Author: Adrienne Gonzalez

Adrienne is a 15-year veteran of the accounting industry, if by "veteran" you mean "vulture prowling the periphery of the profession waiting for something exciting to happen." She has been spewing vitriol on Going Concern since the site was founded in 2009. A former CPA review employee, she has sat through more FAR classes than any CPA exam candidate ever could -- even one who has failed FAR seven times -- and can still recall most of the mnemonics all these years later.

Cokehead Accountant Almost Bankrupts His Company By Embezzling His Drug Money

58-year-old Charles Shaffer has been ordered to serve two to four years in prison for stealing nearly $400,000 from his employer to fund a nine-year-long coke habit.

According to testimony, Shaffer stole $381,361 from telecommunications consulting firm Icore Inc. between 2001 and 2010 by writing checks to himself from a medical expense reimbursement employee fund.$381,361 over a nine year period really isn’t that bad of a cocaine habit, unless the guy was buying crap $20 grams from club kids. Think about it… if he was snorting up a really good gram a day at $100 a gram that’s $36,500 a year, but doesn’t take into account high-stress, high-use days like holidays, birthdays, anniversaries and yearly internal audits. Oh wait, obviously they didn’t care about that last one.

“He stole money from Icore, put it up his nose and Icore suffered the consequences,” said Lehigh County Judge Robert L. Steinberg in his decision.

The saddest part of this story (besides the part where the cokehead robs his employer for 9 years and no one seemed to notice) is that Shaffer’s actions very nearly caused the small company, which employs about 15, almost went under had they not had insurance and taken out a loan to stay afloat. “We came pretty close to shutting the doors,” said company VP Paul Kutches in testimony. “(Shaffer) was entrusted to make sure the finances were on the right path.” They were on the right path, alright, straight up his nose. “I would just hope this court imposes a sentence that reminds Mr. Shaffer of stabbing his friends in the back every day,” said Kutches when asked what sort of sentence he’d like to see his former employee receive in this case.

Shaffer started with the company in 1997, however company bank records only go back to 2001. Company officials first contacted investigators in June 2010 when they discovered missing money and Shaffer was arrested the following August. At that time, he signed over his $33,634 company retirement plan and forfeited his $80,000 a year salary.

Now that he’s off the powdered sauce, Shaffer is showing signs of regret for his actions. “There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t feel remorseful,” he told the judge.

Remember, kids: internal controls are an awesome, awesome thing.

Accountant gets prison for embezzling to buy drugs [Morning Call]

What To Do When You Inherit Money

If you’ve recently inherited a little money from a deceased relative, please accept our condolences. Then accept our advice, which might help you navigate this tricky area without ending up in the IRS penalty box and/or screwing yourself later on down the road.

Special thanks due to Allen DeLeon, CPA, PFS of DeLeon and Stang, who gave me good advice when I found myself in this situation with no clue how to handle it and some pointers for this article. If you are in Maryland and need an expert to help with your inheritance (Fluffy Mattress, CPA is not taking on new clients at this time), hit up the firm and they’ll be happy to help. The following is not presented as tax advice and is not meant as a substitute for a professional assessment of your personal situation.

First, you might be a CPA but that doesn’t mean you are an expert in personal financial planning, estate rules and tax law. So unless you happen to be a partner with 20 years experience handling inherited IRAs and pension plans, find yourself a qualified CPA from whom you can get a little advice. Maybe there is a partner in your office who you trust that knows a thing or two about this area but absent that, check with your state society of CPAs to see if they have a recommendation. It shouldn’t be hard to find someone in your state.

Second, get any real estate or other property valued and save all documentation. You aren’t taxed on the receipt of property, so if your grandma leaves you her house, you don’t have $200,000 in income to claim but you will have a gain (or loss) to report later (should you sell this property) that is based on its value at the time of the owner’s death. If you end up never valuing it and renting it out for a decade and then want to sell it, you’ll be ass out if you don’t have a baseline value. This goes for stocks too but you should have no problem figuring out what those are worth.

