My First Attempt in Getting My First Tax Client

A while back I met a lawyer at  my first and last happy hour for 2012.  He recently referred to me someone who needs a CPA to back file several years of tax returns.  I was so very excited and I started to dream about quitting my current job and having my own tax practice.  Well, such a dream turned out to be very short-lived.  This person whom the lawyer referred to me turned out to be a total flake.

After wasting my time emailing with this person and talking to him on the phone, I was so excited that he agreed to come into my office with his accounting records.  I was so looking forward to the appointment.  But he never showed.  He totally stood me up. I called his office several times and he just dodged my phone calls.  I left messages with his employees but he never called back.  I emailed him few times also trying to re-schedule his "missed" tax appointment.  He never emailed me back.

This flake wasted my time talking to him on the phone, answering his tax questions only to later pull a no-show on a scheduled tax appointment.  He didn't have the courtesy to call or email to cancel.  He didn't have the decency to even return my phone call or email to apologize for his no-show.

I am going to black list this guy's company and him and I swear to never give his company any business or pay my visit at any business that he is affiliated with.  I will warn my clients about this guy if any of them have the misfortune to be solicited by this guy's company.  A flake like this can't be fit for any one to do business with or to even work with.  This explains why he and his company haven't filed taxes for the last few years.

Now that I realize how hard it is to get a client, I have more respect for my current and former bosses for getting enough clients to pay for my salary and benefits.  Building a small accounting firm is definitely no easier task than getting a job from a Big 4.......Why is it so hard to get tax clients?  How can I get my own tax clients? Until I can answer these questions, I guess I better be back to job hunting instead of client hunting....

Big 4 Firms Are Too Snobbish

I had applied online for a senior associate job with one of the big 4s back in May.  I haven't heard anything from them, as if I had thrown my application in a black hole.  I have been licensed as a CPA for several years now and I think I more than qualify to be a senior associate.  Either this big 4 form is snobbish or the firm is so dysfunctional that its hiring system is incapable of observing even the basic etiquette of recruiting.   By the way, its online job application site really sucks big times and is clumsy.  That website belongs with the 90s when Netscape dominated the internet search technology. I can't believe how a big 4 firm is so not up-to-date with technology. How does it audit clients that have 21 century accounting systems and IT technology is beyond me.....

Dealing With People Is Much Harder Than Dealing With Numbers

Today is another day that is filled with aggravation. When I was a college student,  I chose to major in accounting thinking that I could make a  living doing what I was better at, which is, working with numbers and rationality. I avoided majors like marketing or law because jobs in those fields involves too much human interaction than I can handle.

The reality is, dealing with people, particularly annoying and aggravating people accounts for most of my working hours as  a CPA in public accounting.  All the emails, phone calls, in-person meetings, video conferencing with people  have taken up most of my working hours each day.

Working with numbers is easy, but dealing with people is way too stressful and aggravating.  There are so many aggravating people that I have to deal with everyday that it's sickening.  There are people who have too much ego.  There are people who are too dumb.  There are people who are too lazy. There are people who are too incompetent.  There are people who are too sensitive. There are people who are too rude and self-absorbed.  Then there are people who are too demanding.

The people that a CPA  in a small firm has to deal with are at very different levels than the people that an associate at a Big 4 firm has to deal with. I have a feeling that the people that I am dealing with everyday have to be much less educated, or literate (in accounting, business, or taxes)   The is one of the cons that I find from my years working with small CPA firms.

Tired of Working With Incompetent CPAs

I'm the only person in my firm who is working today even though it's Sunday.  It's not because I am the only one who doesn't go to Sunday Service at Church. It's because I have to review the audit workpapers of my fellow CPA co-workers.

I'm really pissed off because if these people are the slightest bit of being competent, I won't be sitting here today and correcting their sloppy and unacceptable audit documentation.

How can CPAs who have been licensed for five and more years be giving me this kind of sloppy audit workpapers.  It is as if they don't give a damn.  All the test procedures are without explanation, without definition of test objective, test procedures.  All of the documentations are so sloppy that the only documentation that shows their audit work is a tick mark right next to each line item on the reports provided by the clients, and the one line at the bottom that says  "Vouched without exception".  Excuse me, what does this really mean???  It's shocking.   Their audit programs are even more shocking, they just filled out the cookie-cutter programs from PPC and just put their initials on each procedure and wrote "Done" on the column where specific audit workpaper of the work done is supposed to be referenced. "Done" where? "Done" how?

