Before You Hire Your Next Accountant, Ask These 5 Questions
If you’re looking to hire an accountant, you want to be able to draw the line between qualified, self-possessed candidates and candidates who are able to bluff their way through the interview. Finding the right fit for your company is tricky, and a bad hire could end...
Kewho Min on Accounting and Technology
While some accountants decry the increasing dependence on technology in the accounting and finance fields, I, personally, I prefer to have some technology involved. Just think about it: At the beginning of my career, things were still being processed through the...
How To Prepare for an Interview with a Big 4 Firm by Kewho Min
I answered a Quora question recently that asked, "How do I prepare for an interview for tax at Ernst & Young?" The question was a good one as many young and seasoned accountants aspire to work for one of the Big Four accounting firms. Those of you who are new to...
Kewho Min Asks, “Job Insecurity: Myth or Reality?”
In the last few years, hot topics in the news are the economy and the state of the job market. Parents warn their college-aged children not to expect a well-paying, full-time job immediately after graduation, while others plan to bounce from part-time job to part-time...
Accounting Tips for Entrepreneurs
In a piece last week for Forbes, writer Tom Taulli interviewed Rob Nixon, who is the co-founder and CEO of Panalitix, a firm that helps accountants run their businesses. Nixon offered advice, from an accounting perspective, for entrepreneurs who are at the helm of...
College Students Aren’t Learning About Personal Finance (But They Should)
A recent article in the Denver Post says, “College graduates are marching proudly into the adult world, but behind those confident smiles, however, are worries about debt, credit scores and money.” If you read that and were troubled, you’re not alone. The lack of...
Ask Kewho: “How Do I Know If I Need a Financial Advisor?”
As an accountant and finance guy, I deal with numbers and money on a daily basis. But I know that many people are still mystified by their finances, especially when it comes to budgeting and saving. If the idea of doing your own number crunching for yourself and your...
6 Personal Finance Abilities Everyone Should Have
Recently, Dr Penny Pincher posted a list of 12 Personal Finance Skills Everyone Should Master for WiseBread. Here's my take on 6 of the essential skills that made his list. At the top of the list? Budgeting. Only around 33% of individuals really have a point by point...
The Middle Class: America’s Most Misunderstood Population
The term "middle class" is a misnomer. The classification is determined by so many variables--with location being one of the biggest. Every campaign season, candidates always seem to bandy about declarations, saying the middle class this and the middle class that, and...
Should You Consider a Lateral Move?
A promotion isn’t the only way to change positions in your company—or in your career. This month, Harvard Business Review reported that employee may be interested in lateral moves when it comes to achieving the changes or transitions they crave. Kirsten Helvey at...
The Official Blog of Kewho Min
Before You Hire Your Next Accountant, Ask These 5 Questions
If you’re looking to hire an accountant, you want to be able to draw the line between qualified, self-possessed candidates and candidates who are able to bluff their way through the interview. Finding the right fit for your company is tricky, and a bad hire could end up majorly costing you in the long run. So how do you separate the good from the bad hires? Ask your candidates these 5 questions to gauge whether or not they’ll be an appropriate fit for your business.
- What are the top skills that every great accountant possesses? Typically, when posed with this question, candidates will often answer with what they believe to be their best attributes. Good candidates are ones who will include hard and soft skills, like proficient knowledge of big data concepts and great customer relation skills, respectively. The best of the bunch are the ones who can provide examples of when they’ve implemented and developed these skills in previous positions.
Hiring any new employee is an important process in the development of the company.
- Tell us about a time when you made an error in accounting and detail how you handled the situation. Any candidate who claims they’ve never made a mistake is a major red flag. Everyone at some point makes mistakes, so look for the candidates who readily admit that they’ve made mistakes, owned up to them, and corrected them as best as they were able. Mistakes happen, but the best employees will be the ones who take the initiative to rectify their mistakes.
- How do you ensure that you’re up to date on accounting laws and regulations? With how rapidly things change in the finance and accounting industry, it’s in your best interest to hire someone who makes a point of staying current. The best candidates will be the ones who are able to identify ways in which they stay informed by citing industry publications to which they subscribe, professional organizations of which they’re a member, and conferences or webinars that they attend.
- What different types of accounting software have you used in previous jobs? By including this question, you’ll know ahead of time whether a candidate is already familiar with the system you use or if you will need to train them to be able to use it when they start. However, don’t let their knowledge of your system be the deciding factor in choosing your candidate; if they aren’t familiar with the software that you use, ask a follow-up question about how quickly they are able to learn new technologies so you can gauge how quickly they’ll be able to get up to speed.
