The top priority of the UT Accounting Department is to facilitate the development of value-added accounting graduates; graduates who, immediately upon employment, excel at all of the following:
- generating bank reconciliations
- creating and analyzing financial statements
- producing individual and entity tax returns and professional quality tax research memos
- completing staff-level audit tasks
- interacting comfortably with practitioners and clients
Our accounting graduates acquire value-added skills and applicable knowledge in highly interactive, student-oriented learning environments. Accomplished faculty teach accounting concepts in the context of their application, transcending UT’s accounting education from merely theoretical to an applied, heuristic learning experience. All concepts are reinforced through the use of applicable practitioner software programs, including:
- QuickBooks (all of our graduates are QuickBooks certified)
- CYMA (Financial Software)
- TaxWise and UltraTax tax preparation software
- CCH (Commerce Clearing House) Network and RIA (Research Institute of America) Checkpoint tax research databases
- Google Docs (Word and Excel)
- Microsoft Office Suite including Access and Visio
Participating in the IRS sponsored Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program and the UT Accounting Practicum further refine the value-added skills of UT accounting graduates
- Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA)
- During the 2017 VITA Season, Utah Tech’s VITA program was the top ranked Utah VITA site in terms of the volunteer generated returns completed and federal and state refunds. VITA volunteers donated 4,025 service hours, completed 1,456 tax returns, and facilitated the return of $2,444,810 (including $832,179 of education credits) back into the community.
- The Accounting Practicum
- UT’s Accounting Practicum experience provides graduates the opportunity to use their accounting knowledge and value-added skills to assist small business clients with entity discussion and selection, QuickBooks setup and training, income, sales, and payroll tax research and preparation, and financial preparation and analysis. Since the inception of the Accounting Practicum, graduates have donated more than 7,500 service hours assisting over 200 small business clients.
If you would like to distinguish yourself from the crowd of traditionally textbook trained accounting graduates, come to Utah Tech University where you can get the best “can do” accounting education under the sun.