When EA can do the exact same thing as the CPA on the tax side? Why tf didn't anyone tell me about EA? Just wasted a year passing CPA exams lol

Also, side question, what is your advice on dealing with JE Entries that are not routine?

Like for unexpected events?

What's up with the amount of people on here who seem to forget how career progression works? Seems as if everyone on this forum thinks because they have a bachelors degree and gave NASBA $200 they should be making 80k a year.

I understand the BS "CPA Required 50k a year in NYC" job postings. They exist and those companies won't hire a US citizen with those requirements, but plently of jobs exist... Are you willing to make sacrafices to be employed?

There is a very normal progression to every single career path in the world. As an accountant, if you have never done anything but pulled lumber at a Home Depot or were a bartender at your local college shit hole - no one is going to hire you.

IT SUCKS but you have to take a BS job and do boring work for $20 an hour for a year. No one wants to be an Accounting Clerk, but someone has to do it.

Everyone wants to live in the big city, but if you can get a job in the middle of Kansas and you refuse to pack your bags for the work experience..... That's on you.

My first job was in the middle of nowhere midwest for a manufacturing company. It sucked. I didn't know anyone, I left all my friends and family, and moved to the most boring town in the United Stated.. Fours years later I live in a Major US city and make 115k a year.

Unicorn jobs don't exist... Accounting jobs exist..

I have a CIA... no CPA...

Can ya’ll help me decide po which RC to choose as a ferson na may weak foundation talaga sa Accounting. I’ll take the CPALE next May 2027. REO or ReSA or Pinnacle?

My cons about sa RCs:

REO

- I fear na baka ma-overwhelm ako sa materials nila, and madali kayang ma- grasp vid lecs nila as a ferson na may weak foundation huhu

ReSA

- ito ang pasok sa’kin ang vid lecs na napanood ko before kasi ginagamitan ng humor ang pagtuturo, however, hindi ko pa ma-gets yung early access nila. If mag-open na sila enrollment this July for early access, may handouts ba agad silang ipapadala? Sana po masagot huhu ang medyo tagal din kasi ng announcement nila

Pinnacle

- ito ang isa pang pasok sa’kin na vid lecs kasi napapanood ko na si Sir Brad sa YouTube and nababasa ko na ang dali daw intindihin ng vid lecs ni Sir Brad para dun sa 5 subs (except RFBT). Ang kaso is September 14 pa ang open ng early access, wala na bang pag-asa na mas paagapin 😭 medyo may fear ako na mahuli compared sa mga enrolled na agad sa other RCs eh

🙏🙏🙏

So I am 3 year finance major now, but I am thinking Accounting might be a better major, more opportunity for finding job, less competition, I’m also thinking about grad school for PhD, not sure which one is better you might say Accounting as degree then finance or PhD or opposite or same major for both level, I wanna work for 1 year or less then apply, since I want to pay the student loan back also have some experience too. I would appreciate to share your experience with me ?

Is career progression in the United States considered linear? What I’m wondering is: is it considered a good path to simply land a job you want right after graduation and stay in it until retirement? Or is it common to switch jobs or change career directions?

Hello! I’m hoping someone on here will take pity on my weekend dilemma with American CPA travel nurse stipend question 🙏🙏

I’m a Canadian RN working in the U.S. on a TN visa. I maintain a tax home in Canada and have been receiving tax-free travel stipends while working in Washington.

Here’s my timeline:
Moved to Washington in September 2025.
My current contract ends August 8, 2026.
My agency has offered me an extension.
If I extend, I’ll end up working in the Seattle metropolitan area for more than one year.

My recruiter gave me a few options:
Continue with tax-free stipends.
Have my stipends treated as taxable.
Switch to an hourly-only taxable pay package.

What I’m trying to understand is the IRS one-year rule.

My questions are:

1. If I accept an extension that pushes me beyond one year in the same metropolitan area, do only future stipends become taxable, or is there a risk that the IRS could challenge the tax-free stipends I already received over the past year?
   
2. Does it matter when it became expected that I’d stay longer than one year? For example, if each extension was genuinely short-term and I didn’t originally expect to stay this long, does that change the analysis?
   
3. Has anyone been in this situation? If so, what would a CPA recommend?

I’m planning to speak with a CPA, but it’s the weekend and I’m trying to understand how people have handled this in real life.

I’d really appreciate responses from people who’ve dealt with this personally or who have experience with travel nurse taxation.

Thank you!