On the federal level, the only initial tax you have to worry about is on inherited IRAs and pension plans, which are taxed as income (meaning at your normal tax rate – be wary of a large sum changing your tax bracket). If you cash these out, you can elect to have the tax withheld or pay it directly to the IRS yourself after distribution but keep in mind there could be penalties associated with that option.

Currently, most inheritance is not subject to income tax. The second Congress reads this article, however, that could change so again, talk to someone who actually knows the rules and keeps us with any changes if you are at all unsure how to proceed.

Good luck!

PCAOB Bans Former Auditors From Faking the Audit Trail For the Near Future

The PCAOB has banned former Ernst & Young partner Peter O’Toole from associating with a PCAOB-registered firm for the next three years and fined him $50,000 for his part of a 2009 scheme to fake audit paperwork. E&Y removed O’Toole from the audit engagement team in June of 2010 and canned him several months later in September. The three year ban from audits is the longest bar that the PCAOB has imposed on a partner of a Big 4 accounting firm to date.

“These actions threatened to undermine the integrity of PCAOB inspection processes, and the ability of the Board to discharge its mandate to inspect the auditors of public companies,” said James R. Doty, PCAOB Chairman in a statement. “The Board moved swiftly to address this conduct, having commenced litigation against these respondents within seven months of learning of their conduct. I commend the Board’s Division of Enforcement and Investigations for its timely and effective work,” he added.

The PCAOB has also banned Darrin Estella from working with a PCAOB-registered firm for two years in connection with the improper creation, addition, and backdating of audit documentation in this case. Estella was a senior manager with E&Y’s Boston office and also let go in September of 2010.

The Board found that, shortly before a PCAOB inspection of an E&Y audit, O’Toole and Estella — acting with O’Toole’s knowledge and authorization — created, backdated, and added a document to the audit working papers that related to the most significant issue in that audit. The Board also found that O’Toole authorized other members of the audit engagement team, including Estella, to alter, add, and backdate other working papers in advance of the PCAOB inspection.

Additionally, the Board found that O’Toole and Estella provided a written document to PCAOB inspectors in which E&Y represented to the Board that no changes had been made to the audit working papers following the documentation completion date for the audit. Neither O’Toole nor Estella ever disclosed to the PCAOB inspectors that, in fact, the working papers were altered after the documentation completion date and shortly before the inspection.

The Board found that O’Toole and Estella’s actions violated PCAOB Rule 4006, which requires cooperation with Board inspections, as well as PCAOB Auditing Standard No. 3, which governs audit documentation.

The PCAOB has not released the name of the company involved, who hired E&Y as  independent auditor in 2002. E&Y expressed an unqualified opinion on the company’s September 30, 2009 financial statements, which led to notice by the PCAOB that an inspection of the unknown company’s audit was being performed on March 30, 2010. The partner, senior manager and manager on the engagement were given notice on March 31, 2010. The inspection fieldwork was set to begin on April 19, 2010.

This comes on the heels of an earlier PCAOB decision which censured 27-year-old Jacqueline Higgins for her part in the scheme. Word is she has since taken a job with McGladrey’s Boston office (unconfirmed rumor), who could probably use the help.

Accounting News Roundup: Rothstein Kass Adds New Prinicipals; Cozy Auditor Relationships Should Be Broken Up; Another Municipal Fiscal Meltdown | 08.03.11

Rothstein Kass Appoints Three New Principals [PR Newswire]
Leading professional services firm, Rothstein Kass (www.rkco.com), today announced that Arthur Brown, Kashif Hussain and Daniel O’Connor have been named Principals in recognition of their ongoing contributions to the company’s success.

Analysis: Decades-old auditor ties under scrutiny in U.S. [Reuters]
Goldman Sachs has stuck with the same auditing firm since 1926, Coca Cola since 1921, General Electric since 1909 and Procter & Gamble since 1890. That’s going back 85, 90, 102 has relied on a different one of what are known today as the Big Four accounting firms. And now some U.S. accounting reformers are thinking that perhaps enough is enough: the time has come to rotate auditing firms.

