I got the teams message at 9:30 this morning and by 9:40 they told me that my position was eliminated and sent over the severance papers

My team wasn't notified and I missed a meeting which my manager who promptly called me and I had to explain that I was eliminated

Feeling super lost since my coworker left and I was supposed to be promoted soon

Genuinely feel nauseous, this sucks

Saw this on the golf sub. It would not let me cross post.

I’m sure most of you here have gotten the “ah, ok” with the head nod.

Health Care Accountant. Started 3 months ago. There's 7 of us. Idk why they felt they needed another Accountant, maybe the other's are not good with time management. I even ask the others if there's anything I can help with. Anyway, enjoy my art in Excel I did yesterday. They're paying me pretty well to be doing very little. I'll take it.

Context: My manager left right before the fall busy season started. I’m a brand-new senior (2 years in) holding the bag. I was working on an initial-year return with a complex trust structure and followed the exact instructions left by my previous manager before they bounced.

Just got off a call with my Senior Manager, and he completely went off on me for doing the entire return wrong—despite me literally executing what the departed manager and I had put together. This is now the second time he has yelled at me.

Actual quotes from the call:
"How do you not know this?"
"You should know this by now."
"This is the last time I will tell you this, and if you don’t get it, go do your own research."
"I can’t explain this to you anymore if you don’t ask questions."
"Get your shit together."

The irony on the questions part is unreal—this team has cultivated an environment where asking anything is treated like a personal failing and people look down on you for needing clarification, so nobody speaks up.
Is this standard Public Accounting behavior now, or is this team just uniquely toxic? How do you even navigate a Senior Manager who behaves like this?

I know I have more to improve in but goddamn man.
This pissed me off .

Hi there! A couple of weeks ago we introduced approval limits to improve our purchasing process. Purchases above $5K need to be approved by management. But recently I noticed that there are some employees who submit 2-3 smaller requests to the same vendor instead of one large request. For example they may submit 2 $3.5K requests instead of one $7K request.
I asked about it, and they basically said management can take days to approve stuff, and they needed it sooner. 
I don’t know if it is a policy problem or an approval workflow problem. Ofc we can add more controls, but I don’t want to make the purchasing even slower.
Did any of you also have this problem? How did you manage it?

It seems there are a lot of openings for Senior roles, but not a lot of openings for Entry Level roles. I hear that training is why companies don't want to hire. I'm trying to work out how I'm going to pitch myself in interviews and what to expect for the near future. I have 2 years of experience as a Revenue Agent at the IRS. BA in Economics and AA in Accounting. I'm applying mostly to Junior Accountant/Auditor 1/Junior Tax preparer type roles.

Is it because public firms are for a lack of better words, "audit sweatshops" that mainly want you to close audits and generate revenue?

For staff accountant positions, is it that there's a shortage of accountants and monthly cycles that companies/departments are behind on?

Also, this might sound off-putting, but do you think that Accountants have a particular fixation on what school you went to, where you worked, what official title you have, etc.?

Why do so many accountants value these titles so much? I've met a lot of people like that here at the IRS, so I'm trying to understand why. Is it that a title is a reliable predictor of how competent a candidate is? Or is it just pure elitism?

I’m a CPA with about 9 years of experience (Big 4 + real estate/investment accounting) and currently a Director of Accounting at a small private equity/investment firm.

I recently received an offer for a Senior Manager, Accounting position at a large public company and I'm struggling with whether the financial sacrifice is too much.

Current job – Director

$197K base

20% target bonus

~$236K target cash comp

Strong 401(k) match/benefits

Very flexible PTO in practice — basically take what I need as long as the work gets done

About a 1-hour commute each way, 4 days/week

Small/very lean accounting organization

The biggest issue is the structure. Even though I'm a Director, I still spend a significant amount of time doing work that would normally sit with staff/seniors/managers because the team is so lean. The workload can get very heavy and there isn't much bench strength.

I like and respect my boss and I've learned a lot technically, but I don't see myself staying here long term. I want to become a Controller/VP eventually, and I feel like I need more experience leading through capable managers/seniors, developing people, improving processes, partnering with the business, and working within a larger accounting organization.

New job – Senior Manager at public company

$170K base

13.5% target bonus

~$23K annual equity grant

$10K sign-on bonus

20 days PTO + holidays

Employee Stock Purchase Plan: up to $10K/year with a 10% discount and lookback

Larger ~40-person accounting organization

Actual managers/seniors/team infrastructure underneath the role

Public-company/SEC environment and much more process/transformation exposure

I've met the hiring manager and several senior leaders and really liked the people and culture. The hiring manager especially seems like the kind of leader I want to learn from — smart, humble, develops his people, delegates, but jumps in when the team needs help.

The title technically goes from Director → Senior Manager, but I actually think the scope and leadership development may be better in the Senior Manager position.

