Julie M. Brownell

Back to All Accounting and Tax Services, Mathematics Spotlights

I am currently the Assistant Controller for Newburg & Company, LLP, a CPA firm in Waltham, MA. We provide full accounting services; corporate and individual tax return prep, audits, and consulting. Basically, I run the accounting for a 25 person CPA firm. I take care of the books, prepare the financial statements, run payroll, and take care of a lot of the HR stuff (health insurance, etc.) I do some billable accounting work for clients, as we have several clients that we do work for in-house. I kind of get the best of both worlds of accounting, because while usually my position would be considered private accounting, I do work for a public CPA firm, so I still get to work with various clients, and do some consulting work with QuickBooks; and while I do have extended hours during tax season, I don’t have the stress of doing tax work.

I received my CPA in May 2010, and am now licensed in New York State. I took classes at SUNY Albany, Business Law at Hudson Valley Community College, and met my finance requirements online at Empire State College. I had to go to different places based on what was offered when. They require 120 semester hours with a certain number of credits for core accounting classes, business, and economics. A minimum of 150 semester hours are required to sit for the exam, and you may have to have a degree in an approved course in order to apply. This is all for NYS of course, but I think MA has the 150 hour rule as well.

My mathematics degree has helped me a lot, especially in the areas of problem solving and organization. Accounting is mostly pluses and minuses, and just like when solving an equation, everything has to balance. A minus/plus on one side has to have a minus/plus on the other. This knowledge has helped me a lot in understanding how a balance sheet, income statement, and statement of cash flows are related.