- Why did you choose a career in finance and accounting? This question is a great one to include on your roster because it can reveal a lot about the candidates true intentions for seeking a position with your company. The best candidates are the ones who show true passion for the industry, and not just someone looking for a good salary and job stability. The ones who are truly passionate about their career choice will be easier to develop and retain within your company.
Kewho Min on Accounting and Technology
While some accountants decry the increasing dependence on technology in the accounting and finance fields, I, personally, I prefer to have some technology involved.
Just think about it: At the beginning of my career, things were still being processed through the ledger paper in the Big Four.
But technology, thankfully, has eliminated calculators, paper ledgers, and pencils. It’s also helped lower the margin for error because it makes mistakes easier to find and correct. Then, of course, there’s the benefit of speed and efficiency. There’s no better perk than getting a job done faster and more accurately.
Writing for ICAS.com, CPA Nick Huber says, “Software is as indispensable to accountants as a trowel is to a bricklayer – and it’s changing faster than it has for a decade.” As for what, specifically, those new and soon-to-be released changes mean, he explains:
“Accountants and business are demanding more from their software. More analysis, more interaction between an accountant and their client, and easier access to information when out of the office – and a burst of innovation is well overdue, according to Giles Mooney,a chartered accountant and tax writer. He says that some tax software has remained largely unchanged for a couple of decades, aside from updates for changes to tax law.”
Although upgraded software and technology–as well as general ledger systems, sub ledger systems and consolidation systems–will make our lives easier, accounting does require a certain level of judgement to be placed (i.e. cash flow statement, impairment testing, etc).
Sure Clients can utilize a cell phone to take a photograph of their receipts and append it to their tax form using FreeAgent, which simplifies bookkeeping. But there’s still a self-appraisal process, not to mention the potential security risks. The other to keep in mind is that the creation of the pronouncements and the disclosures in the publicly filed documents, not to mention the earnings releases, still require the sign off of a human reviewer.
Ask me, “Kewho, has technology replaced human accountants?” in 25 years, though, and I might have a completely different take.
How To Prepare for an Interview with a Big 4 Firm by Kewho Min
The question was a good one as many young and seasoned accountants aspire to work for one of the Big Four accounting firms. Those of you who are new to the industry, might be wondering, “What are the Big Four?” Simply put, the Big Four are the four largest professional services networks in the world that handle the vast majority of audits for publicly traded companies as well as many private companies. Wikipedia reports that the Big Four audit is around 99% of the companies in the FTSE 100, and 96% of the companies in the FTSE 250 Index.
The Big Four companies include:
- Ernst & Young
- PricewaterhouseCoopers
- KPMG
- Deloitte
When giving advice to Ernst & Young interviewees, most people say to study the interview questions. It’s good, standard advice. However, my philosophy is to have a mix of good personality, knowledge of the subject matter, and a desire to work at the company—all of which should come through during the interview.
Ernst & Young is a client-based operation, so one needs to be personable with the team one works with as well as the clients. No client wants to deal with a robot. They want someone who is willing to work with them, so as they do not cross any lines.
You need to also show an eagerness and desire without looking desperate. All accountants want to start in public accounting especially in the Big 4. But there is competition. A lot of competition. If you don’t believe me, try googling “Working for a big 4” and take a look at all the results, most of which offer pros and cons, advice for breaking into one of the companies, and much more.
Ernst & Young, and other big firms like them, doesn’t want the individual who has been out of touch or isn’t seen as desirable by other places, too. You don’t want to appear like a candidate who’s stranded in the desert and willing to accept any glass of water dangled in front of them. The Big Four knows where they stand, but they want a person who also knows their worth. That means a real person. Someone who wants to work hard, learn hard, and at times play hard.
So if you’re interviewing with one of the Big Four companies, my opinion is somewhat contrary to what some “experts” say. My advice? Just relax, come off confident, and know your stuff.
Kewho Min Asks, “Job Insecurity: Myth or Reality?”
In the last few years, hot topics in the news are the economy and the state of the job market. Parents warn their college-aged children not to expect a well-paying, full-time job immediately after graduation, while others plan to bounce from part-time job to part-time job. This mindset is so deeply ingrained that few people question whether or not the idea of job insecurity is true. Will millennials really have to constantly switch jobs and struggle to find a paycheck that allows them to live decently? Is everyone under the age of 30 going to end up living in their parents’ basement for the next several years? A recent article in The New Yorker argues otherwise.
