Jeri Marcia, the Travelling Auditor
I love to travel. When I was 19 years old, taking my first accounting class in college, my professor offered extra credit to anyone who attended an all accounting seminar at Cal State Bakersfield (I was attending a community college to save money). I didn’t need the extra credit but went as I was unsure of a major at the time.
The seminar consisted of accounting professionals, each speaking on their particular field. The representative from a local CPA firm talked broadly of the career and…travel opportunities! I decided then that this was the field for me. I have never regretted my choice of major. I love my field!
After graduation I went to work for a local CPA firm in Bakersfield. While my audit travel was limited to the Central Valley, when I was in the office I worked in forensic accounting most of the time and loved it. When the department left to work for another firm, I went with them. I enjoyed the work and really wasn’t travelling as much as I had hoped. The hours at the new firm were grueling. Also, I was mostly travelling between Bakersfield and Los Angeles. After two years, I left public accounting for a job with better hours, and it allowed me time for more personal travel.
After several years, while I still enjoyed my job, I was bored and needed something more challenging. I got back into public accounting. For the first few years, I worked in the office a lot, preparing non-profit tax returns, and traveled within Orange County and Los Angeles for audit work. As someone who is not afraid of hard work and trying new things, I worked with my employer to be on more out of town audits. I never gave up my dream of travelling for work and after many years of hard work and persistence, I finally have the job I dreamed of at 19 years old, sitting in the accounting seminar.
The type of audits I work on the most include System and Organization Control (SOC) audits, incurred cost proposal audits (also referred to as Overhead audits) in compliance with FAR 31, performance audits for the Department of Justice, non-profit organization financial statement audits, and grant & compliance audits.
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