Public Accountant Key Figure in U. S. Industry

A certified public accountant is a professional man, a specialist, who offers his services to the public on a fee basis, like physicians, scientists, lawyers and engineers. He is subject to the same type of ethical restrictions relating to advertising and soliciting new clients as govern the other professions.

He dedicates himself to two primary endeavors--the exercise of his professional skill and the advancement of his profession to answer the changing and increasing demands of society. With the conviction that his work is socially valuable, he must have the desire to serve unselfishly and without being dominated by the expectation of monetary rewards.

As a recognized profession in this country, public accounting is still young--only about 55 years old. In 1900 about 250 certified public accountants practiced in the United States; in 1954 there are probably over 50,000; in 1960 the number may reach 60,000.

By enormous strides public accounting has outstripped its humble bookkeeping origins, and left behind the early conception that the most important aspects of accounting are purely mathematical. Its present service is the accumulation, presentation, and evaluation of all the tangible elements of our economic structure.

Although the profession of public accounting is relatively young, the art of bookkeeping and accounting originated in Babylon, 5,000 years ago. As business has expended over the centuries, accounting techniques have grown increasingly complex--even beyond the comprehension of all except these skilled in them. But their basic purpose stays the same: to write the story of business transactions in a clear and significant language, the language of money. Modern business could not exist without these techniques.

The measure of a profession's place in human society is not its antiquity but the extent of its services. Specifically the principal types of work which a professional certified public accountant performs are these:

AUDITING

(1) The examination and verification of the accuracy of the financial records of corporations, partnerships, and single proprietorships.

(2) The preparation from these records of an interpretation which reveals the earnings or losses over a stated period of time and the financial condition of the enterprise at the end of the period. This interpretation is no longer in most cases for the use of a single owner-manager. Modern corporate business new derives its capital from a vast number of stock-holders and bondholders. These are the real owners to whom financial reports, prepared or verified by independent, unprejudiced certified public accountants, must be submitted. It was this necessity that created the profession--the need of a completely unbiased interpretation and opinion from an independent authority.

TAX ACCOUNTING

Tax service to clients, which includes the preparation of federal and state tax returns and all the miscellaneous calculations required for these returns, has almost outstripped in importance and volume the service rendered in other firms of the accountant's professional work. Especially among smaller firms of certified public accountants, tax work has not infrequently given them their start and may continue to constitute the major part of their practice.

SYSTEM BUILDING

The designing and installation of accounting and cost systems for the special needs of various enterprises, because it is truly constructive work, is one of the most useful and engrossing phases of a certified public accountant's service to the public.

SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS

The variety of special accounting problems and economic mysteries which a certified public accountant may be called upon to solve is almost without limit. The discovery of fraud or the misappropriation of cash or merchandise is not, as is sometimes assumed, one of the prime objectives of an accountant's peculiar talents; but this sort of work is a frequently and important service to his clients.

A young man or woman who intends to become a certified public accountant should have a college education. In the beginning, ideally, a broad liberal arts course, four years if possible, then a graduate course with concentration on accounting, economic, and legal subjects. The accepted leader in present-day business is a man well-informed not only in his specialty but in cultural matters--history, government, international relations, languages.

TECHNICAL TRAINING

His technical courses should, of course, follow systematically and thoroughly all the steps of the art of keeping accounts, not slighting the mechanics of bookkeeping. He should learn how the recording of monetary transactions can set forth the daily financial history of the business enterprise. He should study and understand business law, and most important, the provisions of our state and federal tax laws. He should have courses in cost accounting system building, and government accounting.

$250 TO $400 MONTHLY

Today, more than at any time in the nation's history the accounting profession is urgently in need of competent young men and women. There are simply not enough degree holders from liberal arts colleges and from graduate schools of business administration who are entering public accounting firms. The story of the profession has not been adequately told.

The starting salary of young accountants entering established firms depends on the geographic location, the college record of the new Staff member, his likeness of mind, and his personality and appearance. Currently his starting salary runs from $250 to $400 a month. This is less than he could command in a private position with an industrial enterprise. But the starting salary should not be at primary importance; he must look sheet to where he will be ten years hones. Merit is recognized and advancement, is almost certain.

In the United States, where schools of accounting and business administration are numerous and their instruction is adequate, the young employee's services are valuable immediately. His college courses no not embrace all the problems that he will face in actual practice nor the specific procedures of his accounting firm. Therefore he still has much to learn from his employers. By the end of four or five years, however, he will be handed independent and important assignments and may expect to earn around $6,000 a year. If he becomes a supervisor, a contract manager, or later a partner, of if be establishes a practice of his own, his income may be $10,000 to $25,000 a year. Some certified public accountants earn $100,000 a year.

PROFESSIONAL INDEPENDENCE

A certified public accountant as a professional man does not have to become bemired in the vicissitudes of his clients. Except for the loss of a fee, he need not be too disturbed nor is his reputation impaired by the financial failure of a client. He does not have to become involved in the personal jealousies and disputes of company officials or office personnel. He puches no time clocks.

A public accountant's technical equipment, his specialized knowledge, is his permanent possession. No one can take it from him. If he loses his post with one firm, he is still equipped mentally as a result of work experience to fill another.

There is enormous pride and satisfaction to be gained from the privilege of serving people, communities and governments, quite apart from the monetary reward. Professional men everywhere are stimulated by it. There is a dignity in professional work that is its own reward.