IASB Chairman: IFRS Adoption Is in “Economic Interest of U.S.” [Journal of Accountancy]
Adopting IFRS would benefit the United States’ economy, the new chairman of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) said July 29 during his first official visit to China. Speaking to a gathering of the Ministry of Finance’s Accounting Regulatory Department in Beijing, Hans Hoogervorst said, “U.S. investors invest globally, and U.S. companies seek international capital, and it is in the economic interest of the U.S. to adopt IFRSs,” according to a copy of the speech posted on the IASB website. “IFRSs support economic growth and establish a high-quality level playing field for globalized markets.”

Audit reveals ‘very significant’ accounting woes in Granger [Yakima Herald-Republic]
Granger’s accounting problems are so serious that if not corrected, the city could miss out on future federal grants, according to the state Auditor’s Office. A state audit showed the city didn’t report $500,000 in federal grants and failed to provide complete and accurate financial reports.

Mergis Group Accounting & Finance Employee Confidence Index Dips [Sacramento Bee]
The Accounting and Finance Employee Confidence Index, a measure of overall confidence among U.S. accounting and finance workers, slipped 2.1 points to 50.0 in the second quarter of 2011, according to a recent survey of 3,833 U.S. adults among which 183 are employed in Accounting and Finance commissioned by The Mergis Group®, the professional placement division of SFN Group, Inc. The survey, conducted online by Harris Interactive®, reveals that fewer workers are confident in the strength of the economy and in the future of their current employer.

China’s Mutant Turtles [FT]
Our research shows that the poor quality of accounting in China is an extension of a poor governance environment, with its origins in China’s cultural, political, economic and legal systems. After decades of communist rule the state is still trying to establish its legal authority and is unable to enforce the law impartially. The result is that people resort to personal connections and private information to protect their business dealings.

Restoring trust and saving the U.S. credit rating [Chicago Tribune]
Our elected officials don’t follow the rules to enforce honesty that they require of the private sector, such as the standards of Generally Accepted Accounting Practices. If voters really understood this, they might remove them from office and put some of them in jail. Washington’s ways have evolved with a veneer of legal legitimacy, when in fact those ways increasingly resemble the corruption we deplore in lesser-developed countries.

Wanted: Missionaries with accounting skills [Baptist Press]
Accountants may not be the first image that pops into people’s heads when talking about missionaries, but that’s exactly how Grece, a Nebraska native, answered his call to missions. He uses his financial skills in the office while also focusing on ministering to those around him — whether it’s frazzled missionaries or local villagers.

Introvert Needs Help Conquering Recruiting Season

(Just for this week) Ed. note: Have a question for our team of smart-mouthed jerks? Struggling to find your place in this big scary world? Want us to hold your hair back while you puke? Whatever, email advice@goingconcern.com and we’ll do our best to answer your question in the least offensive way possible (unless it’s a dumb question, in which case we will do our best to humiliate you in front of everyone to make ourselves feel better).

Today’s question is one that I’m sure a lot of you can relate to. Not me, of course, being the boisterous, life-of-the-party, attention whore Type A personality that I am. That’s why I enjoy covering accounting events, I am automatically the life of the party no matter hof it I’m feeling that particular day.

But we can’t all be obnoxiously on all the time. Like this reader, who reaches out to us, heart in hand, for some real advice on how to shine at those all important recruiting events and beyond:

As you probably know, recruiting season is going to start soon. I was hoping you could publish some advice on how to talk to recruiters and people who come to social events that the firms hold. I’ve already passed all four parts of the CPA exam and had a 3.9 in undergrad. I decided to do an internship with a Fortune 100 company between my undergrad and masters. I also have done a lot of volunteer work, outside activities, etc. I’m about to start my Masters of Accounting soon. While I’m not too worried about whether I will get an interview or not from accounting firms, I am a little shy when it comes to meeting new people but I’m not a socially inept. In addition, when I was going through recruiting last year, I felt like I (and all of the couple hundred Beta Alpha Psi other students at my school) was asking the same basic questions to everyone I met at these recruiting socials. These people must be bored to death answering the saying the same thing over and over again. What are some things I could ask them that would really peak their interest and stand out from the crowd? What are some things that one should definitely NOT mention during these socials?

Any advice would be much appreciated!

