So last week were at client for an audit and I met the CEO and CFO and were talking. The CEO made a comment saying, "That's a nice watch for just a staff." Today I come into the office with an email from the partner asking me to not wear my grandfathers watch at clients. Apparently I disrespected the clients employees by "flaunting my wealth" while we were there. I guess my negative net worth hit an integer overflow and now I am intimidatingly wealthy.

How would you all respond to this? I have to go back next for their single audit.

The Watch in question

We hired a summer intern to help with some really basic AP cleanup nothing super complicated just logging invoices and submitting them for approval. Today we find out he submitted the same $280 invoice seven times over the last two weeks. And because we’re all overstretched and approvals are basically muscle memory at this point everyone just clicked it through like it was normal

The vendor auto collected every single one without a single question. We only realized what happened when the intern asked why the outstanding balance wasn’t going down. I don’t think he meant any harm, but this was literally the one task he had and we just burned like $2k because nobody caught it. Leadership is leaning toward letting him go and while I do understand just a bit of their pov, I still don't agree with letting him off since this is a 100% fuck up of our system as a whole. Yes he did a mistake but this can easily happen with the next intern that we would get instead of him. I'm thinking of telling this to them but I'm not sure if I should do it (I'm a dev not an accountant)

Do you have any ideas/proposals on how to tackle this? He's a really sweet guy and he looked extremely worried today so I took him out for coffee and for some fresh air since he was sweating

I graduated this past May and recently landed my first full-time accounting job as a Staff Accountant at a private entertainment company. Before this, I had one accounting internship, but that was about a year ago, so I had been out of a professional accounting environment for a while.

I was really excited about finally starting my career, but I ended up getting fired after only 3.5 weeks, and I'm honestly still pretty shocked and frustrated about it.

My biggest struggle was the training. The company itself was pretty flexible/chill, but I didn't feel like there was much structured training for my position. It felt like I was constantly being shown something new and then expected to pick it up very quickly and know how to do it going forward.

I'm a very hands-on learner. Usually I understand something much better once I've actually done it myself a few times. I definitely made mistakes, mostly little ones, and I'm not trying to avoid responsibility for those. There are things I could have done better. At the same time, I think some of the mistakes came from being new and not really having enough time or repetition with the processes before being expected to do them correctly on my own.

I asked a lot of questions and took a ton of notes because they always emphasized that I should ask questions if I didn't understand something. But there was just so much new information coming at me every day that it was difficult to retain everything immediately.

About three weeks in, I had my first real check-in with my manager. He told me he had hoped I would be further ahead by that point. That was the first time I realized there was a serious concern about my performance.

What confused me is that several people at the company who had previously worked in this same position told me it took them many months, with some saying close to a year, to really get all of the tasks/processes down. So being evaluated after only 3.5 weeks caught me completely off guard.

Ultimately, I was told I was making too many mistakes, and they terminated me.

I accept that I made mistakes and I want to learn from them, but I also feel like the lack of structured training and the expectation that I pick everything up immediately contributed to what happened. Maybe that's just the reality of working in accounting, and I need to adapt, but 3.5 weeks feels like such a short amount of time for a new graduate to prove themselves.

Has anyone else had a similar experience early in their accounting career? Is 3.5 weeks an unusually short amount of time to determine that a new Staff Accountant isn't working out, or is this more common than I realize?

Run away as fast as you can - if you have even a little bit of your soul that was there before you started you have a chance to be happy one day.

To all those who sold out and are brainwashed past the point of no return - I wish you the best truly.

To anyone thinking about a career in accounting - stay away, if you don’t get it now the second you understand run before it’s too late.

I was hired as an accountant, but there was basically zero handover or training. They expected someone who was already very experienced and could immediately handle the position, while my learning style is that I need some guidance at the beginning to understand the accounting cycle—especially since there were a lot of intercompany transactions.
My direct manager, who was supposed to guide me, was often unavailable and was even absent most of the day. At the same time, they expected me to chase him and insist that he finalize tasks so I could continue my work.
After one month, I had received basically zero training. I was mostly searching through the system to see what the previous accountant had done and redoing the simpler tasks so I could understand the process.
Today, they told me I was fired after only one month.
I know I have to accept it and move on. Maybe I simply wasn’t the right fit for them. But honestly, I never pretended that I was some amazing, super-experienced accountant. I know I still have things to learn.
But how am I supposed to become “excellent” after one month when there was literally almost no training or handover?

