Everyday accounting associations
By associations I mean odd little things that reminds you of your job.
As I was walking by a shopping centre carpark today I saw this lady loading her groceries onto the boot of a car.
Perfectly normal right? How can I associate that to accounting?
Well, the car turns out to be a State Government car (as labelled on the side) and here I was thinking – how are they recording this trip for FBT purposes?
Does this make me a nerd?
Add comment October 8, 2008
Chiefs & Indians
Despite the current economic “crisis”, I still read in the newspapers that Accounting will remain a wanted profession, (in Australia anyway) and a quick check around seek.com.au tells me there’re still plenty of jobs being advertised.
Even in the latest Charter magazine (the magazine for ICAA members) it had an article talking about how an organisation can attract and retain quality candidates, starting from those youngsters who just graduated from high school – the message is, get them early before someone else does!
So in light of this, how many times have you heard accounting firms saying – “We will offer you a structured career path with plenty of development opportunities”?
Let’s face it, the life in an accounting firm is this: Undergraduate -> Graduate -> Intermediate -> Senior -> Supervisor -> Manager -> Senior Manager -> Director / Partner
Even though I have not been in this profession for very long, this seems to be the typical “career path”. But the truth is, how many of us are interested in becoming a partner? I know I’m not. How many people have you seen leave public practice accounting straight after they finish their CPA or CA?
How many times have you heard that there aren’t enough experienced staff? Is it a myth? How come I look around my office and see Senior Accountants twiddling their thumbs struggling to charge a unit, while all of the unallocated jobs are labelled – “Graduate / Intermediate Level”? Is it the case of too many Chiefs and not enough Indians?
Are the seniors stuck in a life of reviewing junior staff’s work (let’s face it, it can be mind numbing at times) or doing ad hoc advice work which means you never have a steady stream of work? In theory, it’s not so bad (more challenging work, less compliance boredom). But in practice, how will they charge the required 60 odd to 70 units a day?
Add comment October 7, 2008
Sounds like my life
While setting up this blog, I stumbled across this blog post. Here’s an extract:
Let’s say for example that you’re designing a brochure. The client has had similar brochures created in the past, by you as well as by other designers. She knows that the last one cost her $1100 (by a rival designer) and the one before that was $1000 (by you). That means your bill for this job had better be in the region of $1200 (allowing for inflation) or you could be in trouble. Too much more and you’ll lose a client. Too much lower and, although you might make that client happy, you may also be undercutting yourself, not to mention creating a monster. (You charged me $800 last time, what do you mean it’s $1300 now!)
All of which means that the job is a $1200 job. Full stop.
Is there any mention of an hourly rate? Or of whether the designer is a newbie or a seasoned veteran? Or even how long the job will take?
No there isn’t. I would suggest that the bill goes out at $1200 and how the job was completed is secondary. At a charge rate of $120 an hour, that equates to 10 hours. If you managed to complete it in eight, you’re on the winning side. But if it took 12 hours, the only person who knows is you, and any issues arising from the extra time are yours to deal with alone.
Let’s face it, everyone HATES write offs. Anyone would look at the write off amount and start questioning your ability to do your job. So when you’re staring at a job which you know is going to result in a write off, what would you do? Charge it anyway? Or just finish it and your timesheet takes a beating?
Add comment July 31, 2008