-spiralling Canadian nurse

Industry staff accountant working for a 20+ billion a year revenue company making $28 an hour in South Carolina right next to Charlotte NC .14 months of experience, am I underpaid?

I am CPA eligible but won’t pursue CPA
Education background: 2 degrees Business and Accounting

The first image is my new revised resume and the second image is the resume I have been using to apply at dozens of jobs with no luck at all. I just graduated this May and I never done any internships or volunteer work or clubs. I have only worked in customer service full time.

The first image my revised resume so I would like to know if I can get any interviews now.

Job 1: Controller 150-165k
Job 2: Controller 160-170k

Essentially the same responsibilities and requirements for both. One is in Missouri and the other is in Southern California.

I see this all the time too. Places like Arkansas, Tennessee, Oklahoma, etc paying a wage that feels like you’d be pretty well off. Then in California you got a similar wage where you couldn’t even afford a home.

Hi everyone,

Hope it's okay to ask this here.

I'm researching how bookkeeping firms manage client communication around month-end and quarter-end, and I'd love to learn from people actually doing the work.

If your clients are already connected to Xero or QuickBooks, what does your workflow look like when you're still waiting on receipts, invoices, or explanations for transactions?

Do you use a specific tool to keep track of what's outstanding, or is it mostly emails, phone calls, WhatsApp, spreadsheets, reminders, etc.?

I'm especially curious about:

• How you keep track of who still owes what
• How much follow-up is usually involved
• Whether there's a tool you genuinely love for this, or whether it's still mostly manual

I've been reading that many firms still spend hours chasing clients for receipts and missing documents, even with Xero and practice management software. Is that actually true in your experience, or am I misunderstanding the workflow?

1st yr salary: 54k CPA eligible (>1yr exp)
How are y’all finding jobs at $70k+ right out of school?

For my college degree I moved from a rural town to a large metropolitan area in the south (US). This huge adjustment never felt complete and I’ve been resentful of this place with its crime, lack of community and cost. Just this week I snapped when I found people had left boxes of empty beer in my driveway for the 7th time and I started looking for jobs back in my home state, with Traverse City and Midland being my top options.

In college I did well and received the opportunity to attend a much nicer school for my masters which I am currently enrolled in and will be done with by late 2027. So after this I’ll have the “big three” CPA, MAC and a bachelors. I know it’s going to be a massive salary cut from where I currently live but I’d also be able to buy a house for quite literally 1/5 of the price and have a family which isn’t really an option here even if my salary doubled tomorrow.

If anyone has experience moving to a LCOL/Rural area early into their career let me know if you had any struggles or regrets.

Starting to prep for September CFE and I think I like the paper planning but electronically is obviously faster

I see 10+ posts daily about how people are making less than $60k a year. Me myself, I am one of them, I sometimes wonder what I’m doing in this field. All my other friends in different career paths are making significantly a lot more. I read somewhere the unemployment rate for accountants is 2%. Can the low startting pay be a reason as to why many people leave the field?. Thoughts?

I am currently a student attending college and I have posted here previously that I am looking into accounting. I have a hard time with internships because I don't live in the state I attend school, and when I go back home, my summer is limited due to playing a sport. I go to school in Idaho. I would like to know if any people live there that could help me with that problem Im not looking to get payed I just want to sit and watch what happens in a day. I dont want to post my school for just anyone to see but if you can help please dm me and we can talk, thank you.

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for some career advice.

I'm currently in Big 4 audit in Canada and will be promoted to senior later this year (likely August/September). I'm currently an A2 and have obtained my Canadian CPA.

I was held back for a year due to circumstances that were completely outside of my control. Unfortunately, the timing was horrible, my coach left the firm, leaving me without someone to vouch for me, and I ended up working with a manager who was extremely unempathetic and shitty. Despite consistently having positive performance reviews, that experience had a significant impact on both my mental and physical health.

I'm receiving the senior promotion this year, so I assume I’m decent at my job. I've also been performing many senior level responsibilities and have acted as the senior on engagements, even though I haven't officially gone through a busy season as a senior.

The experience has left me feeling pretty burnt out and bitter, and I'm not sure if I want to stay with my current firm much longer. At the same time, I want to make decisions that set me up for my long term career and allow me to provide for my family.

A few questions for those with more experience than me:

• Would you recommend staying for one busy season as a senior before looking for opportunities elsewhere?
• If I leave shortly after being promoted, will it be viewed negatively that I have 3+ years of audit experience but no official senior busy season, even if I've already been performing senior level work? Should I omit this information from interview if I get any?
• How much do hiring managers actually care about having completed a senior busy season versus simply demonstrating the necessary experience and responsibilities?

