What is public practice accounting? How does it differ from other types of accounting?

Answer 1

Public accountants do accounting for many businesses or audits for large businesses. Private accountants work for one company. I did public accounting for about 17 years for small firms. Small companies have usually an owner do the basics like writing the paychecks the send them to the accounting firm for payroll taxes, business taxes, financial statements and corporate tax returns or partnership returns as well as planning advice.
Private accountants do the same sort of work but only for one company. I do accounting now for a shipyard but we have a CPA firm to do our audits and corporate return. Our CPA is one I used to work for in the late 70s and early 80s.