Thanks,

Shy Girl

First, Shy Girl, we wouldn’t be doing our job if we didn’t start this off by saying you picked the right career! Many of your colleagues are just as averse to social events as you are, if not more, so remember how low the bar is set next time you’re feeling awkward and out of place.

Second, those people probably are bored to death but that’s not your fault, it’s the profession’s. Let’s face it, there are only a dozen or so “event appropriate” discussion topics to cover at one of these clusterfuck socials; professional sports (a toss up as not everyone cares about sports), the weather, FASB pronouncements, news (touchy, you don’t want to talk about the latest serial killer to be executed in your state), trends in the profession (recruiters probably couldn’t care less), your work safe outside events… you get the idea.

Things you will want to avoid are pretty obvious: don’t get into political debates and actually, while you’re at it, try to appear fairly neutral when it comes to most current events so as to present yourself as “independent.” You can discuss the debt ceiling or elections or simplification of the tax code but do it in a politically-neutered manner and try to talk about other, more interesting things that you are passionate about like your volunteer work. When you talk about something you love doing or learning about – like, say, me talking about the Fed balance sheet at an AICPA Council dinner – people tend to be drawn into the conversation. Don’t nerd out and hold a group of interns hostage talking about the litter of puppies you single-handedly saved at the animal shelter but talking about things you enjoy doing will help you to come off as passionate about something.

Your credentials speak for themselves so don’t get too caught up in trying to be someone you’re not. Try not to ask recruiters how they feel about ________ (insert latest FASB pronouncement here), as no one gives a shit about that and it only makes you come off as a know-it-all. Listen to what they are saying and react accordingly; people really love it when you show them attention by actually tuning into the words they are saying.

Anyone else have some useful suggestions for her? Let it launch in the comments.

Next Time You’re Making Up Lame CPA Exam Excuses, Consider This Lady

This woman should shame all of you into cracking open the books, knocking off the whining and doing the damn thing once and for all.

From our former brother from another mother site, Above the Law:

“A friend of mine went into labor while taking the Illinois bar exam,” a tipster told us. “She calmly finished, went to the hospital, and had her baby an hour or two later. Girl’s a real trooper.”

“A certain Northwestern Law alumna went into labor during the second day of the Illinois bar,” said a second source. “She finished the exam and had her baby, her first, at 5:58 p.m. I think that is worth noting.”

Yes, you read that correctly. She was in labor during her exam and still managed to finish. Makes the puking CPA exam candidate seem like a big fat baby (no pun intended) now, no?

Before the start of the afternoon session on day two (Wednesday) of the Illinois bar exam, the very pregnant MBE [“Mother Bar Exam”] mentioned to the proctors the possibility that she might give birth during the test. She asked if she could leave early in the event that she went into labor; they agreed.

So Mother Bar Exam sat down for the afternoon session of the Multistate Bar Exam (“MBE”). Not long after, she started going into labor — not a little discomfort, but full-on labor.

“This was something we joked about with her before the test,” a friend told us. “We didn’t think it would actually happen!”

Fortunately, MBE is as strong as they come. She continued to answer MBE questions, while in active labor, before finishing the exam early, at 4 p.m.

Wait… 9 months pregnant, in active labor and she still finished with time to spare? That woman is the ultimate bad ass.

Granted, it’s not quite fair to compare the bar to the CPA. The bar is held twice a year like the CPA exam used to be, surely this candidate (do they call them candidates?) knew her getting knocked up timeline landed her right in the lap of this possibility. You don’t just throw away that kind of prep to go to the hospital and wait out hours upon hours of labor if you have the uterine fortitude to stick it out.

That said, it’s worth pointing out that her hospital happened to be right across the street from the test.

Does Anyone Want to Work for the Federal Reserve?

With Caleb way way out of town, I’m finally able to talk about the Fed. In this case, I figured I’d make it useful for those of you looking for non Big 4 careers but unsure where to start.

The Fed has money. Your salary, were you to use your accounting degree to work there, would come out of the money they allegedly return to Treasury each year as “profit,” so they can pretty much make up any number. A luxury Uncle Ernie just doesn’t have.

