Graduated and I’m in public accounting.
After nearly a decade of learning this stuff, I kid you not, it finally clicked today WHY assets must equal liabilities and equity.

For years, my answer was simply, “Because that’s the accounting equation.” Or something very surface level

I was just doing some WACC revision then it clicked haha

How would you explain why they must balance

Edit: the best way I can explain why I didn’t click before, it’s similar to knowing that 5 + 5 is 10 just by recall …but for forgetting the part of “ if Johnny had 5 apples and you add blah blah etc”

This has got to be a joke at this point.

I'm graduating in about a month with my MAcc after a BS in accounting and getting my AA in high school, yes, I am quite young compared to the average grad with a 3.9ish GPA. I've worked at a small family business and have taken care of the accounting there since I was about 17 - I have been *the* accountant there so I've done a bit of everything. I don't really get paid much at all though and need a new job.

Fast forward and naturally, I've sent out exactly 212 applications, 56 denials, 6 failed interviews - I keep a spreadsheet so I don't send multiple resumes into one place. My resume has been reviewed by a couple managers I know who said it's "good". I made a few connections to firms in my area - they all have been in the tune (and one outright said) "I would sooner hire someone out of McDonald's" because why? They're cheaper?

I hate to say it but I don't think I can do anything more. My interview skills are decent and definitely better than the competition in my area. I prepare proof and descriptions of all the projects I've done from taxes to budgeting to automation - it's not as if I even get that far in the interview process however to show it. I network to the point that just about every firm in the area personally knows and recognizes me. They all know that I need a job but very few of them will even give me a chance at an interview. They would rather hire someone who doesn't know what they're doing, stays around for a couple weeks, quits and then the firms want to complain about how they can't find qualified candidates.

Pardon? I'm not sure if I'm a "qualified candidate" and all but it's not like I'll ever know without a chance. At the very least, you can't complain *to me* about how you can't find prospective employees when I can see the resume I gave you in the trashcan over there. I still think my header design looks pretty, even with it sticking out of the can there FYI.

I've also been applying to every industry job I can find information about. The only one to contact me back was a business that instead wanted me to work as a forklift operator - I'm not sure how they got that from my education but oh well. It's not really worth discussing that side of this with how much I just get ghosted there.

I feel like the only chance I have left is Robert Half. I have no idea how this works and I've always heard bad stuff from recruitment agencies. I've also seen a lot of good stuff on here about Robert Half specifically so I have no idea what to think. They have something like 14 active postings in my area last I checked but I have no idea what that really means. I guess I just contact them and ask for a handler? Does anyone have any other ideas or any advice on how to handle the Robert Half pathway? Will they likely assign me to a firm or an industry job? Because I would theoretically like to get my CPA but the firms in this area seem to be far too elitist to actually offer positions to fulfill work hours to people who are eligible.

On a scale of 1 to 10

I feel most people are on the intermediate to advanced category

I’d say I’m at an 8 (I know +20 core functions, +20 excel shortcuts, macros, conditional formatting, pivot tables, pivot charts, other types of charts)

That is all.

Genuinely curious how other accounting firms handle tax notices, audits, and other issues that require follow-up with the IRS or state agencies.
I work at a smaller accounting firm with multiple levels of staff, from associates and seniors to supervisors and managers. Client managers are generally responsible for handling notices/audits/other tax issues, but the process gets complicated when the person managing the client isn’t authorized to represent them before the IRS or state agencies.

At our firm, only a portion of the people in supervisory roles are licensed, and very few of the more junior employees are. Managers are generally licensed, so this tends to be less of an issue when they’re directly responsible for a client.
We also have a designated tax resolution resource who assists with these matters and is listed on every client POAs. As a result, when a notice comes in for a client managed by someone who can’t represent them, the work often ends up falling to that person, even if the issue would ordinarily be handled by the client’s manager.
I’m curious how other firms approach this:
- Who is responsible for responding to notices and following up with the IRS or state agencies?
- If the client manager isn’t licensed, does the tax resolution person take over, or does the manager remain responsible for coordinating the issue?
- How do you divide the workload when only a small portion of the team can represent clients?
Is this type of work considered part of the tax resolution person’s role, or do they have separate responsibilities as well?

