How much an accountant makes?

Question

I graduated june 2006 with a BS In accounting. I had 2 jobs since then. My current duties includes and not limited to Month End close, Bank Recs, JE, Accruals, Reversals, Upload, Commissions, AR & AP reconciliations, P&L , Balance sheet, trial balance, In brief words I handle 90 % of the company`s close. The company I work for is a fortune 500 corporation and I work in one of its diviisions with annual sales of 50 million. I report directly to the CFO of the division. How much do you think I should be making. Any recruiters please help. My review is next monday and I need to see know how much I should settle for. I do a lot more than what I wrote. I also deal with SOX compliance, intercompany transfers, IOJVs,,, Location Los Angeles and i commute about 20 miles from home. The company total sales with all divisions about 6 billion. I work with Oracle ,,Procom ,,,I also used peachtree before in my previous job....Much Thanks

Answer 1

I recommend:
1) What you need to do is to check out http://www.salary.com/
The site can give you the range and median of salary based on your location, job type, tenure/level of experience, compan size, and even bonuses.

2) If you have public accounting experience (Esp. with the Big 4), CPA license, MBA, or financial analysis experiece, then you may be worth more.

3) And don't expect to be able to make a huge jump so soon (1 year out of school). Typical accounting track takes 3 to 5 years to move up to the next level. Doing a lot of different functons signifies great exposure but that also means you don't have the specialty or dedicated experience in one area.

I am not trying to discourage you, just don't want you to have unrealistic expectations going into a review and get disappointed or bitter if you don't get it. With all that said, you sould definitely try for a good raise.

I recomend that you have a list of accomplishments, your achieving prior-set goals and objectives, planned areas of improvement, and goals and objectives for next year going into the review. You can even provide one for your boss to "influence" what he puts into your evaluation.

Good luck!

Just Be!

Answer 2

FYI, 90 % of ceo's come up through accounting.
Now, just because your co does 6 billion rev, it doesn't mean they will try to get away with paying you a pittance. Most big co's do that.
You want action and pay? look for a small co doing 50 millin annual revenue.
Your weakness is your age and lack of experience. Have a CPA? NO? get one!

Answer 3

I don't know, but I'm sure they do.