This is just my personal experience (having dated an accountant who worked at the SF Fed in a former life), to qualify you probably have to have a sick attention to detail (I won’t go so far as to use the word anal but you get it), enjoy a rigid schedule (he would get up at 3 in the morning every work day) and possibly play too much WoW (self-explanatory). I know several of you who read this site that completely fit that bill, so read on and see if you want to get on this sweet money gravy train:

As the central bank of the United States, the Federal Reserve’s mission is to provide the nation with a safer, more flexible, and more stable monetary and financial system. For us to succeed in meeting this public mandate, we depend on the expertise, judgment, integrity, and dedication of employees with various skills, backgrounds, and training. As a Federal Reserve staff member, you will play a critical role in accomplishing this mission.

You can finally use your Masters for something useful in exciting areas like Financial Analyst/Bank Examiner, Bank Supervision and Regulation, or Consumer and Community Affairs.

Individuals interested in a career as an analyst should have a degree in business administration with concentration in accounting or finance, and experience in financial analysis as it relates to banking. Knowledge of the laws and regulations governing banks and bank holding companies is preferred. A master’s degree is required for most higher-level positions.

That’s at the Board, where they still have to pretend to be government. But the regional banks need number-crunchers too, so if you are in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Kansas City, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, Richmond, San Francisco or St. Louis, check with your local regional Fed bank to see what’s available. There are also smaller branches in places like Salt Lake City, Portland, Baltimore and Houston, they may need some warm bodies to count the beans or supervise said counting of beans.

The New York Fed in particular has some exciting openings in Financial Institution Supervision and Audit worth checking out if you’re close or considering a move to that market.

Here’s a decent (if slightly outdated) report on Fed bank pay to give you a general idea what they’re working with. According to Glassdoor, a Senior Accountant at the Boston Fed makes around $70k, although from what I’ve read from others, starting pay at the Fed is significantly lower than Big 4 starting salaries in comparable markets.

Any takers?

Someone Obviously Needs More Billable Hours

Where do you draw the line between a hobby and hoarding? Probably right here, with the young UK accountant so obsessed with ice cream he bought the ice cream truck he used to patronize as a kid:

Chris Copner loves everything to do with ice creams, so much so that he has a house full of memorabilia, including bins, signs, and Matchbox vans.

Chris – who no doubt counts 99 among his favourite numbers – spent £1,400 on the 1976 Ford MKI Transit van after he saw that it was up for sale and recognised its number plate from photos of him as a child.

He has since restored it to its former beauty, complete with all the old-school favourites such as Rocket lollies and Mr Whippy ice cream, at his home in Abergavenny.

The 23-year-old said: “It all started off when I was about five and my friends and I used to wait for the ice cream van to come each day. I just remember being fascinated by it so I started buying little Matchbox cars and vans and my collection just grew and grew from there.

Copner admits to having quite the hoard, including a cabinet full of stuff at his home and boxes upon boxes in his house, as well as a bunch stashed away in the homes of his parents and grandparents. Man, why am I paying $50 a month for my storage unit?

Strangely, the young number-cruncher has no idea why he loves ice cream vans so much. “I don’t really know why I became so fascinated by ice cream vans,” he said. “I think it was the anticipation of waiting for it to come when I was a kid.” Actually reading that makes his love of waiting for something to happen all that much clearer.

Can Any Big 4 Folk in Nashville Help This Young Lady?

A call for action, Nashville market, we know you’ve been dying to have your moment in the spotlight.

I currently work for a Big 4 firm but I’m looking to move to Nashville. I know firms vary from each city and would like to get information on Nashville before deciding to try and transfer or see if there were openings in other firms. I would like to know the sizes of the different office and the clients for each firm. Is there any where that shows this information? I’ve tried searching online and can’t find anything and was hoping I could get input from anyone who has worked in that market.

Nashville, huh? We’re guessing there must be a man involved here but without knowing the specifics, you’re doing the right thing by sniffing the market out first. You probably already know that you’re not going to be making San Francisco or New York money but hopefully we can get some info for you.

If no one is going to speak up, there’s always Glassdoor. It lists Deloitte manager salaries in the $60 – $105k range. You didn’t say what firm you’re looking at (or if you care) but that’s a start.

