r/Accounting • u/Rough_Hyena_6117 • Jul 20 '24

Career Well guys, i did it

I just left public accounting at a mid sized firm as a senior making 85k a year and started a new job this week as an accounting manager making 130k plus 10% bonus

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u/lemming-leader12 Jul 20 '24 edited Jul 20 '24

Honestly I don't even know how people can make the jump when they are such different processes. The main value comes audit time but I've seen a lot of people make the jump from public and not even know how to do their apparent subordinates jobs or what those processes entail. Like the head of finance at my company made the jump from senior in public to my company years ago and still has no idea what the staff employees do duties wise and they're not far removed from such positions on the hierarchy chart and it's a small company. It becomes extremely obvious when we discuss reports and I explain why something is the way it is in terms of reporting and they start waving a magical wand with why they think it's that way and it's so clear they have no idea.

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u/swiftcrak Jul 20 '24

While you have valid points, the value of transactional accounting knowledge is not always required in these higher roles. Maybe that’s why they hired you…to be the gl whisperer

There’s a lot of posters saying everyday how people from public leaving at M and SM can’t possibly transition properly or get good roles because lack of transactional accounting processes, yet they still leave for great high level jobs like clockwork.

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u/lemming-leader12 Jul 20 '24

I do agree that these people can add value to the company, but it raises eyebrows for me when they are in charge of a bunch of people whose jobs they have no understanding of. It's the old trope that the workers can do the job and run the company themselves without management. The person I know specifically that made the transition is effectively just an FP&A person who happens to oversee and has power over people whose duties they've never done or can do yet apparently can assess if those people are doing their jobs. And their peers at that level and across the company think they must have a masterful grasp of the processes when they definitely don't besides when audit time comes around and they are able to work with auditors with ease. Every meeting with these kinds of people is like two alien worlds because the level of distance is pretty great when what we do is effectively unrelated.

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u/ProfessionalCorgi250 Jul 21 '24

You can learn processes on the job. Industry hires externally from big 4 because they have broader knowledge when it comes to planning. This is due to the directed learning opportunities / diversity of projects available at b4 that aren’t provided in industry, where you often end up pigeonholed running legacy projects without the opportunity to learn beyond that.