r/Accounting

So my current job, the accounting manager I report to is a grade A bitch. I’m a senior accountant.

Some bitch behavior she has done:

- she “allowed” me (was actually her boss) to work from home 2 days a month. Well I forgot my computer at work the day of my remote day, work is 10 minutes from me, so I went and picked it up and she said “why did you sneak in and grab your computer? You didn’t save on commute or gas”. Like ?? What?

-when I try to help or point out things she’ll always get snappy and say “I know what I’m doing”.

-she refuses to let me mass upload csv’s to netsuite. Wanted me to manually add every VIN to our vehicle assets for 646 of them. I had to beg to let me do a csv and save hours of work. When she finally let me, she just said “spot check them all”

-we have 2 weekly meetings where she just talks about her step mother being crazy and the tv shows she watches.

-biweekly meetings we have 1 on 1’s. She’ll say to me I’m “okay at my job” or “you could do better” and when I ask what I could do better she says vague stuff like not to forget doing entries or keying stuff wrong. I’m like ?? What.

Anyways, I have a job offer for a fully remote job with a great team. The other accountant just put her two weeks in because of the boss and she is being an absolute bitch to her.

As a senior, I know I’m still just a little pea, but should I put in my two weeks notice? Should I just no show?

I have a feeling she will try to squeeze everything she can out of me.

Ok everyone, what in the actual fuck is the reason here?

So often I open an excel and it looks insane because the font size is set to something absurd like 8 so it’s super tiny. But then it’s zoomed in to like 150%.

WTF is going on here? Why on Earth do accountants do this shit.

Can we just keep 11 or 12 pt font and keep the zoom at 100?

Please and thank you for attending my rant.

Hi, I just started my bachelors in accounting,I first started off in architecture but felt like it the work to pay balance wasn’t good imo, so I switched over to accounting but now I keep seeing all these doom post and I’m feeling worried and fear I am wasting my time.

Why have I been told that this is a great start for my career? I work 80 hour weeks and don’t get paid for it because companies have audit as a fixed fee. Clients hate you, and most of the time you are doing brainless work. I am honestly fine with the hours I do like to grind, but the pay along with the nature of the work seems… pointless? Is this genuinely a good start to my career or did I screw myself.

I often see people asking about practical AI applications that actually impact how they work. In the interest of sharing knowledge and hopefully learning from each other, I thought I would throw out some recent successes that we have experienced.

We use Power BI to aggregate accounting detail from our ERP. Since it includes the entire GL, this allows us to create a plethora of reports from income statement, balance sheet, to G&A analysis, capital expenditures, and many more. Each one of these reports has a mapping of which GL account codes roll up into each report caption.

This is all pretty common but here's where it gets interesting with the introduction of AI. As you can imagine these mappings become a bit onerous to maintain as you get more and more reports out there. Creating a new GL account, for example, requires a careful review (with accounting expertise) to make sure that new codes gets mapped to every place in every report where it belongs. IT folks don't know what a balance sheet is, much less how NI rolls to RE.

This has proven to be the perfect job for Claude. We can have Power BI export the chart of accounts to a SharePoint folder every night. We give a Claude "agent" access to this folder along with the mapping csv. There is no coding involved. In plain English we explain what the task is. Every morning Claude checks for any new account codes that have not yet been mapped to the financial statements. When found it sends a Teams message along with recommendations of where that account should be mapped across all reports (based on similar codes). You can approve or revise these mappings right there over Teams chat and Claude makes the changes accordingly.

We have found the accuracy to be truly impressive. This has sped up the process and dramatically reduced human error. The project is approachable as there's no coding involved. From a privacy standpoint the agent is only privy to the chart of accounts and the report captions themselves. No transactions, balances, or dollars are visible which limits the privacy concerns. It has made our clients very happy.

Anyway, if you're not exploring these types of tools, I highly recommend you spend some time playing with them. If you have a better workflow or suggestions for mine, I would love to hear about it.

Next fall I’m going to be in my final year of college for accounting and I’m not go if to lie I’ve been cheating on most of my assignments. I know that I’m behind so I download all of my previous accounting classes power points to study over the summer. Is there anything else I should do to get ready.

Hi all, I am in need of some advice. I'm a first gen college student and can't decide how to proceed. I have a GT offer that would start around Jan 2027, I graduate Dec 2026. And a deloitte offer to start around Summer/Fall 2027. My biggest question is that I hear about going to a big 4 all the time but the true is that I have a family to help/support so starting right after graduation would help my family's financial situation ( 3 in a 1 bedroom apt +etc.). But I also know that deloitte can open a lot of doors in the future so i could in theory just work A LOT of odd jobs/retail/restaurant until I started. I also see layoffs happening a lot so I'm trying to see how that could potentially impact. Any advice is appreciated, thank you!

