As with many other careers, accountants and auditors worked throughout private industry and government. Of these, about 24% worked for payroll service firms, tax preparation, accounting, and bookkeeping firms. Another 8% were self-employed.

Among the larger set of management accountants, internal auditors, or government accountants and auditors, there is a subset who are licensed CPAs. Most CPAs work in urban areas because that’s where the jobs are–most corporate regional or central offices and government offices are in urban areas.

A small percent of accounting professionals are employed as full-time college and university faculty; others teach part-time while working as self-employed accountants or as accountants for private industry or government.

Projected Job Outlook Job growth in the accounting sector is expected to grow faster than the average growth rate for all industries during the decade of 2008-2018. Within that group, CPAs should have the best prospects for employment and expected growth rate higher than those accountants and auditors without the CPA professional designation. Very strong growth (22%) in the number of accountants and auditor jobs (an increase of 279,400 jobs) over the 2008-18 decade is expected because of several factors:

1. IF the economy expands, the number of businesses will increase which means that new jobs will be created in the accounting sector to set up the books, prepare taxes, and provide management advice. As these new businesses grow, the quantity and complexity of financial information reviewed by accountants and auditors on the costs, expenditures, taxes and corporate internal controls will increase as well. As the globalization of business accelerates, there will be an increased demand for accounting expertise and services regarding international trade and accounting rules as well as international mergers and acquisitions.

2. Because of financial scandals, investors will be demanding increased accountability for protecting an organization’s stakeholders. The need for these “accounting watchdogs” will spur job growth in the accounting sector.

3. Forensic accountants who can detect illegal financial activity will be even more in demand as the number of financial crimes increases. Crimes such as embezzlement, bribery, and securities fraud by individuals, by corporations, and by organized crime networks are increasing because computer technology has made these crimes even easier to commit and even harder to uncover. But the “good guys” have weapons as well: the development of new computer software and advanced electronic surveillance technology has made detecting financial crimes easier which increases the likelihood of discovery, investigation, prosecution and conviction. As the success rates of the “good guys” rise, the demand for forensic accountants will rise as well.

4. Opportunities for CPAs who are forensic accountants who support the work of attorneys in family law, bankruptcy and business law are increasing as well. For example, the recent high profile divorce of Sir Paul McCartney and Heather Mills included a dispute over how much the former Beatle, Sir Paul, was actually worth. His side claimed he was worth around USD $785 million while the ex-wife thought he was worth around $1.6 billion. Enter her team of forensic accountants who delved into the situation. As of June 2008, the accountants had not found any evidence which would have compelled the judge to award Ms. Mills more moola than her initial divorce settlement.

5. Changes in laws regarding taxes, financial reporting standards, business investments, mergers and other financial matters will lead to an increased need for accountants and auditors.

6. Changes in financial laws to curb corporate accounting fraud will create more jobs in the accounting sector. With the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002 (also known as ‘Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act’ in the Senate and ‘Corporate and Auditing Accountability and Responsibility Act’ in the House), a new layer of accounting oversight was created to thwart the tide of corporate financial misfeasance. Prior to passage, there were a multitude of corporate and accounting scandals (e.g., Enron, Tyco International, Adelphia, Peregrine Systems and WorldCom) which cost investors billions of dollars. When the share prices of these corporations collapsed, the confidence of the public was shaken and the US securities markets trembled. The act established new or enhanced standards for all US public company boards, management, and for public accounting firms. By creating a new public agency, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (or PCAOB), the act created a number of jobs in the accounting sector for overseers, regulators, inspectors, and those who would discipline accounting firms who were auditing public firms. In addition, another government agency, the Securites and Exchange Commission (SEC) implemented the adoption of dozens of new rules to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. It is estimated that the growth in the accounting sector will be seen in new jobs being created in:

1. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board will expand to hire more accountants and CPAs to provide independent oversight of public accounting firms which audit their corporate clients. The central oversight board will register auditors as well as setting up the procedural framework for compliance audits, inspections and policing conduct, quality control, and enforcing compliance with specific elements of Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX Act).

2. Because the SOX Act prohibits auditing companies from providing services such as consulting and management advice to their clients, it is expected that there will be job growth in accounting companies which provide consulting and other non-auditing advice to their clients.