The Facts
It’s touted that remaining at one company and working your way up the corporate ladder is a thing of the past, but research shows differently. The concept of people working at the same job from when they were in their 20s and 30s until retirement seems like something of the past, yet it may be that such a reality never exactly existed the way we think it did. Now, a worker usually stays at his or her job six months longer than they did a decade or so ago. Looking further back, employees typically stay at a job around a year longer than they did in the 1980s.
This type of increased job stability may seem like a good thing, but it could also mean the economy isn’t doing as well. In a strong economy, workers frequently switch careers in an effort to find a better paying job. Or, it could mean that people today have a better understanding of the type of work they’ll enjoy and then get jobs in those areas.
The Real Job Insecurity
Though the outlook for younger workers doesn’t seem too bad concerning job security, there’s one group that has experienced increased insecurity in their jobs – men around middle-age or older. The amount of men at fifty-five who have been in their careers 15 or 25 years has drastically plummeted. Retirement is also later, which means most people feel the pressure to work longer to survive. Job loss in middle-age is a real problem, because of its frequency and the difficulty of finding another job. This trend has led to increased anxiety for middle-aged men, but no one is really talking about it. At some point, it’s an issue that needs to be addressed, because it’ll eventually affect the younger generations as well.
Accounting Tips for Entrepreneurs
In a piece last week for Forbes, writer Tom Taulli interviewed Rob Nixon, who is the co-founder and CEO of Panalitix, a firm that helps accountants run their businesses. Nixon offered advice, from an accounting perspective, for entrepreneurs who are at the helm of fast-growing businesses.
Unfortunately, there aren’t many shortcuts, if any at all, with accounting. It’s one of the practices for which entrepreneurs must be familiar (or, if the entrepreneurs themselves aren’t familiar enough, they at least have to put someone who they deeply trust to be in charge of this business area.) Nixon’s tips, however, do reveal ways that business owners can at least streamline their accounting practices to make the tracking a lot more seamless.
For example, Nixon suggests using cloud-based accounting software so that the data you’re researching is current and up to date and not, as Nixon puts it, “redundant.”
Additionally, cloud-based accounting software also come equipped with the use of dashboards that give you an at-a-glance overview of certain metrics. As for which metrics you can see, well, that’s up to you. “A key advantage of a cloud accounting system is automated dashboards, which can be tailored to your business,” writes Taulli.
An automated dashboard will also help you see which clients are more profitable than others and, as most entrepreneurs know, profitability is always the thing to watch and to keep a close eye on.
But profitability isn’t a zero-sum game. It’s essential to look at the small parts that make up the larger whole. To that end, Nixon touts the importance of surveying your revenue breakdown as an entrepreneur. Says Nixon:
“You can multiply the customer count by the transaction frequency and then by the average price per transaction,” he said. “A 10% improvement in each of the three areas yields a 33.1% improvement in revenue. You can find the source numbers by dividing the number of invoices into revenue and than the number of invoices into the customer count. Real-time accounting systems can give you this data of exactly what your average invoice value is and the frequency of purchasing. Once you understand the numbers, you can set some goals and apply tactics to improve the numbers. What you can measure, you can manage.”
College Students Aren’t Learning About Personal Finance (But They Should)
A recent article in the Denver Post says, “College graduates are marching proudly into the adult world, but behind those confident smiles, however, are worries about debt, credit scores and money.”
If you read that and were troubled, you’re not alone. The lack of financial literacy among adults–and not just young adults–is certainly troubling; but it’s not surprising.
The National Financial Educators Council (NFEC) released statistics last month from its Financial Literacy Test & Survey Center showing a grade level of D (62%) as the average test results for all age groups who were tested for its National Financial Capability Test.
The NFEC reports that at least three states have mandated financial education and they’re seeing some improvements. “Three years after implementing [the mandate] in Georgia, Idaho and Texas, all three states examined saw increased credit scores and lower delinquency rates on credit accounts,” writes the NFEC. “It takes time for state financial education mandates to have an effect. While very few positive effects were measured one year after implementation, by the second year after implementation, there were consistently positive results for the students.”
The Denver Post article about college grads cites a survey by Experian, saying “the majority of college graduates do not feel adequately educated about personal finance topics. The blame, according to students, lies with their institutions of higher learning, which did not prepare them to manage the student loan debt and credit card debt that many face upon graduation.”
There’s much debate about whose role it is to provide financial education. Is it a parental responsibility? A state, or even a national, responsibility? Or, as the Experian survey suggests, the role of an academic institutions who offer higher learning opportunities that, ostensibly, prepare young people for thriving careers in adulthood?
But is landing a good job the only key to having a bright financial future? Not necessarily. Proper money management and a fluid understanding of how personal finance works is equally important.