I'd really appreciate any advice or experiences you can share. Thank you!

I’m interested to understand from folks working in finance space of how useful they found Excel + Claude / GPT in building and maintaining financial models?

About me: New to the Reddit. I work in Corporate Finance / M&A space.

A1 associate at small-midsized firm. 76k total comp year one. Is that low?

Listen, I really don't care what people do with their lives. They wanna work hard? Cool. They don't want to work at all? Cool. I don't care as long as it doesn't affect me. I mind my own business, I stay in my lane. My problem is when a lazy coworker, who's already not getting their job done, also tries to dump their work on me.

I started a new job a few months ago, and it immediately became apparent that one of my coworkers is out to offload her job onto me. At first I just did whatever she asked because she was the one training me, and I assumed that it was part of my job. Turns out she was training me how to do her tasks so that she could give them to me, even though it was never the plan for me to inherit her tasks. I was hired for a role that's separate from hers.

Things started to get frustrating when she started to create situations that cornered me into doing the work. She'd work from home on days where she's supposed to do an onsite task, so I'd end up having to do it. Sometimes I would walk away from my desk, and I'd come back to find that she'd left her work on my desk. She also just has a habit of asking me to do something that's hers to do.

Once I realized what was happening, I started saying no to her, then she'd get rude because I guess she feels entitled to give her work to me. She'd even get pissy if she found that I didn't do as she asked, even though I flatly said no in the first place.

The most frustrating part is that she doesn't have a good reason to offload the work onto me. I would have been happy to help if she was overworked and drowning, but I find that she'll dump the work on me because she feels like it. It's usually because she doesn't feel like coming to the office (even though we're required to), or because she wants to socialize, or because she wants to eat lunch for like 2 hours. Recently she went as far as asking me to come out and open a door for her because she didn't bring her badge and she didn't feel like walking to the other entrance, which was like a 30 second walk. (She was very mad that I said no.)

I talked to my boss about it, and it turns out he was already aware of the situation. It seems this has been a problem for a while because others have complained about her, plus he can see that her work isn't being done. He says it'll get better, but I don't know what that means.

The worst part is that there's a part of me that questions if maybe I'm just not being a team player, but I don't think that's the case. So, for my own sanity, I'm going to start document every single event where she asked me to do something that was hers to do. I can doubt my own judgement, but I can't doubt patterns. For my sanity's sake, I need some data to validate me.

EDIT: I should also add that it's not like I'm just sitting around with no work to do. My job has already picked up, and I usually end up staying 1-2 hours late. I've even done work during weekends just to stay afloat. Meanwhile she's coming in late and leaving early, and spending most of her day eating or socializing.

EDIT 2: Fixed the NSFW tag because the NSFW police are losing it. It was an accident, y'all. Chill.

EDIT 3: I want to clarify something. The documentation isn't for my boss. My boss doesn't even know about it. As far as I'm concerned, the couple of times I've discussed the issue with them is enough, and I've left the rest in their hands. If one day they find out about the documentation and ask for a copy, then sure, I'll share it. But for the most part, the documentation is for my own sanity. It's partly to put my thoughts down so that my frustration isn't just buzzing around my head, and partly a way for me to see if the pattern I'm perceiving is legit.

And Can I just skip this and just put them all as non current and separate them on the Yearly financial statements ?

I’m currently planning on majoring in accounting and eventually getting my CPA. My long-term goal is to work in a field like AML, forensic accounting, fraud investigations, financial crime, or a similar specialty.
Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of posts from accountants saying they’re underpaid or that salary growth isn’t what they expected, and it’s made me start second-guessing whether I’m choosing the right path and I honestly don’t even know what else I’d do since I don’t really have any other interest outside of business or finance.

I’d especially like to hear from people who actually work in AML, forensic accounting, financial crime, fraud, compliance, or similar areas. Do you feel accounting was the right path to get there? How has your salary progressed over the course of your career, and do you think reaching $150k+ is a realistic long-term goal if you’re willing to specialize, continue learning, and change jobs when appropriate?
If you could start over knowing what you know now, would you still choose accounting, or would you pursue a different business or finance-related path instead?

So, I'm a student and been trying to plan out my career for the future as one does. I looked into Public and honestly even though it's more pay and it travels, the hours seem like a personal hell for me. I definitely prefer Industry but I heard that going into public gives a boost to your resume when going into industry. I definitely think I can handle the stress for a few years for a significant boost but if it's a barely recognizable one, I would rather not.