3. Since Sarbanes-Oxley requires that senior executives of a company (such as the Chief Executive Officer and the Chief Financial Officer) take indivdual responsibility for the completeness and accuracy of the corporate financial reports, it is likely that those who are rise to C-level will have to have more familiarity with accounting than a manager’s passing glance. This opens a career path for CPAs into the CEO chair as well as the CFO chair. (Since the CEO is asked to sign the company’s tax return, this is all the more reason for the person to be a CPA as well as a manager.)

4. Since 2002, funding for the SEC has nearly doubled. The SEC hires accountants who can censure or bar from practice stock brokers, advisors, or dealers. In addition, SEC hires CPAs and accountants in Washington, D.C., * Division of Corporation Finance, * Division of Enforcement, and the * Office of the Chief Accountant. For SEC jobs examining financial statements in public filings, resolving controversial accounting issues, and in rule writing, there are openings in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Fort Worth, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, Salt Lake City and San Francisco in the offices of: * Division of Trading and Markets, * Division of Investment Management and the * Office of Compliance, Inspections and Examinations.

The SEC prefers to hire experienced CPAs with three to eight years of public accounting experience in the securities industry. Desirable previous experience would include audit work involving SEC financial reporting, complex internal audit work involving multi-national corporations, or mergers and acquisitions related work. Typically, these accountants enter at the mid- and senior staff accountant positions–in the SK-13 through 17 levels. The grade at which the person starts their SEC career is based on a combination of the amount of relevant work experience and of graduate education in accounting, finance, or related fields.

In looking at the entire market, the best job prospects will be for CPAs while the prospects for accountants and auditors who have a college degree or any certification are good. Wages for Accountants and Auditors May 2008 BLS Statistics: Median Income: $59,430 Top 10%: $102,380+ “According to a salary survey conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, bachelor’s degree candidates in accounting received starting offers averaging $48,993 a year in July 2009; master’s degree candidates in accounting were offered $49,786 initially” . Accounting Employment Rate of Change In the decade from 2008 to 2018, employment opportunities for accountants and auditors are expected to grow by 22% (or 279,400 new jobs), which is faster than the average for all occupations.

As previously mentioned, job growth will be driven by a projected increase in the number of businesses/expansion of the economy, changing financial laws, and corporate governance regulations, and increased accountability for protecting an organization’s stakeholders. Opportunities for CPAs should increase markedly because their oversight is needed to focus increased scrutiny on corporate finances and accounting procedures. Those CPAs who are management accountants and internal auditors will be needed to uncover and eliminate fraud before audits and to make sure that critical processes and procedures are documented completely and accurately. The need for CPAs who are government accountants will increase because of an effort to make government agencies more efficient and accountable. Job opportunities for CPAs will increase rapidly while opportunities for accountants and auditors will increase but at a slower rate than for CPAs.

The need for accounting clerks will increase as consumers opt for storefront tax preparers such as Liberty and H & R Block, rather than hiring a CPA firm. The shift to tax preparation software will take some business away from CPAs who handled the uncomplicated returns of individuals. This will make a very minor adjustment in employment opportunities while increasing opportunities for clerks.

Job Prospects Across the public and private sectors, job opportunities for CPAs will be excellent while those who are accountants and auditors will be favorable. (Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics). Enrollment in CPA preparation courses is now growing as more students are attracted to the profession because of its job growth, increased compensation, stability-and in answer to corporate accounting scandals.

In the wake of the Enron and Tyco accounting scandals, the public views professional certification as even more necessary because it ensures that the accountant’s ethics are sound and his/her knowledge and credentials are up-to-date.

Regardless of specialty, accountants and auditors who have earned professional recognition through certification or licensure should have the best job prospects. Applicants with a master’s degree in accounting or a master’s degree in business administration with a concentration in accounting also will have an advantage. Individuals who are proficient in accounting and auditing computer software or have expertise in specialized areas-such as international business, specific industries, or current legislation-may have an advantage in getting some accounting and auditing jobs. In addition, employers increasingly seek applicants with strong interpersonal and communication skills. Many accountants work on teams with others who have different backgrounds, so they must be able to communicate accounting and financial information clearly and concisely. Regardless of qualifications, however, competition will remain keen for the most prestigious jobs in major accounting and business firms.

In addition to openings from job growth, the need to replace accountants and auditors who retire or transfer to other occupations will produce numerous job openings in this large occupation.—US Bureau of Labor Statistics For accountants, the career path upwards requires that of becoming a CPA, a Certified Public Accountant. Progressing from being an accountant to becoming a CPA offers greater opportunities for promotion to management and higher salaries. Interested in a career as a Certified Public Accountant?

