Skip to main content

Inventory

Inventory...the one part of our job that is actually tangible, literally. How does it work? Well, we usually send out a staff associate to do a "sample count", i.e. counting a sample of the company's inventory and matching it to what the company has a listed in its count sheet. And then we look at their count sheet, select a sample, and make sure that it actually exists on the floor. Obviously, the procedures differ by firm. But man, do we count some weird shit sometimes. People have counted gold bars, sushi, oil, massage chairs, semiconductors, vegetables, dangerous biochemicals, gym equipment..shit, I can go on. We've walked into warehouses, freezers, shipyards, etc. etc. etc. It's fascinating, and I kinda like it, just because you get to see what exactly the company sells and how the whole inventory process works.

This is also a complex audit account, one that the senior auditor usually works on (not the count), and boy, it is a pain to audit. I'd rather count than audit inventory.

Comments

jaycee05 said…
My prof's favorite story of inventory counting was at a time when she was sent out to count caskets at a funeral home. lol. We did an audit spoof video as a project for her class and our imaginary client was a sperm bank. We used vanilla flavoured yogurt for our "samples" XD
notfordisplay said…
that's funny, ah the stuff you can pull in college. Miss those days.
Anonymous said…
I counted false teeth a couple of years ago for a company that made them for dentures and bridges. They had "standard" issue teeth in all shapes, sizes, and yes colors and then they did customized teeth if you wanted to pay more.

Another fun one was Kroger (the grocery store). I was counting food on the shelf while people shopped. It was quite frustrating to count the item and then compare to the sheet and find out you were off and it was because someone just put a can in their shopping cart.

Popular posts from this blog

ADP/Payroll

Just realized that the very payroll/adp reports we all enjoyed looking at in order to see how much our client contacts made, now seem to piss me off. Especially when your main contact, who couldn't tell a debit from a credit, makes significantly more than you, and leaves at 5. It's almost guaranteed to get you in a foul mood and yak with your team about the ridiculous salaries that certain employees get when compared to yours.

should you choose to audit financial services?

I'm trying to decide whether to audit financial services companies or non-financial services companies. What would you say are the pros and cons of either industries? Do individuals who choose non-FS have less career mobility within the firm or if they decide not to stay with the B4 after a few years? Really depends on what you'd like to do after (unless you really love auditing). If you want to a controller,etc. at a p/e firm or a hedge fund down the road, you'd want to go into financial services. The pay won't be too bad, especially if you get a share of the insane bonuses they dole out. If you want to audit industries with tangible products and want to get a better understanding of the operations of such businesses, then other industries are the way to go.In terms of mobility outside the firm, auditing other industries is the way to go since you have plenty of options when you exit the audit world. For example, in 2008, after Lehman collapsed, it was incredibly hard

auditing vs consulting

I was wondering if you could break down the career opportunities in auditing and consulting (in a big 4). I know that consulting pays more in a big 4 and has more interesting work, but it seems that auditing has extremely good exit opportunities (Financial controller, CFO etc). Any thoughts on which is better in the long run? Well there's different consulting services offered by public accounting companies - the most popular being IT consulting and risk consulting. There are also other consulting services offered, but these two hire the most. Do they pay more? Yes, but not by much. Not enough for you to say: Shoot, the $$ is a huge reason for me to move over. Is the work more interesting than audit? Yes. You're actually looking over a company's processes and telling them what to do instead of what not to do (audit). Everyone I know who's made the switch likes it waay better than audit. In the long run though, choosing audit vs consulting really depends on what you want