Accounting as a profession

Is "accounting" a profession? To "profess" a thought is to go out into the world as an individual and express your own ideas and opinions - you are then open to scrutiny as an individual in the world based on the results of the implementation your own ideas and opinions. Firstly, perhaps only 5% of accountants actually have this luxury in the real world of corporations and large practices; current organisational hierarchies simply do not accomodate professional behaviour in its true aspect. Secondly, the societal view of those few accountants that actually personally and individually profess, is seriously degraded due to recent ineptitudes such as Enron's balance sheet. Thirdly, the majority of the work done by the majority of "accountants" requires less skill than a mediocre high school student. In a real, today's world, modern office, practical look at the "profession" of accounting, they seem to have very little to "profess". Simply knowing how to set up a link on an Excel spreadsheet seems an especially cheap definition of a modern professional. The pretense of simply accepting accounting as a profession because of the historic analogy has to be dropped until we can accomodate its actual influence, and moreover those of its individual members as individuals, in a true objective professional light.

Whoever wrote this either thinks the entire world has an IQ > 150 or has obviously never taken any professional accounting exams, at least not in the UK anyway. I agree it may not really be a profession except for those are practically law experts (tax gods etc) but I wouldnt hardly say "the majority of the work done by the majority of "accountants" requires less skill than a mediocre high school student". As regards to the depth of the work involved thats why theres different job titles i.e. accounts clerk/accounts assistant/accounting technican/assistant accountant/accountant/financial controller etc etc at least in the UK anyway.

Of course it's a profession. Picking apart the word "profession" is not a good way of determining what is and isn't one. Word meanings change over time.. I hope you are never in a situation where you have to take apart "inflammable" to figure out what it means. I don't know how it is in the UK, but CPA's in America do not spend their time dicking around in Excel (they bill far too much per hour to be doing routine work).

The "Big Four" accountancy firms

Pricewaterhouse and Coopers are two firms which merged just recently, so stating that it was formed in England is incorrect. Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu also traces its history to Japan. I don't know if both Touche Ross and Deloitte came from England. Ernst & Young wasn't founded by a Scottish accountant since this firm was also the result of a merger of two well established firms.

I think this section, assuming we want to keep it here and not on a separate page, should indicate where all of the multi-national firms came from, and how they all grew through international mergers. A nice flow chart history of the mergers would be pretty.

The other option would be to pull this section and just refer to a seperate page on the Big Four.

There was a mystery character in UK accounting history - someone by the last name of Edwards (partnered with Price, Coopers Brothers articled with him, Touche was the exception who has done work on his own. Forerunners of Ernst and Whinny have changed their names since very early on but Waterhouse appeared to have articled under them for a few years, then the Arthur Andersen himself also work briefly under Price Waterhouse and Company US office. virtually all forerunners of big 4 today are more or less were related in the same circle.