Both public accounting firms and private companies are constantly searching for qualified accounting and finance temps for several reasons. First, the annual tax season, which begins in January or February each year and ends April 15 for most individuals, places ever increasing demands on the capacity of the accountants. A successful public accounting firm must increase its professional staff each tax season, and near the end of each quarter for its corporate clients, to meet this demand. Second, as noted previously, the tremendous explosion in the delivery of healthcare services, consolidation of hospital ownership nationally, mergers of hospital management companies, and increasing government regulation of Medicaid, Medicare, and similar programs necessitates that the healthcare industry employ an ever growing number of accountants. Since there is no direct contact between these accountants and the customer base, the use of accountant temps is facilitated. A third reason mandating the use of accountant temps is the traditional occurrence of illness, maternity leave, family crisis, unexpected resignation, fluctuating workload, and special project.
In their 1997 salary survey, Robert Half Accountemps, based in Menlo Park, California, reported an increase in pay rates for accountant temps ranging from 1.4% to 4%. Depending on the region of the country and level of experience and expertise, accountant temps are paid anywhere from $18 $20 an hour up to $35 $40 an hour. People who work as professional technical temps in the accounting field have several types of jobs from which to choose. The positions include a variety of financial skills. For example, someone in accounting can be classified in many different ways: full charge bookkeeper; staff accountant; accounting supervisor; someone with cost accounting, tax, or healthcare experience; accounts receivable; accounts payable; and credit and collections.
Another area, where staffing services place people in temporary and full time jobs, is in payroll. Companies call staffing services and ask for payroll specialists who have experience in automated or computerized payroll.
Staffing services that specialize in placing accountants code them according to skills and experience to determine what the pay will be.
Some staffing services include a salary survey for accounting and finance on their Web sites. A 1996 1997 survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics says accountants with limited experience had a median income of $25,400, and the most experienced had median earnings of $57,200. Public accountants working for public accounting firms with limited experience had median earnings of $28,100, and experienced median income was $48,800.
The tax season demands an increase in the number of accountants and calls for a lot of accounting. Temps with tax experience may choose to work only during this time of the year. Andy was one such person. Andy started working for a public accounting firm when he graduated from college in 1955. He started out as a junior accountant, then became a staff accountant, rose to senior accountant, and retired as an accounting supervisor for the tax division of one of the Big Six accounting firms.
When Andy retired he found that he had more time on his hands than he wanted; he decided to go back to work two days a week during the tax season. Rather than freelance, he decided to let a staffing service find a part time job for him. The service was glad to have Andy as an applicant, except for the fact that he did not have any computer skills.
The staffing service he chose decided to turn the situation into a win win for both the service and Andy. On the days Andy was not working, he spent time in the staffing service's training area and learned Lotus and Excel. He had always had a fear of computers, and this helped him overcome his fear and impatience with computer software. As it turned out, Andy found that using a computer was not as difficult as he had thought it would be. He was able to work two days a week as a tax accountant. The other days, he volunteered at a job placement service helping those over 50 learn computer skills to make themselves more marketable.
People who are financial analysts are also having success in the world of professional technical temping. These include credit analysts and budget analysts as well as the general business analysts. They help set both short and long term budgets, as well as set short and long term projections for various projects.
There are now more advanced financially skilled people who are working temp, such as chief financial officers and controllers.
It is important to remember that in accounting and finance, like any other area of temping; you will be paid for the skills you are using the day(s) you are working. For example, Clark listed all the skills he had as an experienced chief financial officer (CFO) for a medium sized company where he had earned an annual salary of $102,000. When his company was acquired and Clark's position was eliminated, Clark decided to do some professional temping. The staffing service he worked with offered him the highest paying temporary assignment they had available at the time Clark wanted to work. The temp job called for someone with the skills of a manager who had experience at being an analyst for a medium sized company. Therefore, Clark was paid an hourly salary based on the skills he would be using on that temporary job, which was a much lower hourly salary than he would have been paid had he been placed as a temp on a job calling for a CFO with all the skills he had used in his previous full time job.