I'm curious and especially like to hear from people at smaller and midsize firms about how they handle this without having all the work funnel through one person.

I see a lot of people worried on this sub on their job potentially being taken by AI in the next AI or so. I spent some time thinking about this and came to the conclusion that people are worried too much for a number of reasons.

1 - Accounting was already highly automated

ERPs have already taken over almost all transactional accounting, memorized journal entries and specifically designed contracts workflows already automate the vast majority of all revenue recognition tasks, all amortization tasks, and inventory. Excel with the usage of macros and Powerquery already could do the vast majority of adhoc analysis with a few clicks.

Accounting is already in a state where it can be compared to piloting a plane or being a pharmacist, fields where autopilot and drug interaction databases perform like 95% of the work if not more. Think about it. What exactly does AI add here that traditional automation did not already do to this field? Which brings me to the second point.

2 - Human accountability

Ultimately our profession is largely automated. The reason we hire people and have them sign off on workflows, workpapers, audits, approve outlier journal entries, produce and review the support for said journal entries is because the accounting professional provides assurance and accountability. Someone needs to be responsible for the numbers, someone has to provide the quality check, and someone has to exist to point fingers at when things are wrong.

Machines in the short term future cannot and will not be held accountable for their decisions. The skeleton crew of humans who did accounting work likely will not meaningfully change.

3 - Long term knowledge

AI does not continually learn or keep context over a very long period. Your specific business that you work at has little quirks and little changes every month that add up over years. Why is the invoice from that one vendor intercompany allocated to a subsidiary in Malaysia? Why do we trawl the GL months after some transactions are made to see if project coding should be swapped out? At the warehouse, we noticed some spare parts exist, where are they on our GL? These are easy tasks for humans who keep business context indefinitely in their heads, but very hard for AI.

You could scale up context windows to billions or even trillions of tokens, but it's inherently lossy and scales up the cost to an obscene level. A very high context window (10s of millions of tokens) for say Claude Opus 5.5 costs 90+ USD a query. Without continual learning, its quite likely AI will need a copilot for context since scaling up tokens infinitely doesn't work.

4 - The real world

AI can't call up city clerks for you, it can't show up to city hall for you, it can't go to a warehouse or factory for real world inspections, it cannot open bank accounts on your behalf, it cannot observe business operations in person to see if controls are being met, it obviously cannot represent you in a tax court, it can't wine and dine clients for your firm... In the meat space, AI is inherently not embodied and cannot do a lot of the soft people work you don't even think about.

5 - ROI

This partially circles back to my first point. Companies don't have armies of accountants anymore, we have a handful of people in skeleton crews overseeing mostly automated reporting. Doing mostly standardized audits and tax filings.

Professional judgement on say technical IFRS and deeper financial analysis are a tiny subset of accountants who are at risk of displacement. The vast majority of accountants are doing meat proxy work for automation already. Most organizations don't get much ROI from cutting down on the few accountants they have remaining, this isn't a focus point for them. Developers are getting hit cause they cost 200k a year and tech companies hired armies of them.

Anyway I am not particularly worried in the short term that AI will take our jobs for these reasons. In the long term I am sure it will. Feel free to weigh in.

Everywhere I go, I see people saying the same thing: “Learn a skill, provide value, and you’ll start earning money.”

Honestly, I’m tired of hearing it.

I’m a CMA finalist. I have practical, hands-on experience in taxation, accounting, bookkeeping, GST and TDS compliance, ITR filing, audit-related work, and other compliance activities.

I’m not someone who has only watched a few YouTube tutorials and added skills to my resume. I’ve actually worked on these things. I understand the work, and I’m willing to learn more.

Yet, here I am, struggling to finance my own CMA final studies.

The most frustrating part? I’m not even getting genuine clients.

People tell you to learn skills, build a portfolio, network, approach businesses, and start freelancing. Fine. I’ve tried to understand the market and figure out how to turn my knowledge into income.

But nobody talks about how difficult it is to get those first few clients.

Small businesses want experience, but how are you supposed to build a client base when nobody is willing to give you a chance? Freelance platforms are crowded. Potential clients often don't respond. And even when you have the skills to do the work, convincing someone to trust you with their accounts, taxes, or compliance is an entirely different challenge.