So after spending an entire Sunday reviewing and putting comments and questions on their sloppy workpapers, I will have to spend probably the next few days to go over with them exactly what they did.  I was told by the Partner that the clients weren't going to paid for that.  Too bad. If only the Partner hired more competent CPAs, he wouldn't have to worry about all these wasted hours that clients won't pay for.  I am the one who is the real victim here because here I am stuck in this office alone on a Sunday writing all these comments and review issues. Both the labor law and the firm policy don't entitle positions like mine for overtime pay.

I'm so sick and tired of working with these people that I am so going to look for better pastures.  These CPAs are hopeless and they shouldn't be doing auditing.  It's too scary that they are.  I bet this kind of aggravation doesn't happen in the Big 4 firms because I guess they probably have more competent accountants there.

Tax Returns Assembly Factory

Today, I have finished 15 tax returns, several of them are corporate tax returns that have a filing deadline on September 15, 2012.  Most of them are individual tax returns that were put on extension from April 2012.  I don't know why many CPAs like to do tax returns.  Most of the time it's really data entries, particularly for the individuals' tax returns.  I guess one thrill of doing tax returns is the quick turnover.  With professional tax software's powerful diagnostics, it really doesn't take that much thinking to do tax returns anymore.

With the occasional special issues of tax free exchanges for real estate partnerships, enterprise zone and other industry specific manufacturing credits, and the occasional debt forgiveness, the 15 tax returns that I did today presented no time consuming challenge to me.  At times, I was feeling not like an accountant but a bored  data entry clerk.

The main difference between working in small CPA firms vs Big 4 is that you get to do the boring tax returns during times like this, after you are done with your financial audits and you missed out the tax season back in April.  You will get to do tax returns and plenty of them now.  It's as if there is a second tax season.  I never liked doing tax returns because I hate data entry and I get bored by the process easily.  But I am pulled into this tax filing fun because of these September 15 and October 15 deadlines.

A lot of the tax codes are only applicable to very few people and situations.  The ones that apply to majority of the people are always the same old same old....  This is why even a hair dresser and a travel agent can do tax returns and they put tax returns filing signs outside their barber shop and travel agency.  Pretty soon, I believe I will see car mechanics putting their tax sign up saying "Have your tax return filed while having your car's oil changed."

As a CPA, I often feel like doing tax returns is like doing something that even my high school grad grandpa  can do on Turbo Tax (yes, he never let me do his returns, he loves doing his own on Turbo Tax ... ). I feel kind of being degraded.  After all, one doesn't have to be a CPA to do taxes.   I wonder what it's like to do taxes in the Big 4, may be their tax clients' situations are so complicated that doing taxes can actually be fun and challenging?

Anyway, I'm looking forward to have this Sept and Oct 15th deadlines over, so I can go back to work on attestations and other advisory projects.

Many Small Privately Held Companies Have Very Shady Accounting

Most clients in small CPA firms are small privately held companies.  From what I had seen throughout my years in small CPA firms, these clients often have very shady and questionable accounting practice. It's always up to the small firms' partners to correct their clients' questionable financial statements.

Today, I was fired by a small privately held company and was removed from the review engagement.  I am actually happy that the client requested my firm to remove me from the engagement.  It's so hard for me to get satisfactory answers during my inquiry that, I can  no longer perform the review.

If this is my client and this is my firm, I will withdraw the review engagement, or at least step it down to compilation only. The reason that this client needs a review is their need to renew their millions of dollars line of credit from the bank. They had already violated  a few loan covenants in 2010 and also in 2011.  They got a waiver from the bank in 2010 and also 2011.  Their only cash inflow is really from this line of credit, which they use to finance their operating and also investing activities. They have been in business for many years.  The bank is waiting for the reviewed financial statements from us for consideration of further extension of the line of credit.

So, during my inquiry, I asked some questions, but the very first question I asked got a very angry response from the client and they refused to even answer. The client's CFO and controller just snapped.  The subsequent questions only got them  more upset and I got nothing back from them either.  So they called in the firm's partner and demanded him to remove me from the engagement in front of everybody.

Have you ever been fired by a client when you were working for a small CPA firm or a big 4?  If so, please let me know I'm not the only CPA who experienced this......