Hello everyone! I want to pursue accounting but honesty AI makes me feel despair. I’ll graduate by 2030 and I have no idea what the job market will be like by the. Most entry level jobs seem to be swept up by AI + an influx of new grads who are also competing with each other.

What do you guys think?

I've been applying for positions near Los Angeles, Bay Area and Irvine,California, and in Greater Seattle Area, but I've been so unlucky and I feel hopeless. It feels so impossible.

Got my CPA exams done, my 150 credits done but I don't know what I have to do to get a job at this point in public accounting or even industry at this point. I'm exhausted finding a job in 2 years, being stuck at a low paying state job. I'm losing my mind and I regret paying for my CPA exams and all that reviewer BS. I'm regretting getting into accounting now. I hate this job market and myself for choosing this career.

Started my first AP job recently and honestly struggling with the pace. I process 100+ invoices daily between sorting emails, reviewing invoices, ERP processing, PO matching, freight/tariff checking, and exceptions.

It feels very production/assembly line style where there’s barely time to slow down and actually understand the accounting side or GL impact before moving to the next invoice.

By the end of the day my eyes are fried and my brain feels scattered.

Did anyone else start in high-volume AP and feel like this? Did it help long term or did you move into something else pretty quickly?
Trying to figure out:
how long I should realistically stay

when it’s reasonable to apply for staff accountant or other accounting roles

how to stay sharp on accounting knowledge while doing repetitive AP processing all day

The stress-to-pay ratio just isn't worth it anymore. Between outsourcing, Al, and never knowing if you're next on the chopping block, there's no real security here. These companies have zero loyalty to their people, so I won't have any to them either. I learned that the hard way at my last job, got let go after the feds reached out to my employer for a background investigation and they didn't take kindly to it.

I came up through the military before accounting, and I can't stand how fake and thin-skinned corporate America is, everyone drinking the same kool-aid. This work brings no joy or satisfaction just soulless ghouls bragging about who stayed latest for no extra pay. I refuse to be the guy waking up in his 40s or 50s realizing he wasted his best years in this field.

If my 30s have taught me anything, it's how fast my 20s went. I'm not throwing my 30s away in this dump too.
Honestly, just writing this out and knowing l'll be gone in 2-4 months whether with the Feds or in the trades is a genuine relief. I can breathe easier already. I won't let this field keep grinding down my mental and emotional state.
What pulled me in originally was stability. What a joke that turned out to be.

P.S good luck to the new grads incoming when these douche bags want entry level with 5+plus year experience.

This year, I've been getting so many more client emails asking tax questions/planning ideas. I know these are coming from AI sources. Are you guys facing similar issues? My inbox is flooded this year.

Or is a full finance profile often preferred/expected?

Thanks!

our small team is still using spreadsheets to track receivables and it’s getting messy. customers forget payments, we chase them manually, and things slip through more than they should. we’ve looked at a few billing tools but not sure what actually works for a small setup without getting expensive or overly complex. what did you move to that actually made collections easier? anything simple that integrates well without a ton of setup. any tips

Forvis is currently hosting a training week in Austin, and we got the opportunity to hear from our CEO Tom Watson, who addressed why we laid off so many people, and what their plan for AI is. His argument was that our firm has grown in efficiency, leading to less chargeable hours overall, so they “had” to let go hundreds of accountants from our firm to bring our metrics back up. He also confirmed that Forvis is investing a LOT of money into AI, and that all of our jobs will look different in the very very near future. His attempt was to give clarity behind the company’s decisions, but to me it makes absolute zero sense unless this is a preparation for serious mass layoffs in the next 5 years. His claim that more jobs will be created when AI is prepping our returns is completely preposterous, and his speech really dampened the spirits of everyone there. He also mentioned the original Reddit thread and how they weren’t prepared for the layoff news to spread so quickly, which I thought was hilarious. How can you do one of the firms biggest layoffs in recent history because we’re pouring billion in AI and India, and not expect the news to spread as quick as it did. This whole thing is just so insane.

I've spent the last 10 years in my current role, no title change, a few decent raises, but nothing super exciting. I've earned my MAcc and CPA license, still stuck as a Staff Accountant title due to no upward mobility.

Almost 4 weeks ago, I was pulled into a meeting where I was told they were downsizing and splitting my duties amongst other staff. I am contracted to stay until the end of September or I lose out on a sizable severance. Ive been upfront about this with all potential employers.

I've been applying to lots of jobs, and have had about 20 interviews, mostly phone, a few in person... I feel like I will eventually land something, but struggling with the fact that most roles are a longer commute and despite 10 years accounting experience, MAcc, and a CPA, people want to pay peanuts. I'm also concerned that the wait time before I'm available is hindering my search, as it's a definite turnoff.

Any advice for me? Leads are welcome! Hoping for something that pays 6 figures, decent benefits, plenty of PTO/Company holidays, good health insurance, and potentially hybrid if possible. Located in West Central Indiana about an hour from Indianapolis.

I'm open to public, but have mostly industry experience.