why do accountants get paid so much

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ciaran1979

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Hi guys

I am not having a go but am just wondering why accountant get paid so much?
 
How much do they get then?

Is it much more than the 60 Euro / hour car garages often charge?

Or more than the 120 Euro / hour a plumbing company quoted recently?

Or more than the 60 Euro / 30mins a doctor may charge?

I'm sure it's less than the 10,000 Euro / day charged by tribunal barristers...


What would you say is a reasonable amount for an accountant to charge?
 
I would have thought the salary for accountants would be alike to most other jobs i.e. are based on a combination of skills required to do the job (sometimes length of study, accreditation requirements seems to increase salaries) plus basic supply/demand.

I'm not an accountant but I suspect it would be in alignment with other professional service occupations such as solicitors, IT..
 
When I worked in an Accountants I used to wonder why tradespeople got paid so much.
 
DavyJones:

Yes, I wasn't completely clear... it was several years ago, my mother called a plumbing firm from the Yellow Pages, they quoted 120 Euro / Hour. I don't know the name of the company. The work was to be carried out in a private house, it was to plumb a new shower into an area where a shower had been but the shower had broken and developed a leak.. it wasn't an emergency call-out though, there was no urgency to the job.
 
Our local doctor charges € 50 euro for 5 minutes

I presume you mean the doctor charges €50 for a visit/consultation. I presume s/he doesn't charge €100 if you stay for 10 minutes, or €150 if you stay for 15 minutes. Should the doctor take longer than necessary to make a diagnosis?

If there are doctors that you believe overcharge (there have been a couple of threads on that topic where it seemed indeed like the charges were excessive), then change. It bugs me when people bandy this type of thing around - and others will give out if they get charged by a doctor to tell them there's nothing wrong with them!

Apart from the regulated supply of doctors, lawyers and accountants (based in membership of the various professional organisations), SLS outlines the basis for costs well. People always have difficulty if they are not receiving something concrete/physical for their money, forgetting that qualified advice (based on training and experience) is also worth money. It's not only to do with time, but also to do with expertise. Top advisers in the big accounting firms have charge-out rates north of €600 an hour.
 
I presume you mean the doctor charges €50 for a visit/consultation. I presume s/he doesn't charge €100 if you stay for 10 minutes, or €150 if you stay for 15 minutes. .

Yes , I confirm , doctor charges € 50 per consultation , not per 5 minutes
 
I don't really see how anyone can think accountants get paid highly.

Starting salaries vary from 15-24k or so with minimal increases until they get their finals. Accountants spend a minimum of 6 and a half years training and would be getting somewhere between 35-50k as qualified seniors. Given the length of time spend training/qualifying and the training salaries along the way they are not anyways highly paid.
 
It's like a lot of professions...some accountants get paid "so much", some get paid a bit above average (especially in Dublin), and some get paid below average.

I am an accountant, 10+ years post qualification, big 4, MNC experience. I am not over paid. I took a 15% salary cut in February and my job finishes next month. The only job on the horizon, possibly, is one paying 20% less again (i.e. a salary less than I was on in 2003)

Hmmm, I dont feel overpaid, and 50/50 I may well be on the dole next month.
 
Or more than the 60 Euro / 30mins a doctor may charge?

Any GP I've gone to has me out the door within 10 minutes, still full price.

Ok, I got what I paid for but they are seeing far more patients then one every 30 minutes.

Think I'll have to wait until I have several issues and get them done at the same time to get full value for my 53 euro ;)
 
Accountants spend a minimum of 6 and a half years training....

...which is about the same length of time a doctor spends in academic training, so that's why accountants get paid fairly well.

Barristers, on the other hand spend much less time in academic training, but seem to get paid much better. A barrister told me "I get paid a lot for what I know, not for what I do". It has to be said that not all barristers get paid a lot, some make a fairly modest living, and some do not stick at it at all.
 
A 'minimum' six and half years to become a qualified accountant? I must have been a genius!
 
A 'minimum' six and half years to become a qualified accountant? I must have been a genius!

Sure, if your as good as Bertie, all you need to do it a short summer course in London to become an accountant:rolleyes:
 
...which is about the same length of time a doctor spends in academic training, so that's why accountants get paid fairly well.

Barristers, on the other hand spend much less time in academic training, but seem to get paid much better. A barrister told me "I get paid a lot for what I know, not for what I do". It has to be said that not all barristers get paid a lot, some make a fairly modest living, and some do not stick at it at all.

The TOP barrister top 5% get paid a fortune but alot of them barely scrap by as they are totally reliant on Solicitors giving them work.
 
why accountant get paid so much
Because we're worth it:D

The majority of accountancy trainees, most with at least a degree, start at entry level jobs on low pay then study for the accountancy exams in their own time and sometimes at their own expense! Entry level pay in a small practice can be 15 - 20K, as pointed out by BaileyMC

As for qualified accountants, the salary depends a lot on the sector (practice/industry/financial services) the type of role & the experiance they have.


Because that's what the market will stand

Very true but two sides to that comment in my experiance.

I started in a small accountancy practice at £50 a week back in the 90's, when who you knew not what you knew was the key and was delighted to get the job:D

Roll forward a few years and due to a shortage of accountants at the time, a couple of post qualification moves saw me almost double my qualification salary:).

However I've a wide range of experiance, 15 years of knowledge and as the job ads often say "salary commensurate with experience";)
 
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