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Big 4 Accounting Firms Podcast: Accounting Career Tips and Accounting News

We discuss the latest accounting news and accounting career tips on how to succeed at the big 4 accounting firms. Learn the rankings of the largest public accounting firms in the world, big 4 interview tips, big 4 salary details, big four news and career tips. We also discuss other topics like what it takes to pass the CPA exam and how to be a successful accountant. We cover the latest news regarding Pricewaterhousecoopers, Ernst and Young, Deloitte and KPMG.
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Big 4 Accounting Firms Podcast: Accounting Career Tips and Accounting News
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Now displaying: May, 2017
May 22, 2017

How do you become a big four accounting firm partner? There are a couple of important items to keep in mind if you are going to become a big four partner. What do you think those are. Most people probably think that you need to be really good at sales or that you need to be extremely technical. What do you think is most important for a big four part or somebody that’s on the path to partnership. You probably think of somebody that’s really good networking or somebody that has a really big network. Maybe you need a  big book of business. Is it how many clients that you have in your book of business? Is it the size of those clients? Does it matter which region you work in?

Don’t get me wrong…

All of those things do have an impact on a person’s path the partnership but there are two essential things that you need to focus on if you want to make partner. 

Learn more at https://big4accountingfirms.com/the-blog/become-partner-big-4-accounting-firms/

May 14, 2017

Welcome to the big 4 accounting firms podcast brought to you by big4accountingfirms.com. This is episode 37 and today we will be discussing the vault accounting rankings.

The new vault accounting rankings came out in April 2017. The vault rankings are numerous but the most well-known of their rankings is the vault accounting 50 ranking. Vault arrives at the information for the accounting 50 ranking by a weighted formula that combines quality-of-life rankings such as culture, satisfaction, work life balance and compensation. So there isn’t really any one factor that ranks one firm above the other it’s a combination of all different factors that professionals care about. Now there’s obviously 50 firms in this ranking so make sure to check that out at vault.com 

We are going to be discussing the big 4 accounting firms and where they rank in the vault 50. We will be going in reverse order of where the big 4 landed in the top rankings.

Make sure to visit our website to learn more

https://big4accountingfirms.com/the-blog/vault-accounting-rankings-2017/

https://big4accountingfirms.com

 

May 8, 2017

As you may recall Elizabeth Warren and Edward Markey have previously written to KPMG to figure out why they did not uncover the Wells Fargo fraud earlier. Well Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey received that response in November and now they want the PCAOB to investigate what happened.

This is most likely because Wells Fargo easily ratified KPMG as their independent auditor as part of their annual proxy process in 2017. Elizabeth Warren was hoping that Wells Fargo would fire KPMG similar to what they did to their CEO. Now that they have not fired KPMG she is out for her pound of flesh.

The reason that Warren and others have questioned this is because Wells Fargo committed tons of fraud for years by setting up fake accounts for their clients.

What resulted is that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fined Wells Fargo $100 million for creating 1.5 million deposit accounts and over 500,000 credit card accounts. These accounts were not authorized by the customers.

What KPMG contends in their response is that they were aware of  matter, but that they were able to get comfortable that it did not materially impact the financial statements or the controls over those financial statements.

I’m not too sure how KPMG reached that conclusion because $100 million is a pretty significant financial impact to me. Additionally, there is no way that KPMG could have known that the amount would have only been $100 million.

Visit our site for more details around the controversy (https://big4accountingfirms.com/the-blog/elizabeth-warren-questions-pcaob-kpmg-audit-wells-fargo/)

May 1, 2017

Today I wanted to learn why you want to work at the big 4. Since I can’t ask you myself, I’ll look at reasons why I think people join the big 4. If you would like to share your reasons for working at the big 4 with me, make sure to visit our forum index and go to the general discussion section where we have a topic regarding why you want to work for the big 4 firms.

Ok let’s get down to why someone might want to work for the big 4.

The Value of The Big 4 Experience

Most people think other people want to work for the big 4 because of the great experience it provides. I believe the big 4 do provide great experience but how valuable is big 4 experience?

It actually is pretty valuable experience working at the big.

Clients will recruiting big four accountants because they are willing to work any hours to get the job done. It’s not because big four accountants are more technical or that the firms are prestigious. It’s that big four accountants come with a certain type of training a certain get it done mindset.

Back to Basics

That’s not what I really want to discuss today. That’s more of a surface level view of why people join the big four. That’s what the big four want people to think about why people join the four large public accounting firms. They want you to think that people work for the big four because of the prestige of the firms and the amazing clients that they have. That’s not the reason people join the big four in my opinion. I believe people join the big four accounting firms because of the stability that the job provide. I think most of the people that go into accounting are generally fear-based and generally introverted. I think this is also the reason that so many people leave the big 4 so quick. They thought it was a good stable job when they joined only to find out that it is a tough, draining job.

Let’s be serious here people don’t choose accounting because they want to do something dangerous or sexy. They choose accounting because they don’t want to be outselling a ton of work or being client facing. Those people go into finance or some other type of business career path. People that typically choose accounting as a profession are the ones that are okay doing a lot of work. They are willing to sacrifice their lives in order to have job stability. That is what the big four provide and accounting as a profession provides.

They provide job stability whether you choose to stay with the big four or are going to  work in industry. It doesn’t matter what the economy is doing you will always have a job somewhere if you choose accounting. You can’t say the same thing for people in finance and people in marketing or people in advertising. Even people in sales lose their job. Now those people make more money than accountants when the economy is booming, but they are replaceable and an economy that’s not doing so well. Those jobs also are located everywhere. Accountants can work just about anywhere they want.

Visit our site for more details https://big4accountingfirms.com/the-blog/why-do-people-work-at-the-big-4/

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