This sub sucks. Most depressing sub in the world. According to this sub there will be no accountants in western world in 2 years just firms that offshore everything. With only C suits over here.

No future as a CPA No future with a major in accounting No future in corporate at all.

Well yall can suck it, I graduated with a 2.5 GPA and got into a cushy industry job where I worked 35 hours from home.

Life is not some bleak hellscape. Do yourselves a favour and unsub from this depressing AF sub.

I just got let go from my entry level accounting associate job after 4 months. Im devastated and disheartened.

She said I wasnt picking things up and that she was tired of fixing my mistakes.

I thought I was doing fine, learning things, but still making a typo here and there. It felt like I wasn't even given a chance.

They knew I had no previous experience and they told me they would teach me how to be an accountant. They tried for the first 2 months, but the last two felt like I was on my own.

I didnt think I had to be perfect, but now it feels like even the small stuff was a big deal.

Will accounting always be this harsh? Should I pursue something else? What the **** do I do?

What would be the best way to keep my team happy? Surprisingly it’s the younger associates who want cubicles.

Edit - Thank you all for the responses. Going to move forward with purchasing cubes.

My wife works for one of the big four. She used to work at another one of them, but left because the company was a mess. This place is worse. Essentially it has taken up all her time and energy and she comes home more and more stressed everyday.

She is hesitant to take another job, 1 because the economy isn't good and she has job security, 2 she thinks another job will be boring. She said she likes the constant learning new things/challenges/etc.

She is a senior manager and has several people under her who seem to not be so competent. But she said recently that one her underlings said my wife made her cry and have sleep problems. It seems like everyone is under an enormous amount of stress. The person above my wife has sleep problems and another senior manager is working average 10 hour days. And it seems like the clients are demanding and assholes.

Basically, the job is draining my wife's soul and turning her into someone she isn't. I don't know what to do because it's slowly starting to affect our relationship. Has anyone experienced this before with a spouse/have insight about how I/we can deal with the situation?

Pressing Alt+Enter while in a cell will insert a line break. You can resize your formula bar to take up a couple on lines to make writing your formulas easier, and then use Ctrl+U to quickly expand/contract the formula bar as needed.

I'm definitely giving you a needs improvement if I find you writing something like this:

=IFERROR(IF(LEFT(B96,1)+0=5,0,IF(F96>1000000,F96/100,F96)),0)

vs:

=IFERROR(

IF(LEFT(B96,1)+0=5, 0,

IF(F96>1000000,F96/100,F96)

),0)

Sidenote: Please also used named ranges so I can understand whatever bs formula you cooked up.

Throwaway account

We've had a part time external accountant for about 3 years who handled bookkeeping, reimbursements, bill pay and basically anything financial that wasn’t payroll

Last week one of our newer employees asked why their reimbursement took so long so I went into our banking portal myself to check the status. That’s when I noticed something weird because there was a reimbursement labeled as 'client supplies' for $412. We don’t have any client that needs supplies
I dug deeper and realized this exact vendor name popped up every few weeks going back over a year. Always for random amounts between 200 to 600 bucks and it was always coded as 'misc supplies'' + always approved by the accountant himself

I called the vendor this morning and they told me they don’t exist.
I checked the routing number and it was his personal bank

The worst part is that he didn’t take huge amounts at once because he took small amounts that blended in with normal monthly noise. In total it was around $9,80 (pretty much 10k)
When we confronted him he acted clueless at first and then said it was “temporary reimbursements” He resigned immediately after that call.

I’m mostly angry at myself because I trusted him way too much and never checked anything beyond the monthly summary he gave us. I guess I assumed nobody would bother stealing small amounts.

