Accountancy

Peace 87 SG

pardon me if my english is not that good.

1) you see, i want to know what is the prospect of working as an accountant.

2) i know there are four major public firms in singapore, one of which is pricewaterhouse(international firm), the others are?

3) for pricewaterhouse, i understand that they only accept students from local Uni like NTU/SMU, people with CPA. does the others firm have such practice? or they do head hunting for the best students in other Uni's?

4) what is the difference between the working as a private and public accountant? the prospect the same?

please please answer my questions in squence! thanks all. i really want to study accountancy and make it my career.

maurizio13 SG

hehehe....

believe me, it's no fun working as auditor or accountant.

the per hourly rate for auditors are pathetic, i think equivalent to macdonalds front line staff.

of course there are folks who actually enjoy ticking with different coloured pens.

you will regret getting into accountancy, trust me.

motoway SG

eh say say say, it's for the moolah rite?

I've yet to meet a handful of peeps from accountancy that tell me they are really really passionate about it. All go in for the moolahs.

stellazio SG

pwc, e&y,kpmg and deloitte. yar they work really long hours..

all of em actually do accept diploma holders too, but you only can audit sme's.. and they all usually have schemes to help pay for your acca..

motoway SG

from what i know big 4 takes in close to 60% of NTU acc grads.

but the turnover rate is damn high after only 1 year

maurizio13 SG

work hours everyday till 10pm to 11pm, then weekdays have to go office work again.

who wants to stay long term?

no life career or work is your only life career.

Peace 87 SG

its for the moola. =P

Peace 87 SG

pwc, e&y,kpmg? whats are the actual company names? hehe

stellazio SG

price waterhouse coopers, ernst & young, deloitte & touche, and kpmg which has a really long name..i know the pm stands for peak marwick or something.. forgotten bout the kg.. hahaha..go google..

Peace 87 SG

roger that! thanks very much stellazio!

walesa SG

4) what is the difference between the working as a private and public accountant? the prospect the same?

To answer this question, I suppose you've got to know what you really want to do in the long term - accountants are pretty much like lawyers in this regard. If you're in it purely for the money, you'd be better off sticking to being a private accountant.

All said and done, accountancy - despite its high turnover rate - does offer excellent exit opportunities if you happen to be doing the right stuff (ie.corporate finance) and I have seen my fair share of people ending up in front office roles (doing M&A and corporate finance primarily) in top IBs through which they would almost certainly never have landed if not for their experience in accountancy and the networking contacts they get exposed to through their time in accountancy.

motoway SG

wooo walsea is it the expertise that land those dudes in M & A and corp finance or purely the contacts?

Student SG

Working in the Big 4 (as they call it) is just a stepping board. To get yourself headhunted, to flower your resume. Their career prospects are not as bright as the other firms.

Moola? No there is no big money to be earned, except you are able to secure a job before you even graduate. Unless you graduate with 1st class then there might be a chance to do a high flyers' job.

Put yourself in the firm's HR shoes..To choose a local uni grad with ACCA or a private institution's ACCA? Food for thought

Master -_- SG

pwc, e&y,kpmg? whats are the actual company names? hehe

Pricewaterhouse Coopers - Got their own building along Cecil Street there (PWC towers)

Ernst & Young - Ocean Towers

Deloitte & Touche - DBS Building 2

KPMG - Klynveld Peat Marwick Goerdeler (Hong Leong Building)

Used to be a part of the big5 but merged

Arthur Andersen - Tanjong Pagar (near Maxwell)

I used to be attached to PWC 6 months for poly...Most married late...Late 30s and early 40s having children as young as 2 years old..Dun like to talk cock type...always look at documents and stuff..sure the work is easy but the workload is really TMTH...when the Auditing VP posted me to his auditing team throughout my 6 months..it was damn mundane...we go field work like going to client's office and gather shitloads of accounts, photocopy documents as long as 3 hours straight, packed lunch..i told myself if this is the career i wanna pursue..wtf..rather not..only the last 2 months proved to be interesting..got attached to the Criminal and Fraud Auditing Department...really like CSI..got to handle expensive stuff..got a calculator that can key up to 200 figures......then got D&D some more...wat more can i say Lucky i rejected the VP's offer of recruiting me back after i finish my studies..

Iceraider7 SG

hi... well to be exact being an accountant not necessary means u wan to step into the line of audit... there is other choices like taxation, accounts, CSP, finance&bank part... but audit is the one the earn the most..

uni grad with a degree.. not grad with ACCA.. ACCA is a british accounting body tat is recognised worldwide n can only be taken in either 3 diff institutes... SAA, FTC kaplan n another one i forgot..

to become a CPA or CFA u need to have at least 3yrs of relevant experience... ACCA cert is a professional cert.. their paper is even tougher than uni paper... tat means an ACCA grad is almost on par with wif uni grad...

uni tat have accountancy is SMU, NTU n NUS.. most good is NTU or SMU.. but recent news are saying SMU grad r gettin job faster n higher pay as compare to the rest of the uni grad..

all big 4 accept poly grad except u start of as an assistant... i have a frend grad from NP accountancy, finish NS.. had a 6month attachment at Merril Lynch... work in their bankin sector.. after he grad.. he was offer by them... monthly gross pay S$3000.. is a contract though..

Iceraider7 SG

the partners at the big four are earning over million in a yr... that the highest rank an accountant can go..

to be a partner one muz excel and ppl with accounting plus law or plus IT knowlegde(mus be very good).. they are the one tat r being invited to join as partners...

but to be true, being an auditors have no life coz of long n no fixed working hours... n usually ppl will change to other field after 3-5yrs in the audit field.. coz they have earn enough n wan to enjoy or it is juz to stressful..

angel7030 SG

Pardon me, to be a good accountant, brush up your english first.

Nikar 3 SG

just wanna confirm......most companies got this position called "Accounts Executive" and "Accounts Asst" etc.....are these people accountants too?

i remember got one boss.....he no cert in accounting, but he holds "Accounts Exec" post.

tinuviel07 SG

yup most ppl go into accountancy line to either be a partner in the big 4 or to ask the company to sponsor them to get CPA and so on... furthermore, if you wanna step up quickly in banking industry, having a few years experience in a big 4 firm helps a lot..

more than 80% of my accountancy grad classmates are going into the big 4 while the rest go directly into banks and others... i haven't met anyone who is passionate about going due to the long hours and relatively low pay at the start.

Iceraider7 SG

accounts exe is sales representive.. means do on sales things de... is juz a title to it therefore no need to have accounts knowledge... whereas accounts asst is helpin to do on accounts... tat shld bee diff..

i think joinin local firm is also a good things. at least u will not be workin so long hr as compare to workin in big 4.. anyway.. i know KPMG offer scholarship for ACCA, local firm like chio lim stone forest(biggest local firm) also offer scholarship for ACCA..

but IMO, is better not go get bonded...