Public accounting salary transparency survey!

[myCAsite]

Following the success of the 2009 recruiting salary transparency survey, myCAsite.com has decided to publish a public accounting salary survey. The purpose is to index the salary of intermediate and senior staff accountants at firms across Canada, as well as UFE, busy season, and annual bonuses. The survey is anonymous and the deadline is June 30, 2010. An initial set of results will be released at the beginning of the April, and the remaining results will be released in July. The link is as follows:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/5FK6F7X

Thanks for participating!

[myCAsite]

As promised, I have published the first set of results in two formats:
- Excel - http://mycasite.com/for_web/pages/articles/industry/pdfs/survey.xls
- PDF - http://mycasite.com/for_web/pages/articles/industry/survey_results.php

Comments:

- Predominant determinant of pay seemed to be geographic location. Again, there is a strong correlation between cost of living and salary, meaning those in Toronto seemed to earned the most.

- As opposed to the Recruiting transparency survey, where there were a lot of consistencies, salaries for intermediate and senior staff accountants seemed to vary widely. This is because, after your first year at a firm, pay (whether it be salaries or bonuses) depend on performance, and there can be a big gap between the top and bottom performers.

- Only a handful of people reported receiving busy season bonuses. Annual bonuses seemed more common, but varied widely.

- Local firms seemed to offer the best bonuses, perhaps because, their clients were a little less impacted by the downturn than bigger firms.

Overall, given the small sample size, it is difficult to make any generalization about the results. So, more participants would be greatly appreciated. However, it useful for people working at public accounting firms to refer to.

[victorpazos]

Salaries for Senior Staff Accountant 1 are significantly lower than what I was earning when I used to work at a big 4 firm. I guess it's a by-product of the reccession.

[Krupo]

The senior 3 pay in Ottawa is scary-low, cost-of-living notwithstanding.

[Accounting_Nerd]

Firstly, I wonder why is there such a hype for CA designation when even the UFE passed outs are getting salaries ranging from 45K to 50K. Next, this is way different from the CASB CA orientation sessions that I attended that gave us brochures which specified a salary range of 90K to 110K for UFE passed outs but still article-ing to fulfill experience criteria. I would love to see discussions about this, anyone any idea?

[myCAsite]

The only authoritative guide to CA compensation is the salary survey released by the Institute every two years. According to the 2009 results the average newly designated CA makes about $72,000. Depending on your provincial Institute/region, once you pass the UFE, you might still have 1-2 years to complete in terms of getting your designation. So, this would explain the gap in earnings between those who have passed the UFE but are not CAs, and newly-designated CAs

Link to discussion of 2009 salary survey results:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=136&p=403&hilit=2009+CA+source+salary+survey#p403

[myCAsite]

Finalized results of our Public Accounting salary transparency survey have been published! Thanks to all 53 people who entered! The links are the same as the ones above, but I have copied them here:

Results - pages/articles/industry/survey_results.php
Excel file - pages/articles/industry/pdfs/survey.xls

Overall, the revised set of results are very consistent with the previous set of results. There are two things to understand regarding compensation of intermediate/senior public accountants in Canada:

(i) for intermediates and senior I, the pay is fairly consistent and depends primarily on geography and cost-of-living
(ii) for seniors II/III/IV, results vary a little because pay depends highly on performance (as a junior/intermediate, it is a little harder to differentiate yourself, and therefore, salaries tend to vary a little less)

[dubble_dubble]

The independent Public Accounting salary transparency survey is a great resource for all of us CA wannabes!

For a wannabe like myself, in my opinion, mycasite.com should survey the number of hours worked/weekend assignments/etc for articling positions etc. as part of the transparency survey. I think this would paint a clearer picture of what to expect in the future.

Just my 2 cents.

But overall, great job!

[myCAsite]

Hi, welcome to the site! Thanks for the comment. We did a poll on the front page asking CAs how much they worked during busy season at a public accounting firm, but I didn't record the results. So, for the next salary survey, that is definitely something to consider!