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Your First Year
In your first year, you will be exposed to a variety of audit or tax engagements and you may even assist with consulting projects. By the end of that year, you may be ready to in-charge an engagement. You will have the opportunity to explore different industry and service niches and identify a focus area. Travel time will vary according to your assignments, but some overnight travel can be expected as you work on projects.
Learning & Development
Starting with an orientation session in your local office and Camp BKD, you’ll get more than three weeks of formal training in your first year alone. You’ll also receive on-the-job supervision by seniors, supervisors, managers and partners to help you learn and grow. Many staff accountants look back on their first year and are amazed at the strides they made by applying what they learned from a variety of training situations.
"When you get here, you need someone who is just a little ahead of you. It’s intimidating to ask someone a question who’s way ahead of you. It’s better if there’s a person assigned to you, and you can ask that person when you get here because you don’t have a clue what to do."
— Megan, first-year staff accountant
Building Your Network
During your first 90 days, you will be matched with a coach—usually a partner, manager or supervisor—who will provide ongoing performance and career feedback, help resolve any issues that may arise and answer a variety of work-related questions.
You’ll also be matched up with a BKD buddy—usually someone with six to 12 months of experience—who will assist you in learning about our culture, values, practices and procedures.
Our buddy and coaching programs are designed to help you adapt to your new environment and provide an infrastructure to help you achieve long-term success.
Advancing Your Career
To advance your career at BKD, you will need to pass the CPA exam if you haven’t done so already. Passing the exam is the first step toward obtaining your license to practice—something you’ll want no matter where your career takes you. BKD will provide you with the Becker exam review course to prepare for the CPA exam and will pay for time off to take it.
Balancing Life & Work
In your first year, you’ll get four weeks of paid days off plus 10 holidays. You also may receive opportunities for reward time off and overnight travel awards. You can participate in community activities and organizations, particularly ones that are of most interest to you. And you can join in networking events, social gatherings and sports activities organized by office personnel.
Day-to-Day Tasks & Activities
You’ll use advanced technology tools to complete your work assignments. In addition to your contributions as a client service team member, you may eventually become a BKD buddy to newer personnel, help with campus recruiting events or take on new challenges as you hone your skills and increase your knowledge of the accounting profession. Here are some representative tasks you can expect:
Accounting & Auditing Tasks
Use advanced technology tools to:- Test bank statement reconciliations
- Perform analytical test for fluctuations in income and expense
- Control confirmation test work for verification of account balances, such as investments, accounts receivable and notes payable
- Perform tests of internal controls
- Test accounts receivable aging schedules for accuracy
- Reconcile accounts payable and test vendor invoices
- Test accrued expense schedules
- Test depreciation computations
- Prepare trial balances and propose adjustments and reclassifications electronically
- Draft financial statements and auditors’ reports
- Gather data for a Medicare cost report
- Prepare an income projection for a small business consulting engagement
- In-charge some smaller engagements
- Observe inventory test counts
- Make recommendations to clients for improving productivity and efficiency
Tax Tasks
Use advanced technology tools to:- Prepare individual, corporate, partnership, estate, trust and tax-exempt returns
- Prepare multistate and city tax returns
- Provide services for employee benefit plans
- Assist in research for IRS examinations and gather detail to support client position
- Draft responses to federal, state and city notices from taxing authorities
- Research tax issues
- Prepare tax projections under different income and deduction variables
- Help train newer staff on technology tools
- In-charge simple tax returns
- Attend tax department technical update discussion group meetings
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