Michael Richardson

Accounting 303
3-1-15
Accounting 303 Summary
Throughout the duration of class on Friday the 27th, the main
professions that were discussed consisted of Academia, Government,
and Non-For Profit sectors of Accounting. The guest speakers during
the lecture were Susan Scholz who is the KU School of Business
Associate Dean, Stephanie Goings who is a Senior Auditor at the Office
of Inspector General, Robin Potts who is the Finance Director at
Harvesters, and Jeff Carlstedt who works for CBIZ as a Public Auditor.
Susan Scholz was the first speaker and talked about a career in
Academia. The main topics discussed were pursuing tenure versus
non-tenure. One of her first points that stuck in my mind was the
structure of accounting for outcomes opposed to timeliness. Moving
along the tenure track requires teaching, research, service, and of
course a PHD. Steps needed to attain tenure are generally two years of
class (statistics, existing research), 2-3 years of dissertation to become
an apprentice, and then an additional 5 years of work to become an
assistant professor. If you do well as an assistant professor and get 2-5
major journal publications you can get promoted to associate
professor. After continuous administrative work, diverse class
teachings, and about 5-10 years of experience you can transition from

an associate professor to a professor. As for the non-tenure track;

teaching, administrative work, and programmatic activities are the
main responsibilities. The primary responsibilities for non-tenure
professors are classes and face-to-face mentoring. A great perk about
non-tenure is the amount of flexibility involved and the opportunity to
choose ones schedule. A masters degree or a PHD are required.
The second guest speak was Stephanie who discussed the
government side of accounting at the Office of the Inspector General.
The mission statement at OIG is to promote economic efficiency &
effectiveness in government programs. Stephanie is part of the data
analysis division and their areas of responsibility consist of Audit and
investigation. Stephanie mentioned several perks of working for the
government such as open collaboration, travel, flexibility, working from
home, and one day off every two weeks. In addition to these perks,
Stephanie mentioned that 50 percent of government employees are
eligible for retirement within five years, which offers a major incentive
to pursue a government position.
The next speaker was Robin who works as a finance director at
the non-profit company called Harvesters. Robin discussed many
similarities between non-profit and for-profit companies, but the main
differences that stood out were that Non-profits dont have to pay
income taxes, lots of stakeholders, government reporting and
compliance, and donor restrictions. Some of Robins day-to-day

activities were submitting proposals to huge funders, dealing with

inventory and the processes associated, and negotiation claims in
regards to damaged product. Robin mentioned that many times
staffing is thin, so working out of your comfort zone is a common
occurrence (she had to work as finance director as well as Human
resources).
The final speaker was Jeff who works for CBIZ in the public
accounting side for non-profit companies. Jeffs main role for the
company is allocating the percentages of each dollar received within
the non-profit company and whether its going to the cause at hand or
overhead involved. An interesting point that Jeff mentioned was the
various techniques needed when talking to potential funders versus
banks. When talking to banks about borrowing money, they are
interested in whether or not they believe the company at hand will
make the loan payments based off their deposits, credit, and assets.
When talking to donor parties, theyre interested in where their money
will be going and what percentage of each dollar is going to the main
cause at hand. In summary, Jeff noted that sometimes its beneficial to
demonstrate wealth and growth to banks (so they trust they will be
paid back), opposed to demonstrating lack of donations and poorness
to donors (so they potentially donate more). Jeff made it apparent how
important ratios are to non-profits specifically those dealing with the
costs to raise a dollar and what youre actually spending the dollar on.