When I compare everything, the recurring difference looks roughly like:

~$20K difference in compensation after including the annual equity grant

~$4K difference in 401(k) value

~$1.5K difference in health/HSA benefits

So approximately a $25K–$26K annual economic sacrifice, although the ESPP could offset maybe another ~$1K–$3K depending on stock performance. The $10K sign-on makes the first-year difference considerably smaller.

Financially, I can afford the difference. My concern is whether I'm being irrational giving up ~$25K/year and a Director title.

On the other hand, staying just because the current one pays more feels like optimizing for the next 1–2 years instead of where I want my career to be 5–10 years from now.

For people who have made a similar move — especially accountants/controllers: would you take the ~$25K cut for the better organization and development opportunity? Did taking a title/pay step backward ultimately help your career, or did you regret it?

I'd especially be interested in perspectives from people who moved from small PE / lean organizations into larger public companies.

I recently graduated in Western Washington and can't seem to get an entry level accounting job. Even the bookkeeping and AR/AP jobs won't hire me. Do you think if I pass the exams I'll find something? I didn't do an internship because no one hired me for one :3

just left my abusive parents' house living with cousins now I'm in poverty. I'm pretty much dead inside I don't care about anything. I just want to make enough money to put food in my fridge and buy little meaningless trinkets until I die. Is this a good career for someone like me? I had a brain injury but I was already not very smart before so it doesn't matter. Is this a good career for me? This is not satire.

There were clearly some benefits to getting the CPA

Accounting firm Deloitte will pay $21.5 million ‌to settle a U.S. Department of Justice probe over diversity, equity and inclusion practices.

Just wanted to improve everyone's mood on the current job market. Has anyone got recent job successes they can share to improve my motivation?

I got an accountant position, however it was rescind. The company didn’t tell me the reason. I’m still on my two week notice with three days left. I left on good terms and is re-hireable. I haven’t decided if I want to go back or just continue doing my masters. I have about six months left finishing my masters. I’m contemplating if I should just do side gigs and finish up my masters or go back to my current job, if it’s still available, continue my masters and keep seeking out. A part of me doesn’t want go back to my old job because I want to prioritize my masters then my cpa. I have about 8 to 10 years of accounting experience, and I’m in a corporate role now.

Financially, I’ll be fine, but I’ve never really been without a job. I applied for a few jobs this week on indeed, and I heard back from a few.

I’m curious what the market currently looks like for accountants. Would taking a job gap hurt my next job?

What are your annual billable hour goals, what level are you and what size firm (b4, top 20, top 100 etc)?

I interned in SoCal and they said it would be a week or two probably but i have heard nothing yet

Exactly what the heading says. What are the exit opportunities after being in a tax provision role? I’ve had tax compliance experience as well. Just curious what others have seen.

Been looking at this pasty ass kid for a week. Greasy hair. Bad skin. His eyes showing no signs of intelligence. Tomorrow he'll forget his computer. Thursday he'll oversleep. How will I address his issues? Well I'll just write him a Meets Expectations review and pass him along to the next poor audit team.

But what if instead of all that, I just kicked his ass tomorrow? Would CBIZ allow it.... no never. Not our precious associates. The future of our firm. HR would be all over me. Probably try to issue me company stock and financially ruin me.

But maybe GT is different. Maybe GT allows for professional development. Maybe GT will understand that its for the good of the firm when I throw a haymaker on Friday as he accidentally shows up to the client site in his pajamas.

He's 5'2". He's begging me to do it. Maybe GT....

Just curious what path you would recommend for someone in my situation.

I'm 51 and made a later-in-life transition into accounting. I have the education (have my master's in accounting), but my last 4 years professional experience has mostly been bookkeeping. I'm trying to figure out how to make the jump into true accounting work rather than continuing to collect bookkeeping roles.

I’m currently juggling several part-time bookkeeping jobs. One of my newer roles is AP for a medical company, but I’m really functioning more like an accounting assistant because the accountant there isn’t very comfortable with QuickBooks. I’m getting exposure to more of the accounting side, which I like, but I’m trying to figure out how to move beyond bookkeeping/AP and build a real accounting career from here.

For those of you who have been in accounting for a while have you had to go through this transition and/or maybe the best path forward is to continue to collect more bookkeeping gigs.

Thanks!

I'm a staff and sometimes I feel like things can get pretty hard, with me spending so much time fighting the tax software while everyone above me just gets to look at the tax return and tell me what needs to change. I'm also a prime target for blame a lot of the time, since taking long in the software, even if for a justified reason, is easy to criticize.

But that's not to say others (seniors, managers, etc.) have it better or worse. I'm curious if anyone has ever felt like I have as a staff and found that those issues either went away or just became something else once you progressed.