Yes but not for 10 months straight, literally. I don’t mind pulling 60+ hour weeks for a few months but I’m sitting on 200+ hours of PTO and comp time because they wouldn’t let me use it last year and now I’m not allowed to request time off at all this year either because it’s looking like 2020 2.0 for workload again.
I passed BEC and REG which are my strong points so I can pass again.
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Thread: Accounting brahs - Unite!
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02-28-2021, 07:49 PM #61
- Join Date: May 2010
- Location: United States
- Age: 31
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02-28-2021, 08:08 PM #62
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02-28-2021, 08:47 PM #63
Damn, if you can both of those, you can definitely do AUD.
Auditing is such a joke, it's basically just trivia (barely any math).
I would be surprised that if anyone passed Reg and failed AUD.
If it does expire. I would recommend doing FAR 1st since that one is crazy long. No joke the study guide for FAR was like 3 times the length of any of the others. It's insane.
At the very least, you have the experience requirement, and was able to pass 2 parts while in public accounting. Many retards can't do it. When work begins to stabilize, you definitely will pass easily.
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02-28-2021, 08:52 PM #64
It's definitely better than other majors though. We have supply chain, and ho lee fuk. Sucks for them. They have like 5 jobs every month pooping up on job boards asking for 5 years exp and thousands of graduates. 5 years for $40K? Ridiculous.
That's what they call the sunshine tax, too many fuking people, not enough jobs.
It's almost as useless as a liberal arts degree. They shouldn't even offer it here. Maybe Phoenix or Atlanta, but San Diego? It's a death wish career wise.
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03-06-2021, 05:06 AM #65
Wouldn't a CFA be more profitable than a CPA.?
I'm going to start my Ms I'm finance this fall, hopefully.
I did consider doing a CPA along with BA in economics that I have now.
But the CFA might be easier than CPA, though the a CPA has only 2 part of an exam.
The pay difference between CPA and CFA is pretty significant and I've always been interested in investingMan Utd cru
LTC cru
"They'll be singing Kumbaya to the beat pulse of my cock" - jbw. circa 2011
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03-06-2021, 05:13 AM #66
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03-06-2021, 08:10 AM #67
Looking online, it looks like the CFA earns a "significant" amount more than CPAs, but it also depends on 2 other things. Where you are located or want to relocate and are you able to fulfill valuable experience.
For Example, in California, there is no way you are going to fulfill the CFA work experience unless you work in Los Angeles (big maybe) since there are so few relevant jobs, you would need to go to where the work is (unless I'm searching for jobs incorrectly) - which appears to be New York.
Edit: BB is being dumb and won't let me post further response. FUK finally
MS in Finance is legit, the problem is with the BS in Finance. It doesn't cover anything important (at least in So-Cal schools). I'm not kidding when I say that finance and management are the degrees students get when they drop out of accounting. Many people who graduate with a finance degree end up working in irrelevant job or as bookkeepers. Some employers don't care, but others look at it like hmm why is he applying to an accounting job with a finance degree, could he not handle accounting, why would I trust him to take the company's accounting seriously?
What I notice is that the big employers don't seem to care, but also realize that you will have more competition for these jobs. Like you will have psychology, english, gender studies, and management degrees working in irrelevant role such as supply chain, accounting, etc. At 2 older companies I worked at, my supervisor had a music degree and another had a management degree. Take that as you will.
Also with the CPA, it depends on how valuable you make it. It is a license, CMA is a certificate, not sure about CFA, but I'm guessing it's a certificate?
With the CPA, if you work in public accounting as an auditor, you have credentials to start your own business as an auditor. Same idea with tax (more profitable than auditing). Technically, if you wanted to do the EA instead of the CPA, you could do the same thing.
Personally, I only know 1 person with an EA, and I wouldn't call them smart by any means, so I'm on the same boat as those people. I know what I went through in the accounting program in college, and I know what they went through in their joke degree program.
Yet I'm a CPA, and they're an EA. We are both qualified to do taxes, but I wouldn't trust an EA to give me the same quality work as a CPA. The simple fact is the CPA is guaranteed to have some sort of background in accounting. The EA could be anyone.
EA vs CPA, the CPA wins out because they went through a more rigorous education program.
Anyways back on topic, even if you don't do either, you could just keep the CPA title to signal to employers that you know your chit and are a hard worker.
CFA is known amongst professionals as the hardest exam. Online it says that CPA is harder than the BAR exam? (no idea about that claim)
I guess we should also be asking: what do you want to do when you grow up? Do you want to do accounting or do you want to do quantitative analysis?
Also CPA is 4 exams and CFA is 3. Not sure where you are getting 2?
Edit2: I would also like to add that for some reason people think California has a lot of high paying jobs. While I'm not disregarding that. There are also many high paying jobs in Phoenix Arizona, Texas, Atlanta Georgia, and Chicago Illinois. All with a lower cost of living. CA and AZ are absolutely the cheapest if you can own your expensive home (no mortgage).Last edited by AccountingMajor; 03-06-2021 at 09:13 AM.
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03-06-2021, 08:36 AM #68
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03-06-2021, 11:14 AM #69
Thanks for the detailed reply, I can only imagine the patience it took to type that out.
You're right cpa is 4 parts, but I read u could do 2 parts in one sitting.
The guy who had a music degree( lmao) what position was he in and was his salary decent?
I'd like to get into quant/ investment banking or even just trading. Something like American psycho/ Jordan Belfort has always been my dream.