Each of the 54 jurisdictions which offers the CPA Exam has its own qualifications for sitting for the exam. If you would like a free evaluation of your transcript and work experience to see which state(s) you might be eligible to sit for the CPA Exam in, contact Leslie-Anne Rogers at http://www.cpaexcel.com/candidates/international.html. Because each jurisdiction has its own qualifications, you might not qualify in New York but you may qualify to sit for the Colorado exam. In California, the requirements are: * A bachelor’s degree; * 24 semester units in accounting-related subjects; * 24 semester units in business-related subjects; * 150 semester units (or 225 quarter units) of education; * Passing the Uniform CPA Exam; * One year of general accounting experience supervised by a CPA with an active license; and * Passing an ethics course.–

Logging 500 hours of attest or auditing experience will allow you to obtain the authority to sign attest reports. In many firms having a CPA license is the only way one is promoted into upper management. Becoming a CPA increases your opportunity for promotions and a higher salary. How do you become a CPA? While you could buy books and study on your own, you’d be missing several key learning modules featured in CPAexcel, a CPA review course for the CPA exam: Would you like a personalized study plan which takes into account how many hours you can study without loosing copious amounts of sleep? With CPAexcel’s Exam Planner, you can create a study plan. Based on the metrics of thousands of CPAexcel students who have passed the CPA exam, Exam Planner lets you know when you will be ready to sit for the exam and when you need to apply-critical information if you want to be ready to sit for the exam. Did you enjoy asking your professors questions when you were in college? Professors promptly answered your questions, explaining thorny issues and problems. You can’t get that from a book.

Did discussion sections monitored by your professor add to your learning? In this small group setting, you could explore concepts not covered in class. You can’t do that with just a book. Would you like to create your own classes so that you can skip over what you already know and concentrate on what you need to learn? At CPAexcel, you can create your own courses from our extensive list of assignments-and invite your friends to join you. Education personalized for you!

CPAexcel students pass at nearly twice the national average. That power to pass can be yours today so that you can have a brighter future tomorrow.

At CPAexcel, the countdown to 2011 has begun. Because CPAexcel is the only CPA Exam which never expires, you can order it now and study for the current 2010 CPA Exam. If you have not passed all four sections by the end of 2010, you will have access to the new 2011 CBT-e content and functionality for free!

If cash flow or the bottom line are concerns to you, using an outsource billing service can be very helpful in that capacity. Whether you’re a small business, a large business or a government department manager, such a service can go a long way towards saving you money and bringing more money in. Following is a discussion of how an outsource billing service can help you.

For one thing, both private businesses and local governments can benefit from the collections arms of these billing services. If you find a billing service that also handles collections, it’s a real boon because it will save you precious time on difficult accounts. Rather than having to find a collections agency or assign out files to your collections department, an outsource billing service that also does collections can take care of such issues, saving you time and money.

Think about it this way. If you’re working with a billing service but don’t have them doing your collections, when accounts start reaching the troubling milestone of 60 days past due, you’ll waste time looking for someone else to handle the collections process.

Once an account goes beyond 60 days past due, it is statistically likely to become much more difficult to collect on as more time goes by. For this reason, when you reach 60 days you want to start the collection process in earnest immediately. There is no one better to do this than outsource billing services which is already familiar with your clients.

Another thing to ask your outsource billing service is if they are getting volume discounts, and if so, if they’re passing the savings on to you. Many billing services do work for a high volume of companies, and therefore get bulk discounts on mailings, phone rates, etc. They should be passing these savings on to you. If they’re not, showing them you’re aware of this factor may prompt them to lower their rates.

There is no reason to pay more and to waste the resources of your accounting department or your sales department on billing or collections of any kind. Hire professionals, pay less for operational costs and free up your own staff to work on more productive, business-generating tasks. When you’re looking for an outsource billing service, ask them how many accounts they service in your industry. In this case, the more the better because of the cost savings.

Ask your billing service if they can charge you following different structures depending on the services they perform. They’ll all charge you monthly for billing services, but because collection agencies usually take a percentage of the money they get back for you, they have the benefit of not requiring you to shell out money up front. This can significantly affect your cash flow, so if your company handles both jobs for you, ask them if they can bill you monthly for the billing but take a cut of any return on collection they achieve for you.

