Why size matters in public accounting.
Public accountants assist with filing taxes, creating tax strategy, reviewing financial records, creating financial statements, and providing solid accounting advice to their clients along with many other things. So you think public accounting may be your career path? Select your firm carefully. Each comes with different pros and cons.
Size of Firm Matters
The Big 4 firms dominate the public accounting world. They audit the majority of the world’s public companies and many private companies. These firms are Deloitte, EY, KPMG, and PWC. There revenues range in the muliti-billions.
Specialization: If you start a career here, you’ll find yourself more specialized from the start. You’ll either enter as an auditor, tax accountant, or consultant of some type. You will spend your time in that one area from day one.
Clientele: Your clients will be the world’s largest and you’ll be exposed to large complex systems and operations. Needless to say, if you plan on leaving public accounting for private industry later as part of your career plan, you’ll be highly sought after.
In the mid-range are firms like McGladrey, Grant Thornton, BDO, CBIZ, and a handful of others.
Specialization: You may have the opportunity to provide services in more than one area of specialty and among a greater variety of clients at a mid-size firm. In addition, you most likely will have increased opportunity to move up faster and take on more responsibility earlier because of the smaller size of clients.
Clientele: These firms still service both public and privately held companies, but typically have a greater diversity of clientele. Their clients typically are not as large and as complex as the Big 4, but don’t mistake that for non-sophisticated.
And then there’s everyone else. These firms range from regional size firms with a few offices to the sole proprietor office doing primarily tax work.
Specialization: You’ll most likely wear many hats and provide a range of services if you work at one of these firms. Smaller firms are known, on average, for more work life balance (you’ll still work plenty hard though) and less overtime than their larger counterparts. Keep in mind that you’ll get to touch on more areas of work, but coming from a smaller firm won’t carry the same prestige as the larger guys.
Clientele: Many of these firms focus on tax preparation and bookkeeping along with reviews and small audits. They tend to focus in an industry and be known for an industry specialization like manufacturing or non-profit, etc.
Why does size matter?
It can affect how quickly you advance in rank. The smaller the firm, typically the faster you can climb.
It can affect your job prospects if you leave public accounting. Whatever clientele you work with is most likely to be the type of company that would want to hire you if you ever leave for private industry.
It will affect your knowledge base and skills. If you start at a larger firm, you’ll be entering a niche from almost day one so you should be prepared for that particular specialized career path.