But the cpa I've always heard it's significance and I was impressed with the respect it commanded. I'm surprised to know the cfa is supposedly harder. I'm thinking about cfa cause the master's course covers the topics for the cfa, but if you think cpa can be cracked by studying on my own, it'd be great to have studied finance and get the cpa certification.
I dont think cfa is a certification. You get into a charter are your dine with it and you get the cfa title after your nameMan Utd cru
LTC cru
"They'll be singing Kumbaya to the beat pulse of my cock" - jbw. circa 2011
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03-06-2021, 12:19 PM #70
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03-06-2021, 12:31 PM #71
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03-06-2021, 12:39 PM #72
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03-06-2021, 01:17 PM #73
Oh ok, I mean technically you could yolo it and take all 4 exams in one sitting if you are able to schedule them on the same day. That is what the older generation of CPAs had to do before. After 1 exam, I was completely drained and it took me 2-3 months to study for 1 part. If you're smart you could do it faster, but I ain't that smart though.
The music degree was stuck as some whack title. It was for an internship I had, but If I remember it was like Senior Accountant of Bookkeeping, but his title he threw around was Staff Accountant, but all he did was AR. I have no idea how much he made because I didn't do anything payroll related at the time. But last time I saw a job it showed Staff Accountants getting like $24hr which is close to $50K, so I want to say he got less than that. Which is actually market rate in San Diego.
The dude with a management degree was been working at the company for like 20 years (started off as an accounting clerk), but he only made like around 70K. That is considered high for San Diego, but fuk that. You'll be living in a box with everything going to rent. He was giving me advice that I should start a family asap and buy a house because otherwise "you'll never be ready".
Yea, I can tell you 100% CPA can be studied at home alone. I've seen Wiley, Roger CPA, and Ninja. Wiley was legit the easiest one to use. I don't like watching videos since I can read it and work on problems and learn faster that way. It depends your learning style.
If you do CPA.
Study FAR 1st and study section 1.
Go to section 2 and review section 1
Go to section 3 and review sections 1 & 2.
Go to section 4 and review sections 1,2,3
You gotta go quick and constantly review older material or else you'll forget. I made that mistake by going through sections individually and when it came time to review, I had to relearn everything from the older sections.
But it really sounds like you want to do CFA since CPA isn't quant at all. I feel like I should have done something more quant like engineering or computer-related, but I ain't going back to school.
The only good thing about accounting is that there are lots of jobs in some states (not all), so you can easily find "decent paying" jobs $50K-$60K which is low, but once you find the right company and culture, they'll promote you and give your salary a fat bump.
Like right now, no job in San Diego pays what I get paid currently. So I'm lucky.
Depending on your state, why not get both licenses? In CA, the CPA exam pass doesn't expire for example. In other states I think you have something like 18 months before you have to get experience or else the pass relapses.
If you can pass the complicated CFA exam, you can pass the CPA. No doubt about it.
Edit: The wages seem poverty, but that's San Diego. Sunshine tax phenomenaLast edited by AccountingMajor; 03-06-2021 at 01:27 PM.
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03-06-2021, 01:57 PM #74
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03-06-2021, 02:09 PM #75
Well I mean that's if you only pass the cpa exam then there are no fees to maintain that cpa pass status. After that, you do have to pay membership dues to maintain an active cpa license once you get licensed.
But good companies will pay for the membership dues and CPE. Luckily for CPE, the CPA had lots of subscription services so like $200 for a year's worth of CPE and along with the $250 active cpa license renewal fee so like $450 total per year.
I'm not sure if the CFA has continuing education though. So it does have that going for it.
It doesn't sound that bad because other certificates / licenses don't have subscription services and you got to pay like $100 per hour of CPE.
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03-07-2021, 06:59 PM #76
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03-07-2021, 09:01 PM #77
I know directors that made between $100K - $200K in high cost of living San Diego, so wages are definitely on the lower end here.
It really depends on the company. I'm not really sure why the range is so big though.
Also want to add they were old boomers, so not sure if that is even attainable for younger generations now. Especially getting paid that much and not knowing how to print a PDF.
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03-09-2021, 07:03 PM #78
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04-08-2021, 10:42 AM #79
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04-08-2021, 03:04 PM #80
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04-08-2021, 03:11 PM #81
Can I get a SRS advice on how to talk to somebody about wealth building and financial advice but without all the management and stuff SRS.
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04-08-2021, 04:15 PM #82
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04-11-2021, 11:38 AM #83
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04-13-2021, 06:14 AM #84
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04-27-2021, 04:47 PM #85
CPA checking in.
Went to an accelerated mid-career MS/MBA.
Placed with PWC. Hated it.
Left to join a real estate PE firm as an accountant and then went to another similar firm.
Realized the asset managers worked with the same finance concepts but didn’t have to do chitty reporting duties.
Interviewed at about a million places but finally got an asset management role. It is a good transitional role.
Hoping to one day make VP of AM and get that sweet ass $250k + $100k bonus.
I still maintain my CPA license and get compliments about having it.
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04-27-2021, 06:21 PM #86
Depends what you mean by Mid COL. If you include large, southern cities like Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, in that bucket, I'd expect around that much for base if you have your CPA & Big 4 experience. When I was recruiting in those cities, I was getting shown opps between $110-$120K with 7ish years of experience. I'd imagine you could easily ask for around $135K base with a few more YOE. Therefore, ~$150K as total comp should be a pretty reasonable ask I would think.
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07-13-2021, 06:50 AM #87
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07-18-2021, 05:30 PM #88
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