accountants work in. The field that i am most interested in is the government accounting field. Within the governement accounting field there are several options. In this field accountants not only keep financial records for the governemnt, but they also set standards for local and state businesses to abide by. Not that I don't enjoy working with numbers but the chance to not only work with numbers but also to set standards and help enforce them peaks my intrests.

2006-10-18T12:19:00.000-07:00

Accounting in countries other than the United States has long been a popular concept for talented accountants. Accounting in other countries has many advantages, many found in the article at http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2002/06/09/story573126628.asp. In this article the author offers that not only being in an exotic locations is a benefit, but the fact that some popular areas are tax-free countries. One main draw for most accountants to live in an area such as a the bahamas is that they are able to not only live in a beautiful area, but they are also able to accumlate the money that would have been owed if they were working in the US. Another popular area of the world for accountants to work is the Middle East. Talented accountants are in high demand with al of the money pouring into the middle east for the reconstruction and mondernization of Iraq and other oil intrests.

2006-10-11T11:24:00.000-07:00

The purpose of this blog is to research carrers in the accounting field. Accounting carrers can be found in almost every field from the typical auditor or tax accountant that works at H&R Block to Forensic accountants who examine financial records of suspected felons for criminal activites. Information on forensic accounting can be found at http://www.forensic-accounting-information.com/ this wesite explains how ordinary accountants are assisting government agencies in combating terrorism. The wide spectrum of job opportuities is on reason that i chose the major of accounting. From performaing audits to working with the FBI or other law enforcement agencies the field of accounting is full of excitement