AccountingBLOCK - Tax and Accounting Forums

Hi, I'm new here, but I signed up to just post this one thread. Hopefully I'll get a few responses.

I graduated with an associate's in accounting (3 year), and a bachelor's in writing from another university. Got a job where all I do is entry level accounting - accounts payable. It's just checking invoices and making sure that the data we have is right when it comes from the stores, and then making changes if necessary and submitting the batch (store info) electronically for payment to our payment person. Now, when I went to school and learned accounting I was imagining being an accountant who would have to know the ins and outs of our trade. You know, like I would have to know how to age payables and run gross profit method. So, as a result I've been a little discouraged that the job I landed is something I could have done right out of high school because the job only requires basic math, a knowledge of how to turn a computer on and not much else. Cost me fifteen thousand to get the associate's.

Is this accounting in the real world?

If so, would I be right for another field, like say finance with the degrees, and a year and a half of working in this current position?

Because I'm thinking perhaps an analyst job of some sort (benefits, risk, etc.) might be more down my alley. I would like to be making 40k and doing something that actually requires me to know a thing or two, not just what I knew when I was 18.

Thanks.

What you would like to do now is something that is done by COMPUTERS so you just need to know the basics and leave the rest to computers.

If you want to go more towards analysis etc, Finance is what you should consider diving into.

Accounting is all about Auditing in this day and age, that's what every CPA and Accounting graduate wants to do eventually.

Only small businesses hire people to do A/P, A/R, Payroll, General Ledger Accounting. The salary you want for a job as an accountant can only be accomplished with a Bachelors degree in accounting along with couple years experience (you already have that).

Hope this helps..

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Zahid H. Lilani
Tax Accountant,
eZeeTAX, Inc.
http://ezeetax.com

It sounds like you found yourself a A/P position. This happens to many accountants, and it is where I started. As ZahiD mentioned, in "bigger" small companies, each aspect of accounting is split between a staff. I worked for a company of 550 employees and this is how we were split. Small companies (under 50 employees) usually have one employee who does all the accounting, and larger companies have middle management positions and above that require a more well rounded accounting knowledge and at least a bachelors. So to answer the question, yes this is how real world accounting is...kinda. If you want to use more of what you learned, find a small business to work for (been here before and was making over 40K), start your own business or go back to school and hope you can land a higher ranking position in a larger business. Whatever you decide, I hope that you find what you are looking for.

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I think it all really depends on what field of accounting your doing tax accounting could be a real challange trying to keep up with all the regulations so that your clients are paying the least they can on their taxes legally. Auditing would be a real challange if you were having issues with the concepts of accounting because your not even doing your own work your following someone elses paper trail trying to make sure that they did everything right. As for just basic accounting I personally dont see how it could be that confusing as you are basicly running a ballance sheet of different accounts attempting to ensure that you stay out of the red while paying vendors and employees and collecting on balances owed you.

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