Say Six Words About Work, Win an iPad (Serious)

Consulting, outsourcing and investment provider Mercer and SMITH Magazine have partnered to launch a new online contest called “Six Words About Work,” and plan to publish a book featuring the best contest submissions. By participating, you could win a fancy new toy!

The free contest, a new edition to SMITH’s Six-Word Memoir® series, is open to the general public and will be conducted in four phases beginning June 29 and ending in late August. Each two-week phase will feature one work-related submission topic for contest submissions. The contest topics include:

  • Why I do what I do
  • What inspires my very best work
  • The best boss I ever had
  • Biggest lesson I learned at work

The contest will be held in the US, UK and Canada. Participants will submit their Six-Word Memoirs via the SMITH website. Each country will have four winners, one for each phase of the contest, selected by a panel of judges. Winners will be chosen based on the submission’s creativity, quality and relevance to the topic. Winners will receive their choice of a new Apple iPad or BlackBerry® PlayBook™. Winners will be notified on or around September 1, 2011.
Complete rules are available at www.smithmag.net/sixwordsaboutwork.

You read that right: you can win an iPad (or PlayBook) by coming up with something clever. What could be easier?

The current challenge is to write six words about bosses (come on now, you guys can do this), of which “Evaluation conducted over vodka on ice.” is a definite front-runner. You have until August 13th to answer this one.

Get on it!

Accounting News Roundup: More Convergence Drama; Washington’s Crackhead Accounting; Twitter’s New Digs in the Heart of San Francisco Dope Fiend Territory for a Tax Break | 08.02.11

Moody’s: IASB, FASB Accounting Standards Proposals Hitting Delays [PropertyCasuality360]
Proposed changes to insurance-contract accounting standards are running into delays amid vocal opposition, but whatever final conclusions ultimately emerge, they are unlikely to have a broad impact on credit ratings since new rules, by themselves, do not alter the economic position of an entity, according to Moody’s.

Official Washington’s Crackhead Accounting [The American Spectator]
There is no evidence that this bizarre deal of questionablee.g. the “Super Congress”) will actually lead to any real cuts. Nor is there any evidence that it will prevent the U.S. government from losing its long held triple-A credit rating. There is a promise of spending cuts, but overall federal spending will continue on its upward trajectory because Official Washington operates in the make-believe world of “baseline budgeting.” According to this crackhead accounting, both a cut and an increase may count as cuts.

State faults Binghamton’s accounting system [Sun-Bulletin]
The City of Binghamton’s accounting system lacks adequate controls to provide an accurate picture of city finances, an audit by the state comptroller’s office found. The 33-page report, released Monday, said the municipality has, among other things, overstated its general fund balance, has a city comptroller that hasn’t properly monitored certain accounts and has more than $13,000 in unaccounted funds from its parking operations.

Barclays to cut 3,000 jobs as profit drops [Reuters]
Barclays is set to cut about 3,000 jobs this year to reduce costs after a drop in bond trading and an insurance mis-selling charge cut first half profits by a third.

Money Funds Have Biggest Redemptions This Year Amid Debt Talks [Bloomberg]
Investors last week pulled more money from money-market mutual funds than any week this year as U.S. lawmakers failed to resolve the impasse over raising the debt ceiling. Withdrawals reached $37.5 billion, with about 70 percent of the redemptions coming from institutional funds that invest in U.S. government securities, according to data from the Investment Company Institute, a Washington-based trade group.

Accounting Departments Drive Demand for Electronic Document Management Solutions to Improve Bottom Line, According to IntelliChief [Benzinga]
IntelliChief LLC, the leading provider of document management and imaging solutions for the IBM i (System i, iSeries, AS/400), reports accounting department personnel are often both primary drivers and first adopters of paperless solutions in their companies. “Because of the cost savings to be gained by going paperless in accounting, and the bottom-line responsibilities that are top-of-mind with financial professionals, it makes sense that the demand for paperless solutions most often originates from within the accounting department,” says Brian Smith, IntelliChief Marketing Director.

No Day in Court for Bank Clients [WSJ]
Some small and regional U.S. banks are prohibiting unhappy customers from taking their complaints to court or joining class-action lawsuits, instead requiring them to resolve disputes through arbitration.