Meanwhile, your expenses don't stop. Your exam fees don't wait. Your study materials aren't free.

And the irony is painful: I'm studying to become a qualified professional, I already have practical knowledge that can provide value to businesses, and yet I'm struggling to earn enough to continue my own education.

I'm not expecting to become rich overnight. I'm not asking for everything to be handed to me. I just want a fair opportunity to work, earn, and support my studies.

So, is “learn a skill and earn money” actually good advice, or have we oversimplified the reality of earning in today's economy?

Because from where I'm standing, having a skill is only half the battle. Getting someone to pay you for it seems like an entirely different skill in itself.

I'd genuinely like to hear from people who have been through this, especially accountants, finance professionals, freelancers, and students.

How did you get your first real clients? How did you convince people to trust you with professional work? And how long did it take before your skills started generating a consistent income?

I'm frustrated, yes. But I'm not giving up.

I just want to understand what I'm missing.

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for some genuine advice from fellow accountants, small business owners, and anyone who has successfully built a professional services business in Canada.

A little about my background: I’m an accounting professional from India, where I had built a successful practice in Delhi. A few years ago, I decided to sell my practice and move to Vancouver because I wanted to expand my knowledge and gain experience in Canadian and US accounting and taxation.

Fast forward almost three years, I’ve gained hands-on experience working with Canadian accounting firms, handling corporate taxes, bookkeeping, GST/HST, payroll, financial reporting, and cross-border tax matters. I’m also currently working toward my Canadian CPA designation.
Recently, I decided to take the leap and start my own accounting and tax practice here in Vancouver.

And this is where the real challenge begins.

Back in India, I knew how to build relationships, earn trust, and grow a client base. But starting from scratch in a completely new market has been a humbling experience.
I’ve tried attending networking events, joining BNI, running digital marketing campaigns, connecting with lawyers, and reaching out to business owners. Despite putting in considerable effort, I haven’t been able to gain the traction I was hoping for.

I know building a practice takes time, and I’m not expecting overnight success. But I feel like I’m missing something in understanding how clients choose their accountants in Canada.

I’d genuinely appreciate some advice on:

How did you acquire your first 5–10 clients when starting your accounting or bookkeeping practice?

What actually works in Vancouver: referrals, cold outreach, networking, partnerships, or something else?

Are there established CPA firms or independent practitioners who might be open to collaborating or outsourcing certain accounting and tax work?

I’m not here to promote my business or sell services. I’m genuinely trying to learn from people who have already walked this path.

Leaving behind an established practice and starting again in a new country has been one of the biggest challenges of my professional life, but I’m determined to make it work.
Any advice, honest feedback, or connections would mean a lot.

Thanks for reading!

Hey all! So I’ve been interviewing for audit with a couple mid tier firms and BDO was on the list. Decided to check out the subreddit and after seeing the bad PR the firm has received, it’s giving me second thoughts. Can anyone give me reasons why I SHOULD go with BDO compared to the other mid tiers?

Call me crazy but I miss public… I left public after a year in tax b/c I received an offer for 40k more, better benefits and is at a cheaper cost to me and obviously way more WLB to be home more with my wife and kid but I still miss tax so much. Obviously I will never go back unless salaries drastically improve so I’m in the process of getting my CPA and opening my own tax shop on the side until I can replace my current income.

Do any of you miss public?

Well I've had a crazy year.

After an injury that left me partially disabled, I was unable to continue the structure of my corporate job. In September, I quit that job and went into working for myself.

First 30 days and I got a 5 figure cleanup contract. Behind the scenes, for the last year, I've been in talks with another bookkeeper about her exit plan. Well she's selling her business, and I brought the idea to the president of the firm I joined. After a lot of conversations, modeling, and one final really anxiety inducing call, we came to an agreement on price and timeline.

I'll be buying my first book with the president of my firm at the ripe age of 26. Holy fuck.

I'm not worried about maintaining the level of service these clients are receiving, I'm worried they won't trust me. I'm wondering if anyone else has ever bought a book of business, how that went for you, what you did to prove yourself to your new clients, etc?