Shell Companies Seeking IPOs are Small CPA Firms' New Best Friends

Recently, our firm had received quite a lot of leads from shell companies seeking accounting services for their IPOs.  Traditionally, IPOs engagements mostly belong to the Big 4s. But with the JOBS Act that makes it easier for small companies to go public, we are suddenly seeing shell companies coming out of the woods to inquire us about potential IPOs related engagements.

I'm not sure if my firm will take in these potential new clients. I only know that they are interested in my firm because we are small and we charge a lot cheaper than the bigger CPA firms.

Useless Workpapers

Auditing for small CPA firms can sometimes be so frustrating. The kind of clients small firms usually have are  privately held companies.  It's unlikely for private companies to have an internal audit department and the kind of internal controls that are often found in publicly traded companies.  It's either because they are too small, or they have grown to too big that its huge business volume has outgrown its existing internal controls.

Although I have  been doing audits for years, I am still frustrated when taking on a new client because the accounting staff always gave me worthless reports and useless information  that I couldn't audit on. It's either because the predecessor auditor always asked for the same worthless reports and never cared if they were useful or not, or the new client's accounting staff think auditing is really a joke and just give me whatever papers that are convenient for them to get.

After spending time testing and finding too many exceptions, I often realize that I am testing on the wrong report that is totally irrelevant or report that doesn't include all the activities because it was printed a couple hours too early.  It's a huge waste of my time when the clients' accounting staff give me incomplete reports or pieces of information here and there that don't tie to the whole picture.

I bet this is never the problem with the big 4 firms, since they have more knowledgeable clients and they have much better documentation of prior year's workpapers?

The challenge for auditing for small CPA firms is to get the clients' staff to provide useful and relevant information to be audited upon..

I'm really frustrated because I had just wasted an entire day of work to find out that I was working on bad reports....  So, tomorrow I have to request the client's accounting staff to give me the right reports and to show them why the ones they gave me are no good and are useless.  Then I will have to start the testing all over again.  

Recording Time Sheets is One Miserable Task in Public Accounting

One of the many stressful things I hate about working in public accounting is the recording of my own time.  In a CPA firm, an accountant is required to account for the time he / she spends everyday.  Every hour during the day can either be billed to a client, or be recorded as non-billable administration of the CPA firm.

It sucks because clients don't want the accountant to bill too many hours and will sure complain about it when they are billed too many hours.  At the same time, the CPA firm doesn't want the accountant to incur too many administrative hours either.  When non-billable administrative hours show up often, the CPA firm's managing partner will roll his or her eyes and  will reprimand the accountant.  That means, accountants in public accounting are expected to record less time for more work they do. (e.g,spending 14 hours everyday to work for 5 clients and only bill 8 hours.).  I'm sure this doesn't happen to the accountants working in a corporation.  I never saw my clients' accounting staff stressing out and scrambling to get more work done.  They all seemed to take their time and were never in a hurry like I am....

When I spend 4 hours working on one client, which is not unusual, I better find 1 to 2 more clients to work for so I can bill my 4 hours to not just one client but to 2 to 3 clients.  The problem is, I still have to bill 4 more hours and it's already 6pm in the evening when I am done with client #3.

Am  I the only CPA who hates tracking and watching my time? Can anyone tell me if this is the issue with only shallow pocket small CPA firms?

Small CPA Firm Has Overtime Too!!!

I'm now taking a break from working.  Yes, today is a Sunday but I am working on an audit engagement. Many people think that only Big 4 firms put their employees at work during weekends.  But small firms also have deadlines they need to meet and therefore working on weekends is not unusual at all in small firms. When I first worked in a small firm, I was shocked to be required to work overtime during weekends.  But now I am used to it....And, just like the Big 4, I don't get paid for working overtime in small firms either.  I don't like it, but until I can find a job outside public accounting, I will just have to suck it up.  Oh well, my break is over, it's time to get back to work.

My First Month at My New Job in a Small Firm

This is not my first job as a Certified Public Accountant, this is also not my first job as a Certified Public Accountant in a small firm. This is however my first job at yet another small CPA firm.

Just one month into my new job, I'm beginning to feel restless and unmotivated again.  I am beginning to feel that jumping from one small firm to another is not going to help me feel more settled and satisfied about my job.

So am I doomed to only be able to work in small firms?  I tried to apply for the Big 4s, but all I got was robotic rejections from their computer the minute I submitted my application to their websites....

Am I the only CPA who keeps receiving such kind of rejection emails from the Big 4?  These robotic email rejections are beating up my psyche....