if you've come to check out this video you're probably thinking about going
into public accounting or just want to learn more about the type of hours
public accountants work there are several factors that I can share with
you in my six years of experience that are going to determine how many hours a
week you'll actually have to work on average throughout the course of the
year by the end of this video I think you guys are gonna have a much better
understanding of the type of hours you'll have to put in if you work as an
accountant I highly recommend watching this whole video because at the end of
it I'm going to show you a spreadsheet that breaks down the average hours per
week for each month of the year that you can expect to work in public accounting
what's up guys it's Mike also known as MK the CPA welcome to money and live TV
the channel that you come to every single week to improve your financial
position your career and your life if you guys have not already seen my video
on how much money do CPAs make make sure to check it out I'll link it up right
above and also I'll put links to that video in the description down below in
that video I asked hey if you want to see more videos like this and want to
learn more about public accounting I said just hit that like button and you
guys did you guys really voted that you wanted to see more videos like this and
so that's one of the reasons I'm producing this video I remember starting
off in public accounting or when I was first thinking about becoming an
accountant first thing I thought about was hey what kind of money they make but
the second thing I thought about was what kind of hours do they work and
that's what this video is gonna cover now I can only share from my personal
experience when I did some research online just to see what other kind of
information is out there you get answers that are kind of all over the place so I
really think it comes down to a few key factors which we're gonna talk about
right now that are gonna really be the determining factors of how many hours
you can expect to put in every week throughout the year as the public
accountant in all my years of experience I think the most important thing that's
gonna determine how many hours a week you can expect to put in is actually
where you work I know that was a very common factor and determine your salary
but this is also true in determining the number of hours you work
so the size of the firm is really gonna matter depending on what firm you're
looking at joining I've seen both ends of the spectrum there's the very very
small firm where there's 10 or less people and you have the role of doing
everything you're answering the phones you're preparing tax returns you're
doing audits that can be an environment where it can be very very busy because
there's very few people to do the work then I've seen the other end of the
spectrum where we look at big four big four firms like KPMG PwC over the years
of working in accounting I've met several people who've worked out
four firms and to this day I still have yet to meet a person who has come from a
big four environment who said they have not worked a lot of hours what I've
heard is common is 50 hours a week 60 hours a week even up to 80 hours a week
at a big firm I find that the sweet spot is if you join a firm within around
fifty to a hundred people firms that seem to have fifty two hundred people
there's different people taking care of different functions of the firm so you
can be a little bit more specialized but not have to do every part of the
accounting process for example you might not have to do auditing and taxes maybe
you can just focus on taxes and that's what I focus at in my firm I just focus
on taxes we have other teams other departments who focus on audits we have
a separate department that does all the bookkeeping to firms like that kind of
have a team approach but what I found and that's what has allowed for some
flexibility at my job I'm not gonna talk a lot about work-life balance because I
want to save that for another video I think the number of hours and work-life
balance it's related but they're really two different things and I'll explain
why in a future video all right so the culture of the firm obviously the size
of the firm I think those are the most important things initially I think the
second most important factor that's gonna determine what kind of hours you
work is the type of work that you do obviously if you work tax you're gonna
work a lot of hours during tax season if you work audit you might have different
busy times other things consider is if you're an expert in this particular
niche let's say like a states and trusts or nonprofit
you know usually those are very niche oriented and there's very few people who
do the work in those areas so if you get involved in niches you might find
yourself working more hours than some of the other team members for example let's
say you do estates and trusts you'll have estates and trusts tax returns to
do right you'll have gift tax returns you're gonna have maybe some seven oh
six is to prepare and some other stuff you might have to do that work on top of
doing the individual returns the business returns etc so you
your schedule might be a little busier because you're in a niche so those are
some things to consider in regards to the type of work that you do you're
probably gonna be busy at different times throughout the year you're
probably wondering hey what's the busiest week or what's the most hours
you've ever put in in a single week and I can I'm happy to answer that the most
hours I've ever put in in a single week was 72 hours now I know people like I
