Accounting & Bookkeeping & Small Business Forum

cpail · Joined: 17 Aug 2008 Posts: 1

I am a foreign student and completed my CPA. I would like to start with any work in accounting as soon as possible. I donot have any knowledge of accounting packages. Shall I buy Quickbooks and take the courses at home. will QB course help to get a job. Have been applying since 5 months now, no luck.

Does anyone have any work to offer which I can do online for them.
Any tip would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

David · Joined: 16 Aug 2005 Posts: 186

Cpail,

Finding your own clients and starting your own business is easier and you can make more money than working for someone else.

You do need to understand QuickBooks if you want to work in this industry. Although all software does teh same thing, QB is the predominant software in the business market.

stasia2003 · Joined: 25 Feb 2008 Posts: 199 Location: FL

cpail wrote: I am a foreign student and completed my CPA. I would like to start with any work in accounting as soon as possible. I donot have any knowledge of accounting packages. Shall I buy Quickbooks and take the courses at home. will QB course help to get a job. Have been applying since 5 months now, no luck.

Does anyone have any work to offer which I can do online for them.
Any tip would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Although David is correct, I don't think it's a good idea for a person with no accounting work experience to go on their own. If you have a CPA who can advise you, sort of like a mentor, that's different. But just jumping out into the water before knowing how to swim, that's not good. Please work for someone else before you go at it alone. You will tear your hair out, not to mention tick off your customers. Plus, potential customers will find out that you have no applicable work experience in accounting just by the way you assist them and answer their questions. :D

David · Joined: 16 Aug 2005 Posts: 186

Statsia,

Although I am a moderator in this forum, I own my own business. I am not a CPA and did not bring previous experience prior to the Professional Bookkeeper (PB) course. What made me comfortable in doing it is we can call Universal for coaching (Mentoring if you will) to assist us. The 11 different practice sets did give us a variety of practical experience but a huge part of the value for me is that we have support from Universal. I hear this same feedback from many of our students.

That is my personal experience.

stasia2003 · Joined: 25 Feb 2008 Posts: 199 Location: FL

David wrote: Statsia,

Although I am a moderator in this forum, I own my own business. I am not a CPA and did not bring previous experience prior to the Professional Bookkeeper (PB) course. What made me comfortable in doing it is we can call Universal for coaching (Mentoring if you will) to assist us. The 11 different practice sets did give us a variety of practical experience but a huge part of the value for me is that we have support from Universal. I hear this same feedback from many of our students.

That is my personal experience.

Well, it sounds like the OP did not go through the PB program so she doesn't have a "coach". I talked to my coach once and wasn't all that helpful. I got quite a bit out of two of the practice sets: construction and the auto/motorcycle dealership. I just landed the account of a startup car dealership so the reference material for that will come in very handy. The materials may give you practical experience but it falls short of what you will experience in the real world. In the real world you will come across tons of issues that are not covered in the UAC course. I sure as heck did but I had to figure it out on my own and I utilized Google to it's fullest. Now I see why they are one of the top search engines in the world. :D

I'm not knocking the UAC program because for the most part, it's great. But it needs to go into much more detail than what it does. It needs to cover major conflicts that the bookkeeper may come across while operating their own business. Yes, I know you have the coach for that but it needs to be in writing. A person cannot always hop on the phone when they have a problem or wait on an email response. :wink:

David · Joined: 16 Aug 2005 Posts: 186

Statsia,

Thank you for your response. I must admidt that I do something that makes it easier for me. In looking at WHO I want to have as clients I relaize that 93 % of businesses have fewer employees. Only 40 % use an accounting software (of those, 80% use QB). This means that 60 % use the shoebox, tax preparer, payroll company system. These ate the same poeple who call the bank for their bank balance just to see if they have enough to meet their payroll or bills. They do not get financials and do not know anything except what system they have.

My business model is to go after small businesses that have been in business 1 - 5 years, have 5 or fewer employees and have yearly billings of 100k to a couple of million. I market using leveraged methods that result in more referrals where people call me with needs. My clients have been fairly straight forward, have basic needs and do not come with a big mess. For that the PB training has been all I need but as I said, knowing my weaknesses causes me to use the coaching more.

dp1903 · Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2008 12:59 pm Post subject:

Quote: The materials may give you practical experience but it falls short of what you will experience in the real world. In the real world you will come across tons of issues that are not covered in the UAC course.

The same can be said of any college degree in accounting. Nothing can prepare us adequately for what we will experience in the real world. With a college degree or with the UAC course, you are given basic competencies in the study material. The rest is up to you.

My first accounting job was for a publicly held oil and gas drilling/production company. I was expected to know my stuff and hit the ground running. There were tons of things I encountered in this job and those that followed which were not covered in my college studies. However, the college studies gave me basic theory from which I could be successful. Independent thinking and problem solving is part of this profession and most other vocations. That is largely not taught in school. It is learned through job and life experience. It took me a good 5 years of work experience before I began to develop such skills.

I don't think it fair to "blame" a course or degree for things we ourselves have to bring to the table. Just my opinion.

stasia2003 · Joined: 25 Feb 2008 Posts: 199 Location: FL

dp1903 wrote: Quote: The materials may give you practical experience but it falls short of what you will experience in the real world. In the real world you will come across tons of issues that are not covered in the UAC course.

The same can be said of any college degree in accounting. Nothing can prepare us adequately for what we will experience in the real world. With a college degree or with the UAC course, you are given basic competencies in the study material. The rest is up to you.

My first accounting job was for a publicly held oil and gas drilling/production company. I was expected to know my stuff and hit the ground running. There were tons of things I encountered in this job and those that followed which were not covered in my college studies. However, the college studies gave me basic theory from which I could be successful. Independent thinking and problem solving is part of this profession and most other vocations. That is largely not taught in school. It is learned through job and life experience. It took me a good 5 years of work experience before I began to develop such skills.

I don't think it fair to "blame" a course or degree for things we ourselves have to bring to the table. Just my opinion.

That's not what I was saying. My point is that you should get work experience before you work for yourself. You missed my point for the most part. :?

Dominic Bradish · Joined: 13 Sep 2008 Posts: 9

I have a question: How did you get certified without having experience? In my state, two years of public accounting or five years of general industry work under the supervision of a CPA is required for certification.

Richard Noot · Joined: 20 Aug 2005 Posts: 892 Location: Minnesota

Dominic Bradish wrote: I have a question: How did you get certified without having experience? In my state, two years of public accounting or five years of general industry work under the supervision of a CPA is required for certification. All state laws are different andare under constant change. Example. In my state a couple of years ago you could become a CPA by merely paying a licensing fee to the state.