The final thing you need to know from your outsource billing service is whether or not they will allow you online access to your account. While you want to free up your time by letting them handle this function, it’s your business and you need to keep watch over this crucial part of it at all times. It may not have occurred to you to ask your outsource billing service for real-time access to your accounts, but this is absolutely something they should let you do.

Have you ever noticed that everything from video games to ordering food to scheduling an appointment can be made online? If you have, you’re on the right track. And there are many more things that you can do online that would otherwise be very tedious. Good news for all those who hate the process of filing taxes: now you can do it online!

Filing taxes is such a tiring endeavor that a lot people usually just hire an accountant to prepare the necessary documents for them. Going through the hell of a long line is just one of the many processes that one has to go through before a successful filing. It is at once very tiring and very distracting from doing the things that are really important in life such as focusing on your job or resting. Fortunately, as long as you have working knowledge of the internet, you can now file your tax returns online. This is possible through through the IRS or Internal Revenue Service online payment.

Going through this process saves you a lot of chores and paperwork. Before, these papers would be prepared by the IRS. They would subsequently be collected by the tax filers, filed, and then submitted for tax return. Because they need to be arranged in order before filing, the accountant does more work and makes sure they are complete. However, with the IRS online payment, the documents and financial records are prepared online using a special accounting software. Everything you need is on the internet.

Having an accountant is a wise move for anyone who doesn’t want to wade into the rigors of filing taxes all by his lonesome. Fortunately you can search for ones online. Plus there are also several accounting websites where you just have to file your income tax return online and let the accountants there do it all for you.

What is nice and beneficial with IRS online payment is that it saves you time and effort. Instead of using your time in queueing and document preparation, you can instead use time to do other work or rest. Also, companies that offer tax return filing services has the ability to calculate the exact tax amount. The disadvantages of long queue and too much paperworks can now both be eliminated with the help of IRS online payment.

A company’s financial position indicates the amount of resources that they have, and also the claims against those precious resources at any time. Claims can also be referred as equities. So, a company can be known as a combination of economic resources and equities. Economic Resource=Equities. No mater what type of business your in, every type of company has two different types of equities. They are creditor’s equity and owner’s equity. In another way Economic Resources= Creditors Equities +Owners Equity. When using accounting language, the economic resources a company has at a particular time is called their assets? On the other hand the amount of creditor’s equity a company has is known as their liabilities. So here is the standard equation of accounting or better known as the accounting equation: Assets=Liabilities + Owner’s Equity. Similar to an algebraic equation, both sides of the equation has to be equal. This equation comes in handy when analyzing the financial effects of your everyday business activities. Let’s talk about a very important concept of any business. Assets are known as the economic resources that a business has that are expected to generate money for them in the future. Some examples are real estate and any other property that a business own so that they can rent out to people. If a business is owed money than it goes into what is known as accounts receivable which are monetary items. However, there are some assets that are not physical. Some examples are copyrights, trademarks, and patents, but they are still extremely valuable to a business. Next, liabilities are the obligations that a business has such as paying cash, provide future services to individuals, or transferring assets to another entity. These are known as the debt of a business or the money that they have to owe in the near future. All of these are recorded in the accounts payable. As I’m sure you know, having a lot of debt is not fun and liabilities/debt are claims that are seen by the law. The law gives creditor (People that money is owed to) the right to push the sale of a company’s assets if they don’t pay their debt on time. Creditors have a ton of rights over owners and they have to be paid in full even before the owners receive anything. It is very possible for a debt to consume up all a company’s resources. Next, owner’s equity refers to the claim that owners of a business make in regards to the assets they have. It is the residual interest or the remaining assets of a company after deducting the amount of entity liabilities. Here is the equation for owner’s equity. Owner equity=Assets-Liabilities. The owner’s equity within a particular corporation is referred as stockholders equity, so the equation then looks like this. Assets=Liabilities +Stockholder’s Equity. The stockholders equity has two distinct parts which are the contributed capital and retained earnings. Stockholder’s Equity=Contributed Capital + Retained Earnings. The amount than an individual stockholder puts into a business is known as the contributed capital. Contributed capital is usually divided into two separate parts known as par value and “par value” and “additional paid in capital.” The retained earnings are the amount of equity that is earned by stockholders from the income generating activities of a business that are kept for future uses by a business. Retained earnings are affected by three types of transactions which are revenues, expenses, and dividends. The increase and decrease in a stock are known as revenues and expenses respectively and these come from operating a business whether online or offline. If you’re online than an operating expense that you will have if you have your own website is your domain name and hosting service. Another example is if a customer agrees to pay you in the near future for a service that the company will perform. The money is recorded in the accounts receivable (asset account) which increase the asset value but decrease the stock holder’s equity amount which is an example of revenue. However, if a company promises to provide a service in the future than this is known as an expense. When this happens the assets decrease (accounts receivable) and the liabilities (accounts payable) is increased, which makes pretty good sense right? When the revenues exceed the expenses this is known as the net income which is good, and on the other hand when expenses are greater than revenues than this is known as net loss which means that you’re losing business or your business costs more to operate than what you make. Dividends are the distribution of assets to stockholders which refer to the past earnings. Do not confuse expenses with dividends, because they both are reducing the retained earnings amount. Retained earnings are the collected net income or revenues minus expenses. The financial statements are the main way for communicating information about a business to those who have some type of interest in it. What helps me is to think of these statements as a type of model for business because they show how a business is doing in financial terms. However, like a variety of methods and models, financial statements are not perfect and have their flaws. There are four main financial statements, and they are income statement, the statement of retained earnings, the balance sheet, and the statement of cash flows. What the income statement does is summarize the revenues earned or the money made, and the expenses or the money that is deducted from a business. Many accountants consider it the most important financial report because it makes it clear whether a business has met its profitability goal. The next one is the statement of retained earnings, and it displays the retained earnings over a period of time. The time that the retained earnings will be zero is when a company first started out in their accounting period. A lot of companies use the statement of stockholder equity as a substitute of retained earnings. This is a more detailed statement because it displays not only the aspects of retained earnings but it also shows the changes in the stockholders equity accounts. Next, the financial situation of a business on a particular date, usually on the end of the month or the year is the balance sheet. The balance sheet displays the value of a business according to their assets and the claims against those assets which are the liabilities and the stockholders equity. Last, the statement of cash flows is geared towards a company’s liquidity measures. They are basically the flow and outflow of cash in a company. The net cash flow is the subtraction between the inflow and outflow of money. The statement of cash flows also display the money generated by simply operating a business, and it also displays the investing and financing transactions that occurs during a particular accounting period.

