[justgivemea75]

Hi all,

I’ve been working at a Big 4 firm for about 3 months now and am trying to reflect a bit on the experience heading into the holidays.So far I’ve been pretty disappointed with the experience. It’s not even because of the long hours. Sure, it sucks sometimes, but I can grind them out if needed. The more difficult part for me to reconcile is how brainless the auditing work is. My first week on the engagement, I was struggling hard because I was trying to figure out how to navigate the database, what to look for, etc. However, now that I’m on a second job and have done this once, I feel as though all I do day in and day out is pick samples from a population I didn’t create, look at supporting documents, enter in the data, and make sure that there is no material variance. After that, I add a symbol saying yay or nay, rinse and repeat.

What I’m wondering is how much of this lack of mental stimulation has to do with being “the first year” and getting all the crap that flows down from the top and how much of it is actually due to auditing (or worse, ALL ACCOUNTING) being this way. Unlike a lot of people in public accounting who want to do it for the money (lol) or whatever, I actually do enjoy accounting. I feel as though you learn a lot about the business, how it works, and how to measure it’s economic value within a framework (in our case, GAAP) + learning how an industry operates. I actually didn’t mind studying for FAR because I enjoy doing calculations and thinking through stuff, but so far, audit has not been anything like my financial accounting courses at all and isn’t a challenge. The extent of my questioning now is what document means what and once I see an example, I breeze through whatever my senior gives me.

If this is just a problem with audit, is industry better? As a more concrete example, in one of my classes, we were given a complex transaction and were told to look into the guidance, think about the industry, review the journal entry form, etc. and then write a memo on how that transaction should be recorded, the advantages/disadvantages of it are, potential shareholder implications of the decision, etc. That was really interesting and I was thinking that public accounting would be like that, since people kept telling me that it’s sort for like management consulting from an accounting standpoint. My experience has been the exact opposite so far and I’m a little disillusioned by it all.

Does anyone have advice for me? Am I being too anxious and need to wait before I get that, or is public accounting (and industry accounting?) in general like this? If my life is literally going to be examining invoices and entering data forever, how did some of you here leverage your experiences in public accounting/your CPA to do something a bit more challenging/numbers-oriented?

Thanks!

FAR - 84
AUD - 76 (phew)
BEC - 88
REG - 77

DONE!

[surfer4life949]

I think you've gotten very good sense of what auditing is about. Financial statements audits are Risk to the Financial Statements –> Management Assertions –> Testing management's assumptions. I'm afraid that most of what audit entails is completing those “yay or nay” worksheets you described to test management's assumptions. The advantages come when you have learned the flow of all these documents, the reasoning for these approvals signatures, reconciliations, etc. and how the company is recording these transactions. Down the road, it might be slightly more intellectually stimulating in the fact that you can have an intelligent discussion with management about how to properly recognize revenue, but other than that don't count on it.

The project you had in school sounds like it would fit in more with the accounting advisory services of the Big4 firms, which would probably hire from audit since you already have a strong sense of GAAP.

My advice would be to stick it out for a year or two more and then try to switch into accounting advisory, TAS, Valuation, or management consulting. This is where the more interesting work comes into play. I did an internship in FS audit and worked full time in a mid-tier doing risk advisory (i.e. glorified internal audit), and have since moved to a very small boutique consulting firm doing forensic accounting (family law and civil litigation) and it is far more interesting than what I was doing before.

B-85 OCT 2012
A-84 NOV 2012
R-90 JAN 2013
F-89 AUG 2012
Ethics-92 (3rd try)

I am DONE BABY!!!
Used Roger 2012 + Wiley + NINJA Notes

[Anonymous]

The experience you're relaying is one of the reasons I never wanted to go into Big 4 – it seemed like for the first 5 years or so, all you do is monotonous stupid work, but that somehow a year or two of this is supposed to make you a more valuable employee in industry. 😐 I don't know about all that, but I can tell you that having never worked in Big 4, I've also never worked in an accounting job that's as mundane as yours is, so there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Of course the lower-level jobs are more boring than the higher-level jobs, but at my job as an accounting clerk in industry, I did everything from scanning in paperwork to spending hours researching how to get Excel to manipulate data in such a way that the report I was creating would be useful for management, to drafting policies for the billing for newly-consolidated entities, to reviewing contracts to ensure we were performing within them. This might cover things beyond the standard clerk job description, but if I did all that at the clerk level, it's waaaaaay better than the entry-level Big 4. I also spent a year working in a small-town tax and bookkeeping firm. That's also waaaaay better than entry-level Big 4. Sometimes you're just typing transactions into ledgers, but when you finish a month (~40 transactions for most of our customers), you can see the financial statements taking shape…or when you do a tax return for a small LLC, you're seeing their profit and loss etc. – a small reward every couple hours to make up for the hour and a half adding up their crumpled receipts. I will soon be starting a job as Controller at a small college and can't wait to see what that holds.

So, now that I'm shared another experience, my advice to you is to take heart that it gets better and try to stick it out for a bit. I never went the Big 4 route (nearest one is too far to drive, and the work sounds boring too), but from everything I've heard getting at least 1 year of experience is highly adviseable. After that, feel free to stat looking for something in industry that peaks your interest. It'll take a few years to build up to the point that you're the one making the decisions, but it's still better than just checking boxes “yay” or “nay”!

