What do Accountants without there CPA do?
Sunday, November 29th, 2009 at
5:51 pm
What do Accountants with a Bachelors Degree but not a CPA do.?
(Like where do they work and what type of work do they do)
How much they get paid?
Tagged with: accountants • bachelors degree • CPA
Filed under: CPA
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There are many accountants that work for private companies that do not have a CPA. The CPA designation is for public accounting, and requires not only the passing of the exam, but also two years experience working in a public firm. Public firms compile financial statements for small companies without accounting departments, conduct audits, and prepare tax returns. I myself have a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting but am not a CPA. Instead I earned a Certified Management Accountant designation (CMA) as I work for a private corporation, not a public firm. My job as a Senior Accountant includes conducting the month end close, financial reporting, global consolidations, account reconciliations, financial analysis, and give financial approval for purchase orders and engineering changes. My current pay is about equal to what someone with my nearly 10 years experience would make at a public accounting firm.
If you are interesting in accounting you can be certified as either a CPA (public through the AICPA) or like me become a CMA (through the IMA). All just depends on whether you want to work in public accounting or for a corporation.
if you went as far as getting a bachelors then you may as well go ahead and get your cpa.
I do not have a bachelors, but worked as a staff accountant in a manufacturing company, and held a staff position for hospitality company.
cpa and accountants do the same thing, however an accountant can’t advertises as an accountant in certain states if they are not a cpa. Of course it’s also illegal for an accountant to say they are a cpa if they are not.
A CPA is certified by the state is the only difference, meaning they took a 2/3 day long test and passed, thus earning their CPA license.
Some accountants earn money by the hour, some are salaried, it depends on the place of employment, the region, and level of experience.
For example, I live in a shall town, not near a big city, thus the pay is not going to be as well as if I decided to travel back and forth from a larger city, which I have done.
Usually for accounting jobs to open up around here, i have to wait till someone kicks the bucket.
then you have some places that simply do not want to pay for someones education and or experience. They want something for as little as nothing as they can get, (not all places are like that tho).
I have always liked accounting, but i really wish i would of picked another field.
I received my Bachelor of Science Degree in Bus Admin – concentration in Accounting years ago and never took my CPA exam. An CPA certification is really only required if you want to work at a public accounting firm I believe these days. I’ve seen many companies hire Accountants without the CPA designation if they have prior experience processing Sub-ledger activities or performing General Ledger work.
It’s true that a CPA designation would allow you to move in Senior Accountant or other Finance roles, but typically a senior position would also require experience. In some cases, what I have told others is to get the experience first – some employers have reimbursement programs for certification programs. Take advantage of it if you can.
I’m currently a Financial analyst performing managerial reporting for a high tech company in CA. I also do some reconciliations. My accounting skills come into play as I reconcile reports and reporting systems to the financial sub-ledger systems so that what I’m reporting is accurate for management.
In my past, I’ve work as an Accounting Clerk, Accountant in both the Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable "worlds". I have over 20 years experience that I can rely on. I’ve noted a link where you can search for salary levels…
Hope this helps !
That’s a very good question.
lol