said in the big four firms they're putting an ad I know somebody who's put
in 90 hours a week or more so there's people that do that I do not recommend
it but generally I do not work 72 hours a week that's only happened in the 6
years I've been doing public accounting I've only worked that many hours in a
week like once or twice in 6 years I try to maintain my schedule pretty
well so I don't have to put in that number of hours because that's pretty
intense now because public accounting and accounting in general is so company
specific the best advice I can give you is if you're thinking about working
somewhere so let's say there's a firm in town where you know you're thinking of
working but you're not gonna know you're obviously not gonna know those hours
until you're in this environment so what I could recommend you do is if you know
somebody at that company take them to lunch get to know them and just ask them
some questions know if you can jobs out of them see if they'll let you do that
all right you know if you can just see what their job is like you know chances
are they're gonna be pretty open and honest with you because like I said this
type of work is very company specific and based on the company you work at and
the type of worker you are the two main factors that are gonna determine the
hours you work per week if you know you want a flexible schedule I would really
negotiate that going in find out if the company even has a flexible work hours
many of them don't I've worked at three public accounting firms and only one of
them have had flexible work hours so don't assume that even though we have
technology that allows us to work from home and all these other things don't
assume that every firm is gonna be flexible on the
hours but like I said I would take somebody off the lunch and get to know
them ask them about the company or I would negotiate upfront that flexible
schedule if you can if that's really important to you and I would ask as many
questions as you can about the company before you actually start
okay guys I am back with you and here's the spreadsheet I love to give you I
love well first of all I love spreadsheets cuz I'm a freaking
accountant but here it is guys I wanted to give you a visual representation an
organized rep visual representation of the expected at hours you might work
when you join a public accounting firm I especially wanted to make this because I
remember you know way back when I started public accounting you know these
are the type of questions that are difficult to ask and it's kind of like
kind of like bad boot that um get like that bad vibes right or bad voodoo if
you ask questions like this right like if you ask about hey how much do you
make or hey what kind of hours you work it's like not professional to ask such
questions but here on YouTube I can cover that I can talk about things like
that now obviously this is just from my own research all of this information and
from my own experience each accountant you've talked to is probably gonna have
some overlap with what the experience I've had but they also might have a
whole different set of hours they work especially if they work big for are at a
smaller firm so it really depends on who you ask but I just want to share my
experience with you guys so the way I broke this out is I've broken this
information out by month so throughout the year you can kind of see when
there's busy times and when there's not so busy times and like I said that
really comes back to what you do with them at the firm but and then I've
covered like what's busy season it is and then over here I think these are the
industry averages based on my knowledge of the industry and the research I've
done and then I've kind of broken out my averages over here now I'll let you guys
pause the video if you really want to look at this spreadsheet closely but let
me just point out a few things so you'll notice that tax season depending on the
type of clients you have now that's the one thing I forgot to mention the type
of clients you have will also determine how busy you are because some clients
are more involved than others that's part of the hours mix if you ask me but
in January that's when tax season starts right so usually it's the third week of
January is when tax season really begins the pickups or the third week of January
or the end of January is when things really start to ramp up and you go from
forty hours a week 250 hours a week or more that's when that when I found that
stars from my experience like I said though it just depends on your workload
your client Nick's now I am I have clients who who have a
November you're in and so come January I'm already working on their tax return
so I'm already busy super busy the day after New Year's I am full fledge into
this thing and I'm working my butt off by the time I finished them that client
group then I'm already into the rest of the stuff and I'm busy all the way
through April 15 I think industry averages depending on the hours you
negotiate upfront and what you can expect is gonna be anywhere from 40 to
70 hours a week I honestly think for most people you're
only gonna be working maybe 40 to 50 in January but towards the end of January
you're probably working about 55 to 60 hours a week same is true for February
you're probably looking at 55 to up the 70 hours a week with like 55 being the
average just consider 55 to be the average work week 50 to 55 hours or
maybe even 50 to 60 hours a week I would expect for most firms now big four
you're probably I'm guessing going the average would be more like 60 to 80
hours a week and a big four firm but I don't know I've never worked at a big
