Amy Bieber Joins Smith, Lange And Halley P.C.

In all hopes, by the end of the year, a new Certified Public Accountant will be joining the ranks of Smith, Lange and Halley P.C. Amy Bieber is not a new face in the area, however. She grew up and attended school in Sidney, Montana. Upon graduating high school, she went to college, then returned to her hometown.

Now the belief of many school-age children that tests and exams end after college is a misconception and Amy can vouch for that. In seventh grade, she had wanted to be a computer programmer. In her sophomore year, however, she did a paper on what she wanted to be after graduating and decided that it was not for her. In her junior year, Amy took an accounting class and found she loved it. She got a scholarship to any Montana State University and she chose Billings. College was not like she thought, however. Amy said, "I decided I was going to pursue accounting then when I got to college they told me I couldn't just major in accounting. I had to become a CPA." It took her four years and she graduated in May 2017 but she wasn't done yet. Amy needed 2,000 hours of work experience before she could become certified and then there were the tests. She would need to pass four more exams before she could apply for her certification. She decided she didn't much like the bigger towns and found she missed helping out Mike Bergh with the kids at Sidney Tendokan. So she came back and got hired part-time at Smith, Lange, and Halley until she could finish studying for her tests. She passed all four tests the first time through in January and now is fulltime and working on those 2,000 hours. Amy is already doing much of what she will be doing as a CPA such as bookkeeping, auditing, and tax returns. She just needs one of the actual CPAs to sign off on her work.

Amy feels she is not just an additional CPA at Smith, Lange, and Halley P.C. She feels she is bringing a new perspective on how to do things. She says, as a new graduate, she still has a lot to learn but is excited to take on all the challenges the accounting profession will bring.