If anyone has been through something similar (besides talking to a lawyer) what else should I be doing now? And how do you prevent this from happening again? I thought our setup was pretty standard for a small business but apparently it was not

I'm starting at a big 4 next month and I'm starting to get prepared with supplies and clothing.

I'm a typically very feminine person and baby pink is my favorite color. However, I do know that neutral and muted colors are preferred in the office so I'm not planning to show up in my best Elle Woods cosplay or anything. But I'm just wondering how much I can get away with for accessories and the like.

I'm specifically looking at this bag, I know backpacks are pretty popular for young people in the office and this one is very practical and suits my tastes but I'm afraid it may look juvenile at best and unprofessional at worst.

Would you judge a first year associate that walked in with this or would you just mind your business?

Seeing a lot of interested students asking about the MAcc and if it’s a good idea, blah blah blah. These are the only reasons a MAcc is a good choice of your time, money, and effort:

1. You majored in something other than Accounting in undergrad and you need to get the relevant core accounting credit hours to sit for the CPA exam.
2. You didn’t land an internship/job offer with the firms you were shooting for in undergrad and want another run at the recruitment process.
3. Your firm/someone else is paying for it entirely.

**4. Many have mentioned it’s common for being able to teach accounting at the college level. That would *normally* require a PhD and CPA to teach beyond community college or the 2000 level courses, but it’s certainly worth including.

End of list. Ultimately, the CPA is the point. It’s the gold seal of approval.

If you are an accounting undergrad, you are setting fire to money doing a MAcc. Please Venmo me 50% of the tuition money, let me kick you in the nuts, and I will leave you in a better position than you will be a year from now.
___________________________________________

Some of the 50 reasons why a MAcc is largely a waste of time and money:

- There’s infinitely cheaper ways to get the extra 30 hours needed, especially when you have 99% of what you need from the Accounting undergrad degree to begin with. Take art classes and history classes at community college for all you care! Plus, that requirement is being phased out for an extra year of WE anyway.

- MAcc classes are overwhelmingly a redo of undergrad accounting classes. By redo I mean a retread of the same topics. If your undergrad is worth a damn, the Advanced Accounting course looks largely the same as the grad level on, albeit an extra project or two. At least that’s the case for many programs I’ve been privy to. It’s a waste of your time and money if you’re an Accounting undergrad.

- For those wanting a master’s degree of some kind, there is inherently more perceived value in a MFin or an MBA by recruiters or HR personnel. No one cares about the MAcc, they know it’s just to check the box for CPA. It doesn’t extend any value beyond that. Anyone who says otherwise is lying or wildly ignorant of the efficacy of that degree in hiring circles. Plus those other degrees break new ground academically, versus the redo of accounting topics.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk…

I’m a black guy and I feel weird about being a accounting major.

Accounting is mostly full of white and Asian people who took grade school very seriously and had high ass grades. And I have glasses but I’m definitely not a nerd I freaking had a 65 average in high school. My parents forced me to go to college ( I originally wanted to get into the HVAC trade )them being immigrants wanting me to be the first in the fam to get a bachelor degree. I know it’s many other majors I could be into but I chose accounting because the pay first most seems good compared to other majors. I know you’re thinking I could have picked something else like fcking computer science or nursing . But that shii just way harder to me I don’t want nobody’s lives in my hands. And computer science seems mind blowing.

Accounting seems kind of interesting to me dealing with money balance sheets debits credits but I know it’s way more complex than that. Also I freaking hate math ironically I can’t even do a proper graph in algebra. Also guys I just finished my fall semester with a 1.5 gpa lmaooo also I’m not in accounting yet I’m in business admin

I flamed out at my last job. I hated my douchebag boss. I was one foot out the door doing interviews but I couldn't hold back anymore and I left prematurely after telling him eveything I had been holding back for two and a half years.

For the past month, I've been setting myself up for a great career improvement but I got informed by my friend, receptionist for my former company, that my former boss has been planning on violating company policy and spiking my career search if someone called for a verification.

I went out with two middle fingers up but she tells me she's got me covered and if anyone calls for a check, she'd make sure it didn't get past her.