The graduates who were surveyed reported feeling “stressed, overwhelmed and worried” about their earning potential, as in not making enough money to take care of their daily expenses, which is to say nothing of the fact that many students are leaving college with a lot of debt and little to no savings.
Could financial education put students’ minds at ease? Should the financial education process happen way before students even apply for college? In which case, might some students have less debt by choosing more affordable colleges in the first place?
These are issues that sooner or later we’re going to have to seriously contend with and begin to answer.
Ask Kewho: “How Do I Know If I Need a Financial Advisor?”
As an accountant and finance guy, I deal with numbers and money on a daily basis. But I know that many people are still mystified by their finances, especially when it comes to budgeting and saving. If the idea of doing your own number crunching for yourself and your own money sounds overwhelming, you might want to consider hiring a financial advisor. So how do you know when to call on a professional financial advisor to help? Here are a few things to consider.
6 Personal Finance Abilities Everyone Should Have
Recently, Dr Penny Pincher posted a list of 12 Personal Finance Skills Everyone Should Master for WiseBread. Here’s my take on 6 of the essential skills that made his list.
At the top of the list? Budgeting. Only around 33% of individuals really have a point by point spending plan, yet this is probably the most indispensable money skills to have. You need to understand where your cash is going and to begin putting it toward the things you want.
Another key skill: Negotiating your salary. Getting the best salary from a job offer is not only a key money skill, it’s also a great career skill. Too many people don’t like to negotiate because it can feel uncomfortable. However, employers often extend an offer knowing that you will make a counteroffer. It’s important to hone the ability to ask for what you’re need—and what you’re worth.
Take a look at my video or read the full story over at WiseBread.
The Middle Class: America’s Most Misunderstood Population
The term “middle class” is a misnomer. The classification is determined by so many variables–with location being one of the biggest. Every campaign season, candidates always seem to bandy about declarations, saying the middle class this and the middle class that, and it can be difficult to know just who, exactly, they’re talking about.
For fun, input your income, city and state into CNN Money’s “Are You Middle Class?” calculator. CNN also has an excellent overview entitled “What Is Middle Class, Anyway?”
The definition of middle class isn’t just about income, though. Lifestyle plays a part in the association, too.
2012 and 2013 were big years for books about defining, redefining and/or saving the middle class. From Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele’s The Betrayal of the American Dream to James Carville and Stan Greenberg’s It’s the Middle Class, Stupid!
Here, in a new video called “The Middle Class, Explained,” I explore the various definitions and characteristics of the middle class.
“What Is the Middle Class?” from Kewho Min on Vimeo.
Should You Consider a Lateral Move?
A promotion isn’t the only way to change positions in your company—or in your career.
Kirsten Helvey at Cornerstone OnDemand outlines various influences that affect these types of career decisions. Working with Kelton, a leading global insights firm, Cornerstone OnDemand conducted an online survey of more than 2,000 full-time American employees across various industries. Their findings suggest that American employees want meaningful professional growth (purpose, engagement) and not necessarily a promotion or a bigger paycheck.
So, could employers be underestimating the power of lateral career moves for professional growth? It looks that way. One of the survey’s most surprising findings: People are willing to make lateral career moves into positions with similar titles and pay grades in different departments. And this feeling is shared across generations with the majority of both Baby Boomers and Gen Xers feeling this way.
Says Helvey:
“When asked why they would be willing to make a lateral career move, the most common answers were to find greater personal satisfaction (57%), to pursue an entirely new career path (41%), and to take up a professional challenge (40%).”
Additionally, most employees (66%) would rather make a lateral move at their current company rather than looking elsewhere. This could be because of the convenience (once an employee has already working somewhere for a while he or she already has a feel for the culture and the overall expectations). But it might also be a matter of loyalty. But that loyalty has its contingencies and conditions like, for example employees being loyal only to the extent that they find a position that offers more of what they’re looking for (i.e. personal satisfaction or opportunity for a challenge).
Helvey goes on to cite a LinkedIn survey, “Why and How People Change Jobs,” that revealed one in three people who recently changed jobs changed careers entirely. “They found that these career changers wanted to be challenged, found their old job a poor fit for their skills, and were curious to try out a new industry,” Helvey wrtites.
As it turns out, learning and growth are key motivators for employees. If you’re feeling stuck in a job rut, have you considered the lateral-move option? Take some time to asses the growth opportunities you’d like to experience in your career, and then clearly communicate those ideas to your employer. And remember: “Employee development not only helps with engaging and retaining top talent but also drives better bottom-line results,” says Helvey.