Thursday, May 28, 2009

another day at work.

Tomorrow concludes my first week of work at my accounting firm. Verdict? I need more time in order to form a more cohesive opinion, but I do like my colleagues quite a bit. They're funny, easy to talk to, and very willing to show a new person the ropes. This part of my education in the comm school is being realized in full in the real world -- group work. I'm on a team of four - one junior accountant, one senior, one manager, and one partner. This will be the group I work with for the entire summer, and a group that some of the members have worked with for four or five years.

What's unique about this firm is that there's quite a lot of travel. This has definitely been an eye opening experience for me as I've been centrally based in one location all my life. This particular firm also works with many local government and public school clients, and does anything from tax to audit to consulting (I'm sad to say I missed the tax season though, so I won't have an opportunity to experience that).

We're currently in the middle of doing preliminary work for audits (busy season for governments is October and November, when all the papers need to be filed). I've been commuting to Louisa county this week (still living in C'ville!), working with the county government, social services, and public schools. I've run tests of random disbursements, VRS, 941, and tracing receipts. I'm traveling to Greensville next week, and I'm pretty excited about what else I will do.

What's not unique to this firm, but is common only amongst the middle to smaller sized businesses (aka not Big 4) is the opportunity for career advancement and opportunity to take on a lot of responsibility. The lead partner of my team made partner before he was 30! O_O I know, quite unheard of unless you start your own business. Speaking with my colleagues, they feel that they had the opportunity to really make a difference with their work and to take on responsibility that would come much more slowly at a big firm. -- This is one of the biggest things I'm struggling with this summer, go for a big firm or a regional firm? It's something I'm going to have to figure out in three months - when recruiting begins for accounting firms!