Accounting firm partner?

I am curious to know what being a partner means. I understand that it is basically what many accountants work for. But specifically how will your work change? How many partners are in a firm (Big 4)? What opportunities for advancement follow becoming a partner?

To add to the previous answer, like partners in a law firm, CPA partners (named and unnamed) own a share of the firm and their compensation reflects that ownership, and not just salary. For the most part, if named a partner, you will have to come up with an investment ($) to buy your share of the firm going forward.

A partner in any accounting firm, not just the big 4, will be sought after by corporate interests for their top financial positions, and many will also be asked to participate on charity board of directors, or boards where they would not have a conflict of interest.

$$, management responsibilities, compliance responsibilities, career future enhancement, and prestige all go with being a partner in a CPA firm.

When a person rises up to be a partner, the next level up is senior partner. One could expect to have increasing sales, marketing, administrative responsibilities as well as developing a specialty.

As an associate progress in Big4 firm, his responsibility changes from day-to-day accounting (auditing etc) tasks to include managing project team to multiple teams to business practice to manage a office, then to manage a practice across multiple office, regions or countries. At the same time he will be expected to market and sale the firm's professional services.

For example, an associate does very little other than accounting tasks. A senor associate might have responsibility to oversee associates and also performing more challenging accounting tasks. A manager manages the projects that are going on with a client as well as overseeing every person working on a project. A senior manager could expect to oversee several client relationships, as well as begin to develop a specialty (i.e. accounting for oil & gas industry). A partner usually begin to have increasing administrative responsibility of an office. A senior partner could sometime overseeing several offices with a city, state or region.

There isn't a set rule on how many partner a firm would have. There is a loose define guideline. For example, 1 senior partner to 10 partners to 30 senior managers to 90 managers to 180 senior associates to 350 associates. Each Big4 has its own magic ratio it tries to maintain.

Many corporations seek out senior professionals from Big4 to join their companies. There is no job shortage for those who want to leave Big4 for corporate world.

Best wishes.