When you’re just starting out, you’re not necessarily thinking about what your employees are going to bring to your business long-term. You simply want survival at first, and sometimes that means that you’ll hire anyone who can do the job and is willing to work at what you can afford to pay.

Oftentimes, a business owner hires somebody they already know and trust, such as a relative or neighbor, to do bookkeeping for them. Even if it means this person doesn’t have experience in bookkeeping (or very little), they’re probably more skilled at it than the owner.

Do You Need More Skilled Accounting Staff?

As your business continues to grow, it stands to reason that your business’s requirements and needs grow as well. It may be true that at some point, the bookkeeper you hired is no longer capable of doing the job. This is because as your business expands, transactions will become more complicated, which in turn can make the books completely out of the realm of your current bookkeeper’s skill. If the bookkeeper is just focused on keeping up with basic tasks, the finer details get neglected.

No one is managing cash, monitoring profitability, or building relationships with lenders-no one is paving the way for growth. Even if the owner knew how to present the business to a bank or investor, the numbers might not be reliable. It can end up literally handicapping the entire organization.

Relief for the Business Owner

In fact, many owners don’t consider themselves knowledgeable in finance or accounting, and don’t have a formal background in it. This can leave them poorly equipped to properly supervise a bookkeeper, much less train them. In addition, they may not be able to handle issues like forecasting, controlling costs, and analyzing profitability.

A Qualified CFO or controller can help in two important ways:

* By training and supporting your existing accounting staff, so they can operate at peak performance-this might include creating procedure manuals, automating some processes, and cleaning up books that are in disarray so that the bookkeeper can start over with a fresh slate.

* In addition, the CFO or controller can perform tasks that the business owner or bookkeeper are not qualified to perform, such as preparing and analyzing financial statements, putting together business plans, making out budgets or making cash flow analyses.

This can take pressure off of the business owner, who is then able to have the time and energy to focus on running the business. The bookkeeper in turn tends to do much better once trained properly and with clear expectations to follow.

Efficient Processing Adds to Your Bottom Line

How your accounting operations are run makes a direct impact on how profitable and able to grow your company is. As an example, when you process accounts receivable efficiently, you collect payments more promptly, cash flow comes in more evenly, and banks can see your business has more credible.

If you don’t feel confident that your accounting staff is poised to take your company to the next level, it’s time to call in a professional accounting service.