For my first job out of college, I've been with a very small (two partners, non-auditing) CPA firm for a little over a month now, and I still find myself making at least a few daily (albeit small and correctable) mistakes or forgetting a few steps about which I need confirmation from the bookkeeper who's training me. Thankfully, I am still being trained on the different write-up/compilation/payroll clients, but it can be somewhat embarassing forgetting a few steps (albeit perhaps in a slightly different form) that I've been told about two or three times. The problem really is that I must be trained really with _every_ write-up/compilation/payroll client because each one in general has unique aspects about which I must know. SOmetimes, the variation is only slight, but it's still a difference. We have about 400 clients in total (to which most only receive tax and advisory services), but only do payroll/write-up, etc., for around 80 clients. But, like I said, these 80 clients consist of drastically different types/forms of businesses.
Add to all of this that the software we use (Creative Solutions) sometimes does weird things to stored data. Or, perhaps it's the case my firm's computers/network causes weird things and not Creative Solutions. Regardless, bank recs from prior months that were once ok sometimes get screwed up, making doing the current month's bank rec impossible until you figure out what the computer did to the other bank recs. I still think this is good experience, but I do wonder if it's this difficult for me right now, how difficult it'll be come tax season.
For those of you who started in public accounting in a small or medium-sized firm (or even large firm), how long did it take you to get comfortable with all the different client and system variations?