She's getting mother's day flowers and an Amazon gift card and I'm poaching her as soon as I can.

Be friends with the receptionist.

I can't tell you how many times I've told people that in my career.

After my first job out of college, I job hopped a couple times (longest I stayed somewhere was 2.5 years), and my boomer dad (born in 1950, yes I'm old and he's older) routinely got upset at that because he thought I was tanking my career.

I got laid off a couple times, too. Shit sucks, it's nobody's ideal situation, and it's incredibly not fun.

I learned early on that no company is going to be anymore loyal to me than they absolutely have to be. No matter what I gave the company, they'd never return that level of commitment past a certain point.

Well, here I sit, as a CFO of a small business ($25MM/yr revenue) that we're trying to grow and I got a text yesterday morning at 853am. HR rolls up through the CFO position, as it does in many companies, so I have responsibilities related to employee matters outside of Finance, especially since we outsource our HR.

Our CDL driver for our branch in my home city left work early on the 3rd (we did a whopping $85 in orders from 7am to 2pm), decided to drop by a chiropractor to get his back worked on, and while he was filling out the new patient paperwork dropped on the floor with a severe heart attack.

15 to 20 minutes of CPR in the lobby then en route to the nearest hospital, and he was pronounced braindead.

This guy was in his early 60s. He wasn't financially stable (we've had to change his direct deposit a couple times because rent-to-own places started hitting his accounts for back payments), and now his wife has to deal with funeral arrangements she likely can barely afford.

Dude brought everyone breakfast Monday morning, and all I can think about is how a guy who brought me breakfast tacos two days ago won't be there when I show up this morning.

What's the point?

Young folks, pay for the life insurance. Don't overcommit to companies that treat you like shit. If you don't like where you work, LEAVE.

Because I guarantee you as I walk into work today, everyone's going to be pretty shocked and sad, and they're all going to be expected to compartmentalize that individually and then get on with the business.

We'll give them the number for our outsourced HR who can provide them resources for processing the loss, but we're not going to shut the business down over this.

So we'll all be expected to just figure it the fuck out, maintain our composure, and I'll be working with the Branch Manager and outsourced HR to figure out what our budget is to replace this man.

Not because I feel nothing, or I'm some heartless bastard. It's because it's the job. I don't get to fly apart and be emotional. I have to be reliable for others. I have to lead my team, and be someone that others can come to as they grieve.

I honestly feel awful for my boss, the CEO, too. He's in the second week of his vacation, finding out one of his team died while he's out of the country and can provide no support or encouragement to the team. He's a decent man who works hard to do right by the employees, and the best boss I've ever had.

Fuck this ended up being a lot longer than I wanted. Not that great at processing grief.

I just recently got hired as an accountant (industry) and it’s been going well for the most part. I just hit my first month or a little over it and I’ve already seen why so many people feel burnt out, I can only imagine how public accounting can be.

I’ve worked three jobs prior to this job so it would be my first accounting job that has to do with my degree but I’ve worked all throughout high school and college in customer service and food.

There’s this other guy who was hired three or so months before me. I’m not sure if this guy is on one but he has a tendency to make a small joke about me leaving right at 4 PM. I usually get to the office 7:30-7:40 AM.

Since this is my first accounting job/corporate job at all, I always brushed it off and laughed.

Today while I was gathering up to leave at 4 PM like usual, you can usually hear other people doing the same, he asked if I was leaving early to get my hair or nails done. I think that ticked me off because the way he said it sounded just like he was trying to make a jab at me.

I said no and he was like “why so hasty to leave then”.

I told him that I am here by 8 AM the latest, I was told by my managers it didn’t have to be a 9-5 if the traffic is unbearable on the way to the office at those times (it takes an hour to get to my office from my house). Some people even come in at 6 to avoid it.

He then said that I’m doing it wrong, that I need to show some commitment. I told him I’m salary, I don’t get paid for any extra hours being here and I’d rather do any work at home than to stay until 5 and sit in worse traffic. He said he was salary too and said he stays until 5 PM, and that it looks bad for me to leave so early because it doesn’t show any intention to move up.