four firm now obviously so in March you have the business tax return deadline so
it can be super super freaking busy around March 15 one of my year is where
I work 70 hours was around the business deadline around March 15 I've only done
that one year or once there twice in my life but near a major deadline that's
when the hours really really ramped up then in April same thing it can be
really crazy busy possibly the most busiest the first or second week of
April when you're trying to get everybody's individual return done so
the obviously you can guys can look at the hour ranges here and kind of
determine for yourself so my average is so in January I Pro you know starting
off in January I'm probably working like 40 to 50 hours a week you know usually
about 45 the first week or two it just depends really if when the information
comes in but I'm I would expect about 45 to 50 hours a week in January and then
towards the end of January you know I'm back to 50 to 55 now most of most
the tax season I've worked I I work around 55 hours a week most of the time
between then I range between 55 to 60 hours I do not usually go much over 60
if at all I usually be stay between 55 and 60 and
that's all the way through tax season guys you know some weeks I'll work 61 62
but usually that's the highest I get except for those two times in my life
where I work seven over 70 hours in May so now let's step take let's take a step
outside of tax season most people aren't that busy first leaving taxes in there
might be a lot of extension work left to do there might be audits starting up or
ramping up it just depends but there is for me since I do taxes there's actually
a non-profit or an exempt organization deadline in May on May 15th so I still
stay pretty busy not like tax season busy but you know even outside of tax
season my hours go back down to around 40 so I probably arrange between 40 to
43 hours the rest of the year are between 40 to 45 as you can see in June
you know I think the average is for most companies outside of tax season in
public accounting are probably 40 to 50 or as mine range between usually forty
to forty three hours a week that's what I typically put in and that seems to
work for me and I'm still able to get my work done timely and turn it around
quickly like I said guys I don't tube or you can just look at these charts and
graphs I will let you guys know that um as you can see I put a range right
because every company is gonna be a little bit different so it can vary but
I'm most the time on though I'm on the lower end of the range I'm usually not
on the high end of these ranges so if you're looking at my averages look more
towards the lower end to the middle so just bigger most of the year
outside of tax season I'm working 40 to 45 hours a week now in September that's
of course the business tax return extension deadline it gets a little busy
around there you might work some overtime in that area to finish all
those business returns same thing is true for October and October on October
15th is the deadline for people's personal returns that were extended but
around that time obviously you can really ramp up again
you know I might find myself working close to 50 hours a week or the first
couple weeks of October but like I said guys most of the year
outside of tax season I'm working forty to forty three hours a week and that's
what I'm happy with that's my balance I if I work much more
than that that really cuts into my personal life my health you know doing
being able to do this YouTube channel so I work I worked really hard to manage my
hours the best I can so I can do other things outside of work and stuff like
this because I really love doing sharing information like this with you guys and
being a part of that so guys feel free to Stu spawns the video check out the
spreadsheet and just remember the factors I mentioned I will list the
factors that we talked about earlier in the video in the comment section down
below and also includes some time stamps so you can jump right to those points if
you want to revisit it make sure to check out my video on accounting
salaries or how much money CPAs make if you want to see more videos like this
guys just make sure to let me know in the comment section down below and like
I said just hit that like button because when you hit that like button it's like
Mike yes more content like this please I'm really interested in this kind of
stuff and I want to learn more about it alright guys if you liked the video make
sure you smash that like button if you liked it share this information with a
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have not already subscribed highly consider subscribing because I make new
videos typically every single week that are gonna help you learn personal
finances investing taxes and things that are gonna help you not only in your
career but every day life alright guys thank you for being such a wonderful
audience I would love to hear from you in the comments section below what's the
most hours you've ever worked at a county firm or in a single week it
doesn't have to be even being in accounting what's the most hours you've
ever worked in a single week leave it in the comments section down below and like
I said guys thank you so much for your love and support you guys are a great
audience and thank you for taking the time to watch this video good luck to
you in your search to become a public I hope you found this information
helpful if for some reason I did not answer your question just feel free to
drop me a question I'm very happy to respond to any questions you may have
and I will see you guys in next week's video bye guys hey