Sarbanes-Oxley: Opportunity Knocks
Friday, April 06, 2007PAUL KANGAS: With companies shelling out a combined $6.2 billion a year to comply with Sarbox, there are plenty of opportunities for accountants to get a piece of the pie. And as Midwest bureau chief Diane Eastabrook reports, that's good news for those who are getting ready to join the profession.
DIANE EASTABROOK, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: As she sits in her forensic accounting class at Northern Illinois University, one thing Emily Montgomery doesn't have to sweat out is a job search. For months now, the 23-year-old graduate student has had an auditing job lined up at pricewaterhousecoopers following graduation in August. But when Montgomery entered college five years ago, she had doubts about her career choice.
EMILY MONTGOMERY, ACCOUNTING STUDENT: Honestly, I think I was a little bit scared for my career because of all of the different things that were going on with Enron and WorldCom and things like that and what that was doing to the profession.
EASTABROOK: Thanks to the demand for accountants driven by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, accounting is once again hot on college campuses. The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants says the number of people graduating with accounting degrees is rebounding again following a slump in the late 1990s. Experts say demand is especially strong for compliance specialists, external auditors and internal auditors. James Young, chairman for the accounting department at NIU says salaries have been rising with demand at many of the public accounting firms.
JAMES YOUNG, ACCOUNTING DEPT. CHMN., NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIV.: This year, undergrads are being hired in the 50s, low-50s, 50 to 55, grad students anywhere from 58,000 to 65,000 a year. They are talking about anywhere from $2,000 to $4,000 signing bonuses in addition.
EASTABROOK: Old-line accounting firms aren't the only companies coming to college campuses like NIU to court accounting students. Sarbanes-Oxley has spawned a number of new firms and many of those businesses are aggressively hiring accountants. Huron Consulting Group is an example. Among its specialties is counseling companies on earnings restatements. Vice president of operations Daniel Broadhurst says that is a service many in public accounting won't do because of conflict of interest restrictions in the Sarbox law.
DANIEL BROADHURST, V.P. OPERATIONS, HURON CONSULTING GROUP: That's areas where Huron can be involved in the investigation, to find out sort of what happened and who knew what, where and when. And then also in remediation, helping clients correct their books and get them ultimately signed off by their external auditors.
EASTABROOK: Even firms in accounting areas far removed from auditing, such as Chicago-based True Partners Consulting, are benefiting from Sarbox. The year-old firm, which specializes in tax accounting, has grown from six people to 140. Chief executive officer Cary McMillan says True Partners is filling a niche which many public accounting firms have abandoned to concentrate on the booming auditing business.
CARY MCMILLAN, CEO, TRUE PARTNERS CONSULTING LLC: For public companies, the tax business has been very much isolated from the audit business and the tax business is viewed in some ways as part of the company and helping the company achieve their objectives. The auditors are supposed to be independent and objective and there's a conflict.
EASTABROOK: Northern Illinois's Young thinks accounting services due to Sarbanes-Oxley will plateau in a few years, but he thinks the boom in demand for accountants will continue indefinitely, since many baby boomer accountants are headed into retirement. Diane Eastabrook, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, Dekalb, Illinois.