I’m a CPA with about 11 years of tax experience, split between Big 4 and an in-house tax department at a large financial services firm. My background is primarily in business taxation, with a focus on investment management and partnerships. Currently in a tax management role, but I’ve been thinking more seriously about eventually owning my own tax practice.

My experience doesn’t necessarily translate directly into running a small firm. I have limited experience with individual returns, trusts and S-corps and, more importantly, the day-to-day operations of a small CPA firm (client acquisition, pricing, billing, staffing, etc.).

My thought is to make a career change and spend 2–3 years working at a small or midsize local CPA firm to gain that experience, with the ultimate goal of ownership.

I’m considering two potential paths:

Find a small firm with an owner nearing retirement, join in a manager/senior manager capacity, learn the business, and potentially work toward buying into or taking over the practice.

Join a small firm primarily to learn the business, spend 2–3 years getting exposure to individual/small business clients and firm operations, then look into purchasing an existing book of business or starting my own practice.

A few questions for those of you who own firms or have made a similar transition:

Does this general plan make sense, or would you approach it differently given my background?
How realistic is it to find an established small firm where the owner is looking for a potential successor?
What’s the best way to find these opportunities? I’m considering attending state CPA society events, networking directly with small firm owners, and reaching out to recruiters. Do smaller CPA firms even use recruiters, particularly for positions with potential ownership opportunities?

For those who have purchased a book of business or taken over an existing firm, what do you wish you’d known before making the jump?

Any advice or reality checks are appreciated. Thank you!

This is not trying to be doomer post or a pro AI post.

If you are completely honest with yourself how worried are you?

A scale from:

Not at all - fully confident AI will never be able to replace you

to

I am seriously worried - I will be replaced in the coming years

Personally, Im at like a 4/10 but it’s been been on my mind more often with all the announcements from firms reducing headcounts and the benchmarks current gen models are hitting.

I'm 22 and I've spent the last four years in post-secondary pursuing a degree that I don't even like.

I started in accounting, switched majors a few times during second and third year, and eventually came back to accounting because it seemed like the most practical option. The problem is that I've only recently started to understand the material after 4 goddamn years, and even now it's by far my weakest and most difficult subject. Since I've already used up most of my electives, my semesters are now almost entirely accounting courses. Every term just reinforces the feeling that the thing I've chosen as a career is the subject I'm worst at.

My real passion has always been art and design. Hell, I even found law more interesting than anything I've learned in business school.

But I've always been terrified of the "starving artist" reality. I'm aware that I'm not some exceptionally talented artist who can effortlessly make a living doing creative work. When I was choosing a major in high school, accounting felt like the safer option. I wanted stability, decent job prospects, and a career where I could clock in, clock out, pay my bills, and still feel somewhat fulfilled.

Now I'm not sure I've found any of that.

My college offers a Business Administration Accounting diploma, and I'm only one semester away from completing it. Part of me wants to take the diploma and run. It feels like my ticket out. At the same time, I know how important a bachelor's degree can be. If I ever want to pursue a CPA, I need to keep going. I also recognize that I'm in a really privileged position. I'm still young, I live with my parents, and I don't have major financial responsibilities. Logically, it probably makes sense to stick it out and finish the degree while I have the opportunity.

But mentally, I'm exhausted.

I feel trapped between finishing a degree I don't enjoy because it's the smart thing to do, and walking away because I genuinely can't see myself doing this forever.

What the hell do I do?

TL;DR: 22, four years into an accounting degree (will take me 6 to complete) that I don't enjoy and struggle with. I'm one semester away from an accounting diploma and tempted to leave, but finishing the bachelor's would open more doors and allow me to pursue a CPA. I feel stuck between doing what's practical and doing what I'd actually enjoy. What would you do?

Any in here?

Good luck on exams this week

I come from IT, not accounting, and I'm trying to understand the real work behind keeping the books for construction companies. Not selling anything, no link, no survey.

For those of you who handle construction clients:

1. Which task takes you the most time each month on those files? Invoice entry, job coding, chasing missing documents, bank reconciliation, something else?

2. Roughly how many hours a month does one construction client take compared to your other clients?

3. The last time a construction file fell behind, what happened?

I'll read every answer and post a summary here once I've collected enough.