Preparing for New ‘Bottom Line’ on Leases [Memphis Daily News]
Obviously, the more significant a company’s leasehold interests are, the greater the impact of the new guidelines; for example, airlines, manufacturers and retailers. Additionally, regulatory rules will likely be impacted for banks and insurance companies. And, because the new guidelines deal with the accounting for leases on the balance sheet, the greatest impact will be on companies issuing audited financial statements.

Philosophy Major Considering a Big 4 Career Needs a Reality Check, Better Grades

(Acting) Ed. note: if you have a question for our team of highly knowledgeable monkeys, email advice@goingconcern.com and we’ll be happy to make fun of you in front of your peers, superiors and the Internet-at-large, unless it’s a good question, in which case we will do our best to give you awesome information.

Hello!

I found the advice column on your blog so I thought I would ask you this question:

I recently graduated from a state school in the California State University system as a Philosophy major. My original plan was to go to law school, but I am now thinking I may want to go into accounting instead (due to the terrible job market for lawyers and the 150k debt I’d be faced with). Parike to work at a Big 4 firm. Is this change possible? I found a “Post-baccalaureate Accounting Certificate” at Portland State University (I’d like to end up in Portland if possible). Does that program have any chance of helping me land a Big 4 job, or does it lack prestige? If you’d like to suggest the best post-bac/master’s program for me you should know that the only math I’ve taken is statistics 1, and I’ve taken micro econ and macro econ, but aside from that I’d be starting from scratch. My undergrad GPA is 3.13, which I believe is a little low for the Big 4. Could I make up for that with a good post-bac certificate GPA, or perhaps a good master’s GPA if that is the route I should go?

Thank you for your help!

Listen, Ambulance-Chaser-cum-Capital-Market-Hero, you need to slow down and do a little more research on the Big 4 before you even attempt this stunt. The Big 4 don’t want some 3.13er who originally picked a different profession and then just kind of stumbled upon accounting as a more “viable” option due to the long-term (or even short) career opportunities. Sorry the law school plan didn’t work out but no allegedly prestigious firm is going to want you with your “certificate” (unless it is one of these) and low GPA. So if I were you and actually attempting this, I would be sure to spin those particular details into as much gold as possible. Don’t lie but don’t be so upfront about it either.

You admit that you’re new here so I won’t rail on you too but hard I will highly recommend you catch up on some advice columns (and especially their comments) we’ve done before. If we can sniff out your “well looks like you’re the only viable option” attitude via email, I can only imagine which method recruiters will use to avoid your emails and talk about you behind your back.

You still have a chance here if (and that’s a huge if) you actually want to do this, get yourself into a real program and not some funky certificate program, you might as well get a degree from some adult college advertised during Maury Povich for as much good as that will do you. And for Christ’s sake, at least try to pull a 3.8.

Fast track the CPA exam if you can but I get the sneaking suspicion that you are one of the candidates who will end up having to take BEC 7 times based on the fact that accounting is not your background and you don’t seem all that excited about the prospect of ticking and tying your good years away for “The Man,” but are instead focused on making a few bucks in an industry that’s still actually hiring because your first choice is a really awful one. In my experience, those who do best on the CPA exam are those who actually want to do it (shocking, I know). The ones who are forcing themselves because of the economy, their parents, their boss, etc are the ones who fail miserably over and over, usually with infuriating 74s. If you managed 4 years of philosophy, you’re probably too right-brained for the CPA anyway.

Big 4 recruiters do hit Portland State but you’re going to have a hell of a time explaining to them what you did with the last four years of your life and convincing them that you’re in it for the long-term and not just to have a job ’til the economy looks better.

We’re not going to do your job for you and recommend “the best” program for you, but nice try. We recommend Google, it’s a pretty helpful career tool. That’s how you found us, right?

I’m not saying it can’t be done but you need to be realistic here. The industry has already reached its quota of useless, mediocre assholes who don’t know which side debits go on. If you’re OK with being an AP clerk or working at a smaller firm I say go for it but with your “credentials,” I wouldn’t count on having to beat off the Big 4 recruiters with a stick any time soon.