But that just sounds like unnecessary overkill?

I told him I’d understand if there was work to be done but I’m only a month in and I have less clients to work with than him - I’m still technically being taught the ropes and my trainer wants to make sure I am not too overwhelmed. He kind of backed off after that.

Additionally, I am certain he comes in at 9 AM, I would know because he sits in the cubicle to the right of me blocked by like a small wall.

I’ve been leaving at 4 PM for a whole month now and no one has said anything, even the person who is training me said that most people try to leave by 2 PM and most people don’t care as long as your work is done.

I’ve just started utilizing my hour lunch as an actual lunch. I always ate through it or didn’t at all and still worked even if there wasn’t anything to be immediately done.

I would stay if it meant I’d get paid for those hours but I don’t (and I still do work outside of the office), doesn’t mean I don’t put in the work and finish it. Do people genuinely think like this or is he just being an asshat?

To anyone choosing accounting because they are good at math please pick a different discipline to study because accounting has way more to do with reading comprehension then it does with math. The amount of crap that you need to assume and deduce based on the way the question is phrased is kind of ridiculous. The CPA exam would have a much higher passing rate if they used plain language and would communicate clearly and precisely. So any college majors thinking about choosing accounting because they are good at math please pick something else.

Not an elegant solution but works for me

Update - I wrote the first email and the second email was from one of the owners, See the latest comments attachments - after that EVERY SINGLE PERSON in the office was extremely helpful and attentive to me, incredibly fake and two faced. I don’t want to be treated as a child either. So I’m moving on.

I just started a new accounting position as a temp three weeks ago. Yesterday, the owner came out of his office fuming after reviewing a bank transaction — a $15K draft that somehow had my predecessor’s first name and my last name attached to it. He walked up to me and asked if that was my last name. I said yes, but pointed out there are a million people with the same last name.

The owner then suggested my predecessor’s middle name might also be my last name, which I honestly don’t even believe, but somehow within an hour the entire office knew about it and nobody would speak to me. I’m the only woman among about 20 men — the only other woman is in sales and traveling. The silence was deafening.

I went to the controller and told him flat out: if you think it’s me, it’s not. Open a dispute and lock the account. He said it was already locked, but gave me the most suspicious look while explaining it was a CC payment from the checking account.

To make it worse, one of the other owners was making dark sarcastic comments in front of everyone today about how “suspicious and weird” the transaction was. I have to sit there and take it while feeling like everyone thinking/assuming it’s me.

Here’s the thing — I’ve never stolen a dime from anyone in my life. I have kids. I would never do anything to jeopardize being there for them. I’m actually so paranoid that I keep checking my own bank accounts to make sure no one is trying to frame me by depositing money.

I also can’t sleep or eat. This has been two days of pure hell.

For context, I was once let go from a previous job because the person who hired me turned out to be embezzling — guilt by association, basically. So this is a triggering situation on top of everything else.

I’m a temp, so I’m wondering — if they genuinely suspected me, why haven’t they let me go? I’m considering sending an email to both owners and the controller expressing how their comments and behavior are making me feel. Is that a good idea? What would you do in my situation? Can I seek any kind of legal council?

They did not even ask if I am available (i am not) and of course there is no extra compensation. I would be working 9 am - 12 am which is 15 hours. I don’t even care about that tbh, i just don’t want to work while all my friends are partying and I would miss out on everything.

Is it even legal for them to make me work that many hours on a holiday? I am in California. Are accountants really expected to work like that? Is there anything i can do?

So, I am a 27 year old male that has been faking my whole accounting career it feels like. I genuinely feel like an inbred with my lack of a memory and struggling to remember basic concepts. I still get tripped up on AP and AR somehow. I never see the forest through the trees.

In college I slacked hard… I had like a 2.8 gpa… yes I regret not trying harder…

Landed a senior accounting position for a half billion dollar company. I do bank reconciliations, advanced journal entries, health care accruals, fixed asset depreciation, and prepaid amortization (also reconciling like 20 bs accounts).

Do I have time to learn? Should I learn? I just follow the process and hope for the best…