A great place for an accounting grad to cut their teeth.
Pros
Jeans and polos every day! But on a more serious note - as long as you're a properly motivated and self-starting worker, this is a great office. I initially did work under a supervisor who was incredibly kind and patient, but had a very bad habit of micromanaging. He was also resistant to exploring new ways of solving a problem. That changed when I transferred supervisors; my new, younger, more tech-savvy boss didn't care how I solved a problem, as long as I could explain how I arrived at my solution and he could follow my reasoning. This freedom to explore and learn greatly benefitted me. Not only did I achieve a mastery of some of the more misunderstood functions of Microsoft Excel such as VLookup and Pivot Tables, but I noticed that I was beginning to see accounting much less in terms of simple debits and credits - I was starting to see the big picture - how would this journal entry I'm booking effect the P&L statements of our field locations? If a location manager asks about this, how will I answer him? All told, this is truly the best job I've ever had. I know I only graduated in 2011, and have been working in my professional career since early 2012, but I can only hope that I have the privilege of working in other environments as forgiving and rewarding as BFS.
Cons
The finance/accounting department here is very lean. For around 70 field locations, the corporate office only has five staff accountants. While this does afford you great opportunity to gain exposure to a great and varied deal of material, it also means that there's little opportunity to advance beyond the staff accounting level. Granted, as of this review (06/2015), I am NOT yet a CPA. I understand full well that without professional certification, there's a definite limut to how far someone can advance in this field. That does bring up another con, if you view it that way. BFS doesn't offer any kind of tuition reimbursement program. It's my understanding that such programs are beginning to fall by the wayside, which is unfortunate given the expense of a college education, but I certainly understand it - just as I'm hesitant to increase my student loan debt burden, I can understand any company's unwillingness to spend that kind of money on their employees.
