Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

One in Three Accountants Getting a Little on the Side

Posted on by Adrienne Gonzalez

Get your mind out of the gutter, I mean work.

The scoop from CPA Trendlines:

If you’re reading this at home, or on your own time, you’re not alone. Today more than one-third of accountants are already moonlighting in “side” practices or home offices – especially during busy season, according to a CPA Trendlines survey of almost 800 accountants.

And almost half of them work in corporate finance, not where you might expect to find them: in public accounting. So accountants are not only taking more work home with them, they are launching side businesses while keeping their day jobs.

Uh, I wouldn't expect many CPAs in public accounting keeping a few clients on the side right about now.

According to the article, 58 percent of all CPAs surveyed are spending more than 11 hours a week on "side projects" at home, and of them, half are putting in over 35 hours a week.

All that extra work adds up. CPA Trendlines figures if, say, 350,000 CPAs put in just 11 hours a week at $25 an hour, that's over $1 billion billed and shoved right in their own pockets!

Anyone care to step into the GC confessional and admit to getting your own little bit on the side? We won't tell anyone.

 

Related Posts

interviewing

Important Observations to Make When Interviewing

Often, when you’re interviewing you feel a little like a bug under a microscope. Someone […]

Job of the Day: The Association for Financial Professionals Needs a Controller

After taking President’s Day off, the Job of the Day returns with another opportunity with a non-profit organization, this time at the Association for Financial Professionals in Bethesda, Maryland.

They are looking for a Controller that is a CPA with staff management experience.

Get more details after the jump.


Company: Association for Financial Professionals

Title: Controller

Location: Bethesda, MD

Responsibilities: Internal and external financial reporting, making recommendations to existing accounting procedures and the internal control environment, and overseeing the annual audit to include AFP’s international subsidiary organizations.

Qualifications: Along with a demonstrated proficiency in GAAP/SOX/tax knowledge, successful candidates will have prior experience in preparing monthly consolidated financial statements for a multi entity international operation, accounting for foreign currency and intercompany transactions and managing organizational risk programs and initiatives. Proficiency with Great Plains Accounting systems preferred. Staff management experience and a current CPA is required.

See the entire description over at the GC Career Center and visit the main page for all your job search needs.

Accountants Still Can’t Not Write Good…or: Improving the Communication Skills of Students

The following post is republished from AccountingWEB, a source of accounting news, information, tips, tools, resources and insight–everything you need to help you prosper and enjoy the accounting profession.

“I am not good at writing. I want to be an accounting major so I don’t have to write.”

All of us who teach or advise students have heard this – our students’ dislike for writing papers. These students are under the false impression that accountants do not have to write, or at least not much.

Frequently, our students do not realize that written communication skills are essentiaprofession. As a matter of fact, communication skills are one of the five core competencies outlined in the CPA Vision Project, tested on the CPA Exam and demanded by employers.


The CPA Vision Project

The CPA Vision Project of the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) addresses issues we must tackle to keep up with the challenges facing the profession. To remain competitive, CPAs need to demonstrate five core values and five core competencies.

One of the top five core competencies, Communication and Leadership Skills, is the ability to “give and exchange information within meaningful context and with appropriate delivery and interpersonal skills.” These core values and competencies are instrumental in providing the five core services outlined in the CPA Vision Project: Assurance and Information Integrity, Management Consulting and Performance Management, Technology Services, Financial Planning, and International Services.

If we want our students to offer these five core services efficiently and effectively, accounting classes must incorporate the ability to communicate well as a learning objective.

Writing on the CPA Exam

So what about the CPA Exam? Is the profession testing communication skills on the Exam? Yes.

The CPA Exam requires candidates to demonstrate their writing skills. Currently, CPA applicants complete constructed responses on the Auditing (AUD), Regulation (REG), and Financial Accounting and Reporting (FAR) sections of the exam.

With the introduction of the new CPA Exam format (CBT-e) in 2011, writing will remain an important part. However, instead of testing writing skills in AUD, REG, and FAR, the constructed response portion of the exam will be entirely tested in BEC (Business Environment and Concepts). Starting in 2011, CPA candidates will write three essays in BEC.

Entry-level accountants lack written communication skills

The CPA Vision Project demands communication skills and the CPA Exam tests them. Does that mean employers of new CPAs are pleased with new CPAs’ writing skills? No. Many employers of recent accounting graduates complain that their new employees do not possess the requisite writing skills. While our students may have strong technical skills, their written communication is often ineffective and poor.

In addition, accountants are spending less time on gathering, processing, and reporting information, and more time on interpretation and providing strategy and decision support. Accountants prepare notes to financial statements, interdepartmental memos, plans, and proposal communications with various stakeholders, written personnel evaluations, and articles in professional journals.

According to an article in The Trusted Professional, one-third of the accounting firms surveyed are unhappy with accountants’ writing skills. Correctly using grammar, organizing information, and writing clearly, concisely, and completely are necessary for business writing. In the worst case, poor writing skills can lead to dismissal of the accountant or inability to rise to higher managerial levels in the organization.

Because of the CPA Exam requirement and the needs of future employers, writing in accounting classes is an important part of many schools’ accounting curricula.

Communication: The business of accounting

Accounting is much more than financial statements and debits and credits. Properly and broadly understood, accounting is all about communication. Written and oral communication gives the numbers meaning, context, and focus on a decision.

We need to continue working on improving the writing skills of entry-level accountants, but these skills must be further reinforced once students enter the workplace. Firm training and management programs in which writing is given a high level of consciousness and priority will help ensure users have the best product available.

About the authors:
Gabriele Lingenfelter, CPA, teaches accounting and auditing for the Luter College of Business and Leadership at Christopher Newport University in Newport News. Lingenfelter is actively involved on the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) Audit & Attestation Subcommittee and the development of future CPA Exams. She also is a member of the VSCPA Editorial Task Force. Contact her at [email protected].

Phil Umansky, CPA, Ph.D., is associate professor of business at the Sydney Lewis School of Business at Virginia Union University and chairman of the Accounting and Finance Department. Umansky is a CPA Ambassador, a regular contributor to the WTVR Virginia This Morning TV Show on money management topics, and a member of the VSCPA Editorial Task Force. Contact him at [email protected].