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Ernst & Young Tops Vault’s Accounting 50 (2013)

Posted on by Caleb Newquist

Imagine my surprise when a link to the 2013 Vault Accounting 50 found its way to our tip box. It comes to us five months earlier than last year and I really didn't expect to see all of the Big 4 in the type five, especially the likes of E&Y and KPMG who were doing well to break the top 25 in the 2012 ranking. But really, after last year's upset by Grant Thornton, maybe we should get used to firms coming out of nowhere to land a top ten spot.

This year, Ernst & Young did better than that. Like GT in the 2012 ranking, E&Y came from 22 last year to top this year's list. KPMG also made a big jump from 23 to 5, while Deloitte and PwC maintained their presence in the top five. Derek Loosvelt explains E&Y's rise to new numero uno thusly: 

[T]he firm's prestige ranking rose this year versus last (from No. 3 to No. 2), and the firm outranked its fellow Big 4 firms (Deloitte, PwC, and KPMG) in firm culture, satisfaction, work/life balance, and compensation.

Here's your top 25 in its entirety: 

1 (22) Ernst & Young

2 (1) Grant Thornton

3 (3) Deloitte

4 (2) PwC

5 (23) KPMG

6 (27) Plante Moran

7 (6) Moss Adams

8 (16) Baker Tilly Virchow Krause

9 (4) Rothstein Kass

10 (11) Eide Bailly

11 (32) Reznick Group

12 (8) Friedman

13 (7) Withum Smith + Brown

14 (5) Dixon Hughes Goodman

15 (14) Elliott Davis

16 (17) Armanino McKenna

17 (13) Berdon

18 (12) SS&G

19 (20) Schenk Schenck

20 (46) Frank Rimerman

21 (9) Marcum

22 (18) CBIZ

23 (40) Blackman Kallick

24 (21) Cherry Bakaert & Holland

25 (19) Marks Paneth & Shron

In addition to E&Y and KPMG, you can see big moves by Plante Moran, Reznick Group, and Frank Rimerman; all three jumped at least 20 spots. Marcum was your biggest loser, getting knocked down 12 spots. We'll get to the bottom 25 and more of the rankings throughout the week but for now, discuss top 25 as you see fit.

Accounting Firms Rankings 2013: Vault Accounting 50 [Vault, Methodology]

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KPMG, Ernst & Young Sneak on to U.S. News Tax Firm Ranking

You may or may not be aware that U.S. News & World Report is the shot caller when it comes to ranking law schools (much to the chagrin of some) and now (to even more chagrin) the magazine is delving into extensive law firm rankings and the Big 4 will enjoy a little bit of perceived prestige that comes along with these rankings.

Christ. We’re barely into rankings/list season and they’ve already chalked up working moms and consulting rankings and U.S. News is now throwing around its weight with this new list.

Granted, virtually no accounting firms will even get a whiff of this list but something tells us that because U.S. News has decided to dive head first into ranking law firms by practice are the Big 4 will be jockeying to make the tax list, even though it is a sliver of a much larger and broader ranking that they won’t be included on at all.

Excuse us while we choke down the vomit that we caught making it’s way out.


Why the hell not?!? U.S. News figured that the world couldn’t do without it’s rankings-for-hire in one more area for the legal field but this time the Big 4 will enjoy a bit of a ride on this wave.

Right. The list. The two of Big Four of course, make their way on the ranking for tax firms: Ernst & Young falls into the coveted Tier 1 (includes 36 firms) and KPMG drops on Tier 2 (47 firms). There were a total out of 119 firms across three tiers.

Admittedly, this is an opportunity for both KPMG and E&Y to boast their tax practice prowess over Deloitte and PwC who don’t appear on the list at all. That being said, Deloitte and PwC enjoy higher spots on the consulting rankings so they’re probably not overly concerned although no one turns down a notch on the bedpost if they can get it.

What this new ranking ultimately will be is one more marketing tool for the firms to use on the impressionable recruits and experienced hires who want to work in top notch – TOP NOTCH! – tax practice. Be it lawyers or CPAs, the firms will tout this ranking to their tax professionals (if not firm-wide) to throw around ONE. MORE. LIST. to impress the trousers off the masses but now people will be saying, “Oh, this is a U.S. News ranking.”

So for the Big 4 to be included in this “prestigious” ranking is a little bit, as Elie Mystal states, like “Christmas morning – if only Santa were a jolly red prestige whore.”

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Jim Turley Explains Why You Should Work at Ernst & Young Rather Than Facebook

JT spoke to NYU students earlier this week and of course during the Q&A, Diane Brady, a senior editor at Bloomberg threw him a softie, asking if the firm was hiring, to which Diego responded, “we’re always hiring.” This, of course brought the house down (laughs, raucous applause).

Anyway, Brady decided to throw Jim a curve and asked why a young recruit would pick E&Y over Zuckerland.

“Should students ever consider starting at a big firm of yours?” Brady said. “Why not just go out there and make the billions with Facebook? What is the attraction at Ernst & Young?”

Turley responded by saying that most entrepreneurs, despite common misconceptions, are not just out to make money.

“[Entrepreneurs] go out there to find a need,” he said. “At Ernst & Young, you have opportunities to be extraordinarily mobile and move around the world.”

His advice? “First, find something that you love doing,” Turley said. “Second, align with an organization that actually thinks about where the world is going. And lastly, find an organization that wants you to change them as opposed to them to change you.”

See, if you can’t find a need then you need care about being “extraordinarly mobile.” Seems like a fair trade-off, especially since billionaires don’t travel much.

And just curious, how would the members of Ernie’s army like the firm to change? We’re assuming JT goes with the “whatever is good for the goose” mantra. Leave your suggestions below.

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