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If you're not familiar with CA firms, you may be a little surprised to know that there's such a thing as "recruiting season." Employers will come around university and college campuses during set times of the year - both in Canada and the US - to interview potential employees en masse . The phenomenon of ‘campus visits’ is especially pronounced in the US where there’s a plethora of colleges to visit - smaller campuses often miss out on visits from the Big Four and students who want to get noticed with an in-person interview end up having to travel to a campus visit taking place at another larger school. A reader asks what to do if you had the misfortune to miss out on recruiting season - or were simply unsuccessful in the hunt for a position . Above: Non-big-four recruiting poster in Buffalo's airport. Photo credit: Krupo (as usual) I'm grouping both scenarios together because the methods of dealing with either scenario are ultimately the same. Figure out what...
This is what I think of when you say consulting . The link pops up straight to a chart outlining a ten point scale showing how close someone is to quitting. Despite what you're about to read below, this is one scenario where you can actually replace many of the instances of the word "consultant" with "auditor" in the above linked article. Some will argue it's a matter of semantics between to distinguish between "advisory" and "consulting" work, as the Big 4 - aside from Deloitte - have largely shed their consulting practices. Yes, "just legalistic semantics." Until you identify the mindset present somewhat satirically presented by Getting Drunk in First Class . Above: And they also often stay in posh downtown hotels. Aside from being a way of doing business where you're actually setting up and running things versus just testing and suggesting, consulting has also acquired a kind of a bad rep from what I've seen . Just pick...
At some point in time Dennis' site led me to stumble upon tastytax.com, which is run by a tax lawyer out to provide some useful advice . The page I linked to is cool in itself because it shares a thirteen-point list of suggestions on how to manage your small business' records if your business is really small (so you can't afford a full-on part-time bookkeeper), and organizing your records isn't your strong suit. The advice is both straightforward and clever. Like remembering to open a separate business account to keep your personal and business funds from getting mixed up in case the tax man comes around and audits you. Four of the thirteen points are actually just steps to point out how simple it is to keep track of how much money you earned in sales. I found the writing to be simultaneously clever, interesting, and hilarious: Get those carbon pad receipt books from Staples or wherever. Write “2008″ on the outside of them. Try if you can to put the dates on the receipts...
I started out today by writing a post in response to another post. But as much as I enjoy navel gazing, I eventually segued to my new point. The photo is probably the most unrelated illustration ever used here, which is saying a lot . I'll have to digress for a minute. I was biking home from work and simply had to stop when I saw this. Think notorious neighbourhood, house with expensive cars behind a fence, and this crazy derelict furniture with questionable food. Living in Toronto is a treat - or at least an exercise in the experiencing the transmundane - and here you find evidence why. If only to validate the feeling that I can do better by doing so myself, I have to start writing more again. Thanks to Francine for pointing this out. One of my friends paid me a fine compliment early on when I started writing here, saying that this is a 'real' blog - in the sense that useful information is shared, and it's not just a personal diary. I keep the introspective stuff to a...
There's a relatively new site commenting on accounting for accountants, students and the like, The Accounting Onion . It took me a moment to realize there's no relation to The Onion , America's Finest News Source, but it looks just as interesting, and perhaps more useful to CAs, CPAs, and allied folk. The same lack of time that has caused my postings to nosedive will keep me from going through all the entries there, but this one caught my eye - it's about PCAOB inspections . Basically, all audit firms in the US are subject to inspection, but it's the big 4 that take care of 99% of the revenue being churned through the US economy. So spending more than 1% of your time auditing companies that represent 1% of US corporate revenue - to simply things - is, according to Tom Selling, a misallocation of resources. It would, of course, make more sense to more efficiently focus on areas where you're going to have the biggest hurt - larger companies. Then again, if a large...
I've been lazy when it comes to sharing interesting links. I set up a nice little tag for just this sort of post but have not used it at all since January . To make up for that, here is a quick little link to a post by Francine who does a really good job of presenting a detailed look into how performance reviews take place at one big 4 firm, PwC . In addition to explaining the process - and sharing her assessment of its weak points - she also explains the typical career path which applies to all big 4 firms. If you're still in school or no one ever bothered to explain how the system works to you, it's a worthwhile read. You'll also get some commentary on some of the Bush Administration's hijinks in that whole "let's fire all the lawyers and replace them with our political appointees" fiasco. In other news, the list of blogs on the sidebar is going to have to go through an overhaul. Some sites - like AhyesMedSchool - have either been nuked or gone inactive...