Thank you for sharingyour experience.

I started in busy season and since 3 managers have given me negative feedback saying that I take too long on tasks, don’t answer my review notes timely, don’t ask enough question, and lack technical knowledge. Is this normal or should I start looking elsewhere?

Only 2 senior staffs have left a positive review saying that I ask great question.

I have to reconcile the expense accounts with the accumulated balance accounts. Doesn't seem like anyone has done this before at the company I work at and there are too many years to investigate. I'm able to get the correct accumulated balances for each expense account (since inception), but the accum deprec/amort accounts don't match. I would have to do a large adjustment to reconcile to the beginning of time. Is this common? Wondering if I'm doing this wrong because I could just reconcile only for this year instead of inception.

My approach: investigate schedule and arrive at correct accum balances for each expense account > dig into GL to see if expense accounts match since inception > make adjustment to accum balance accounts

I’m interested in how other large manufacturing companies handle CAPEX classification in the statement of cash flows under ASC 230, particularly for internally manufactured/self-constructed assets.

Here’s a simplified fact pattern:

A company purchases large quantities of materials from external vendors and initially records them as inventory. At the time the vendor is paid, the company does not know how the individual inventory items will ultimately be used.

For example, assume the company purchases 10,000 O-rings under one PO. Some may ultimately be:

• consumed in producing products/services for customers, or
• issued months later to an internal manufacturing project that is building a fixed asset for the company’s own use.

When the vendor payment occurs, all 10,000 O-rings are simply inventory. Their ultimate operating vs. capital use is not known.

Later, when some of those O-rings are issued to an internal capital project/WBS, their cost becomes part of AUC/PP&E. At that point the company knows that a portion of the historical inventory purchase ultimately related to construction of a capital asset, but the original vendor payment may have occurred months earlier and covered thousands of units whose ultimate uses were different.

For companies with significant internally manufactured PP&E, how is this handled in practice for the statement of cash flows?

Specifically:

1. Do you attempt to trace inventory ultimately consumed by capital projects back to the original vendor cash payments?
2. Do you use an allocation or inventory roll-forward methodology?
3. Do you use the amount charged/capitalized to the capital project or AUC as a practical proxy for capital cash expenditures, subject to adjustments for noncash items?
4. How do you deal with the timing difference between purchasing inventory and subsequently determining that some of it was used for CAPEX?
5. If you work at a large manufacturer, what does your actual close/reporting process look like for this?

I’m especially interested in hearing from people in SEC reporting, technical accounting, manufacturing accounting, fixed assets, or Big Four/advisory who have encountered this fact pattern.

I wonder what the industry ramifications of this will be? I imagine clients will take a much harder review over any submissions and other work performed by accounting firms before just blindly accepting

‘Extremely disappointed’: WA government seeks reimbursement from Deloitte over flawed university report | Western Australian politics | The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/oct/26/deloitte-report-wa-university-mergers-260m-discrepancy-ai

Is this a canon event or do I switch majors

My best was four pages taped together because the client didn’t know how to format, but the part that had me literally laughing out loud was the adding machine tape stapled to each column. Totals were not in the spreadsheet. I introduced the client to AutoSum and blew their mind.

Hi everyone, I'm currently a Junior in college and I'm in my Intermediate Financial Accounting course.

I just got the second (of three) exam back and I got a 98, and I got a 100 on the first exam. With how much I've had to study for this course I'm very proud of how it's gone and how well I'm doing (hence I just wanted to brag). The second exam especially was hard, so many in class didn't finish.

I also have a busy season tax internship next semester with a top 10 firm that I'm really looking forward to as well!

Lock in and good things will come to you! Make sure you understand the material - practice and if you get it wrong, understand why you get it wrong, fix it for next time!

Just wanted to brag. Y'all are awesome :)

I’m a Finance and Accounting student doing an independent research project on how finance teams think about automation. Not selling anything. Three quick questions if you have a minute:

1. What task in your close or reporting takes the most manual time?
2. What would you never let software do without a human checking it?
3. If a tool automated that task, how would you want to pay: per user, per item, or a percentage of volume?

I’ll post a summary of what I find.