Any public accountants in here? (Iselin: insurance, broker, lawyers)

[pete0428]

Does anyone in here work for a public accounting firm in NJ? Any input a to which ones to stay away from or look further into would be great. A couple I have looked up so far are: Amper, JH Cohn, Veris, WithumSmith & Brown, and Smolin Lupin. All are within a short distance from me (Middletown) and seem like good options, but I would like to hear from others. Thanks guys

[RobRiguez]

One of my friends moved from PWC to Rothstein Kass and loves it. Closer to home, beter hours. Rothstein Kass, Accounting Certified Public Accountants CPAs auditing tax hedge funds family office broker dealers family office Might be too far from you tho.

[pete0428]

Ya thanks for your input. I have looked at them and they are kind of far, but worth considering.

[tooshort]

E&Y in Iselin, NJ.

[pete0428]

Yeah I'm aware of the big 4 firms, theres plenty of people who have spoken on their experiences with them. I would like to hear from people that have personal experience with these smaller regional firms. E&Y is something to consider as its only 20 minutes away, but I'm under the impression that I would be a slave to them and have absolutely no life, which is something I'm trying to avoid. I don't want to waste the last years of my youth.

[sammy26]

I have worked with a company that used both Amper and E&Y as their auditors - Amper has a decent reputation for quality of life issues and if I were ever to get back into public accounting (I am a CPA) I would go with them. E&Y on the other hand is just another use 'em and abuse until they either quit or become partner.

[Sarah07080]

Amper is a great company to work for .....

[Forest_Hills_Daddy]

I am currently working as a financial analyst (research) in NYC. I have an MBA in corporate finance and a few years investment banking experience before moving into the research side. I did not major in accounting in college.

I am thinking of expanding my skills portfolio to the point where I can understand and manage the underlying risks of companies, specifically financial institutions like commercial banks, insurance companies, reinsurance companies and financial guarantors. Will going to accounting night school and getting the CPA license help me immensely? If so, after obtaining my CPA, would it help to work in a financial institution? Which department?

[RobRiguez]

From listening to my friends and wife talk, I would say that simply being an accountant at a big firm will give you little to no insight. They are simply number crunchers. Even the CPAs. You may hold rank and get paid some big $$ (IMO anyway) but your still a number cruncher. The lawyers and the finance people are usually called in for the difficult stuff.

Aside from that, I don't think you can simply get a license from going to night school. Not only do you need to pass the tests (difficult even for accounting pros), you need to have hands on job experience. Such as both filing returns, analysis, and TONS of auditing hours.

Again, I am not an accountant but I think Ive heard enough stories to be giving accurant info. If Im wrong, I apologize.

[Forest_Hills_Daddy]

/\/\

The program I'm looking at is the MS Accounting program in Baruch:

Master of Science (MS) in Accountancy — Zicklin School Of Business - Baruch College - CUNY

The program reduces the job experience requirement for the CPA license to 1 year, from two. I'm hoping that my 5 years experience in corporate finance and research would count as a "satisfactory equivalent" of work experience.

What I hope to get from the accounting education and CPA license is to enhance my skills so that I can use my current background as a starting point and go into more sophisticated fields like financial institutions risk management and control. I feel that a lot of people who were managing the risks of big financial companies didn't have enough accounting knowledge to understand the risks behind all the numbers they were using in their formulas. Another option is to get into a career in turnaround management.

Of course, I could be barking up the wrong tree so I hope someone could give me more clarity on the path I need to pursue.