[Anonymous]

Yes, in two days. I am just wrapping up my Bachelors and starting my Masters, I will sit for the CPA late 2017. I was hired by a small CPA firm on the audit team (which I am very excited about as I am interested in forensics and valuation for later). I have been the junior accountant and payroll administrator at a company for about 3 years now, so I have a good grasp of accounting, etc.

I received an email yesterday from my new employer stating that I will be “in the field” most of my first day. ACK!! I have no idea what to expect! I am hoping it is just gathering various reports? I’m in my 40s, long work history, and this is the very first time I have ever felt like I was walking into something I had no idea about. I did well in my audit class, but good lord.

Any insight or words of encouragement? Or doom? (better to know now)

[Tawpeak]

“In the field” is pretty much just looking through vendor invoices all day long.

Done.
AUD 95
FAR 86
BEC 82
REG 84

[Anonymous]

Ok, that sounds doable. She said to expect to be “out of the office in the field” from about 8-5.
(We are working 7-6 right now)

Does that change anything? I hope not.

[Anonymous]

Given that it's a small firm, and you'll be “the new guy” (or gal), you should be fine. I haven't worked in auditing, but from seeing the auditors come to my company, it's a small firm and they bring a small crew. The junior members always spend the day doing things like Tawpeak said – looking through the clients' vendor invoices or something like that. One of the senior people will have told me the night before “We need this list of stuff available in the morning” (or tell me that morning, depending on what it is), and then that day, the junior people spend all day going through and marking it off against the list. Then at the end of the day, maybe one of the more senior of the junior people might work on getting the next list together (which I presume is a random number generation from a list – like a listing of all my AP checks, and they take every 10th, then go through and get every 13th just so it's not every 10th entirely, or something like that).

Point is, the tasks I see the junior people on are all things that you could learn for a first day with 10 minutes of instruction if you were completely new to accounting work. So, I wouldn't worry about it too much. 🙂 They'll understand it's your first day and should be easy on ya. I'm sure they won't be sending you to a client solo for your first day!

Congrats on the job!

[Anonymous]

Thanks Lila 🙂 Much appreciated. I am getting more excited as it nears.

[Author]

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