[justgivemea75]

Thanks for the responses so far. To clarify, I'm not thinking about quitting or anything. I'm just a bit disappointed so far. I've heard that if you stick out the big 4 for 3 years, you can move into more senior positions that usually require 5 years at large companies and maybe even controller at small firms. If I did it 5 years, then I would be close to controller if I exited and definitely controller at small companies based on what I've seen/heard. I definitely see the light at the end of the tunnel and I'm hoping that'll get me through it. I mean, most careers last what, 40sh years? 3-5 years seems like a lot now, but at best is only 13% of my total career, which means nothing in the grand scheme of things.

I just am wondering what audit really leads to and if the dues I'm paying now will eventually lead to more intellectual tasks later on? If I become a controller of a company, is this the type of thing I'll be doing or will it be more interesting than typical audit work? Heck, even if I progress to senior, do I start doing more interesting tests? I feel like consolidations, leases, or something challenging like those would be great, but I definitely won't get any exposure to that as a 1st year.

Also, I'm wondering, through my experience, why Big 4 is seen as the golden ticket in accounting? I really don't see what skills I'm developing through my work thus far.

FAR - 84
AUD - 76 (phew)
BEC - 88
REG - 77

DONE!

[spinfuzer]

Depends on what accounts you have been auditing so far. Personally I've been exposed to contract settlements, developing expectations for substantive analytic procedures, commission/bonus recalculations, foreign translation, remeasurement, and etc during my first 3 months. Sure there are days where I literally go down a checklist and add up columns and rows. However, there are some days where the work is more interesting.. especially when the transactions are a little more complex or the procedure to be performed is a little more complex.

FAR - 08/08/14 - 93
BEC - 08/28/14 - 95
REG - 10/11/14 - 96
AUD - 11/30/14 - 99

[krokofilen]

OK let me tell you something since it's not the first time I hear this.

First of all, you've been there for 3 months. THREE MONTHS. That is nothing, compared with how many years you will be working. So, relax. It's insane if you thought you would jump right in and start giving senior management (or any management) accounting advice after working in the industry for a few months… dude, there's people that have been there longer than you, and are better equipped to give that advice. After all, any advice given is in “sharp mode”, so no longer you're working on a case at university or presenting a theory to your classmates – accountants in practice deal with advice that corporations have paid for, and will rely on meaning that it could have great implications if they were given inaccurate information. So, it would be ridiculous in any situation, whether or not you work for a Big 4, a smaller firm or within a management consulting firm, to let a new hire give that advice. Your time will come, but you will have to start at the lowest possible level. You will learn from your tasks, and work yourself up in the pyramid. Sooner or later, you will be on a stage where you will no longer have to do the “basic stuff”, but instead face clients and give them high-level advice.

Secondly, if you're so good at what you're currently doing, and find it to be no challenge at all – then you're in a pretty good position where I can tell you 90% of the new hires are NOT. So, just keep calm and perform your tasks, and you will be “picked up” eventually. If you're as good as you claim, you will be promoted Senior relatively soon and after that go on to Manager level. This profession changes dramatically in between the different positions, so there's no chance at all you will be doing all that tick & ties 2 years from now, trust me.

Big 4 Audit Manager from Europe here to pass the CPA in the U.S. of A in 2014! Niiice!

AUD - 95 / Jul 15 / 130h over 4 weeks
FAR - 86 / Aug 14 / 240h over 4 weeks
(11 week break)

REG - 81 / Nov 14 / 200h over 4 weeks
BEC - 87 / Nov 17 / 30 h over 2.5 days

[Anonymous]

Envious of the ease with which you're working.

I primarily work with investments, debt, derivatives and fair value at my client, and I am constantly humbled by the difficulty of certain tasks, reconciliations and procedures. It is overwhelming.

From what I'm told, be content with a mid-level accounting job for the remainder of your career should you leave the Big 4 too soon. We have to do our time. Each level within the Big 4 is drastically different in terms of role/responsibility within the audit process and so sticking with it until the indefinite abyss of senior manager is well worth it provided you are put on good clients, have positive experiences with your engagement teams and your busy seasons don't destroy you.

[justgivemea75]

Thanks again for the responses. To clarify, I don't want to sound ungrateful or whatever. I do realize that it's early in my career. I went as far to say that even 5 years (assuming I stay that long) is an insignificant amount of time in terms of career development in the grand scheme of things.

That said, maybe I just haven't been picked up on the interesting projects yet. I haven't gotten exposure to consolidations, foreign currency translations, etc. so I should probably hold out for those before truly feeling too down. So far, they've mostly just given me Cash, AR, and some AP/PP&E. I will say that I've done some analytic work, which was pretty cool. I love doing things that deal more with numbers than just matching documents.

However, the point of this thread wasn't so much for me to sound like a whiny first year. I was more wondering if auditing becomes more technical/research oriented vs the very detailed level sort of work that I do at the lower levels. For me personally, it's easier to get through the menial stuff if I have something more in line with my interests in the future, so that's mainly what I'm trying to gauge.

If not, I'm trying to figure out what other tracks, such as becoming a controller, entail.

FAR - 84
AUD - 76 (phew)
BEC - 88
REG - 77

DONE!

[Anonymous]

Welcome to auditing. It's a thankless, boring job.

This interesting stuff lands on the desks of the people who have sucked it up and waded through the trenches.

Those that drop out too early get stuck closing books for 30 years.

[Author]

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