Comments on: What makes accountants so special anyway?

By: Stephen Poltrock

Stephen Poltrock — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 18:16:43 +0000

We’re continuously keeping a healthly scepticism when comparing the wide range of distance-learning business courses to register on. I always like what I read here and we’ll keep checking back for more tips.

By: James

James — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 13:22:21 +0000

John Bond, you seem arrogant and ignorant. The top quartile of iqs is from 110 up and only about 1 in 1000 people have iqs of 145 and over 145.

By: ishmael

ishmael — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 18:40:19 +0000

i am a medical doctor and i think to be a doctor in south africa its a waste of time , we study for long (6 to 7 years at varsity) , we work on public holiday , christmas , festive season , during the night . we spend less time with the family but i earn 18 000 a month , thats messed up . i wish i was a charted accountant too . now i must pay for my student loan , pay for my car , my house , support my family out of 18000, oo.the only way to live comfortable life as a doctor is to open your own practice because our government underpays us , but in US ,UK Canada is the opposite , most people in those countries wish that they were doctors but in rsa we wish were ca or engineers

By: Tony

Tony — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:01:36 +0000

Accountants are not players, they simply keep the score. Unfortunately SA is taking a while to realise that most accountants don’t really make great leaders. They don’t have the necessary people skills, let alone the ability to take the necessary risks in building entrepreneurial businesses.

By: EffKay

EffKay — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 12:05:23 +0000

The pay of a CA is really related to the WORK they do.
The letters CA mean in essence that this person is the Accountant Of Accountants. The CA is really there to check that none of the other money counters are ripping off the rest of us. Theoretically speaking. This is why CAs need to be a lot quicker on the take and a lot sharper on the money. They’re the keepers of Accounting Law and that’s where the money goes to: Keeping them “Above Reproach”. Theoretically Speaking.

By: Phillipa Lipinsky

Phillipa Lipinsky — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 09:42:07 +0000

CA deserve the money they earn because, really, it is the mostboring and lifeless profession. I have never heard of a single person who actually enjoys working as a CA but I know many who really appreciate the money. It is much better to be a doctor, atleast you interact with people, and if you’re industrious and truly talented; you do research that will ultimately benefit humanity. That being said, the most important and difficult professions in the world are teaching and raising children (whether as a nanny or an unpaid mother). Those are the people we should celebrate.

By: Aspiring CA

Aspiring CA — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 12:29:13 +0000

What is with the fixation over what salaries CA’s get. A company that pays a CA a lot of money is getting their money’s worth or atleast what they deserve (if they are overpaying).CAs have not forced anyone to rate them highly in SA and in business.

Anyone else who says that In Europe bla bla CA’s are not highly rated as opposed graduates with subjects such as History languages etc fails to understand te history of Europe where “high society” including royals studied these course as oppossed to finance/accountancy related course as they were seen as for plebians and not high society.

Furthermore, what is the big fuss? Come on, who cares what they earn. There will be CA’s who do well and those that are useless, just as much as there are great doctors (chris Barnard) and other weak ones, great drop outs (Bill Gates) and lots that are criminals as well.

Oh and there will be whinners like those complaining and none whinners(CAs who are favoured by the “prestige if the qualification”).

It is also good that Sarah studied drama, and we can clearly see that it is “dramatic” article based on sensationalist claims.

By: OneFlew

OneFlew — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 00:51:15 +0000

Ariel, there is now a smaller requirement for actuarial time and services. FS pensions use up more actuarial time that life insurance products that also rely heavily on non-actuarial underwriters. The demise of FS pensions has left a hole in the collective actuarial timesheet, at least in the UK.

I agree there are more accountants in the UK too, but the scale difference is materially larger in the case of actuaries; just one large firm in the UK had about 7 times as many actuaries as the whole SA about 6 years ago. They have scaled down since.

Of course neither accountants nor actuaries are as worshipped in the UK as in SA but that is probably just a cultural thing.

David, I think the SA actuaries were perhaps allowed to be just a little more eccentric than their UK counterparts; it’s really just a form of prima donna-ishness. Even so, the top guys (say Marinus Daling or Mike Levett) didn’t necessarily come across as all that eccentric, though admittedly they were working in bigger roles than simple actuarial ones.

Actuaries in the UK now certainly have to be more commercial and more able to have a rounded discussion which properly weighs business risk in their discussions with trustees and companies than only a few years ago. They are not all equally successful in making the transition.

By: Neil Parker

Neil Parker — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 06:45:46 +0000

Methinks the money men doth (do) protest too much!

By: David

David — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 00:13:26 +0000

@OneFlew – that’s why actuaries are now walking the halls of Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, BarCap etc. The guys who sell complex derivative instruments don’t necessarily know the intricate details of how they work, but the actuaries do. If that’s not your cup of tea, the research departments would be more than happy to hire the odd actuary to cover insurance stocks, etc. And, truth be told, investment banks pay better than insurers… The actuaries of old used to be extremely eccentric, but these days they’re quite normal (no offense to any actuarial types), so the transition to IB has been quite easy.

Back to the topic, I didn’t get my CA. 3 weeks into my BCom and I thought there is no way I could do accounting for the rest of my life. In the end, I married a CA, so indirectly I did eventually get my CA!