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Outsourcing

And so ends the first half of busy season (hopefully), and with it again came a lack of time, destruction of health and fitness, an appreciation for a few minutes of not doing anything and a questioning of why the heck we're in this job in the first place. And we wonder why people do drugs and alcohol? (Kidding)

On to another topic - got a few questions about outsourcing and whether it takes place in this field - Yes, we do outsource - things like valuation, ticking and tying, and the biggest of the lot - footing (for the uninitiated - it means summing). A lot of outsourcing is done in the financial service audit field. The teams have a ton of documents to foot, and in the past, this took time, and thus money. I absolutely hate doing it. Sometimes I just want to put a little tickmark in there saying I footed the darn thing. I don't care if you love math, but if I put a 200 page fund document in front of you and ask you to foot it, you will go nuts. And then there are some who actually like doing this - well it's only because it's mindless and they can zone out thinking about nonsensical issues. A lot of it goes to India. With time zone differences, we can send documents in the evening and receive it in the morning.
Why do we do it? The same reason everyone else outsources - it's cheaper.
Who know....we might reach a day when the entire audit is outsourced. Communication - can be done via video and over the phone. Documents - can be transferred via email.
The world is flat indeed.
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Comments

Anonymous said…
When I started work and a senior told me to do footing.. I completely went crazy and still think it is time-wasting thing. Today, all reports with financial numbers have done with Excel. If clients used right equations, it sounds good. I don't know why we do footing numbers on F/S rather than checking equations on Excel. When I do footing, I still think that "I studied damn accounting for 4 yrs. in college for doing this?...even 3rd graders can do this"
February 15, 2009 at 5:21 PM
Anonymous said…
Hi

I'm assuming you work on the east coast and was wandering what the business and public opinion is like regarding the financial crisis and the role of auditors and accounting in the financial services sector?

Thanks
February 20, 2009 at 12:03 AM
Anonymous said…
From what I can tell, we've been using India for a few years now, but seniors are still figuring out how to use it effectively. Ticking and tying is good, but on smaller jobs they have tried to send check copies, etc, for the actual testing, but it's ridiculous because by the time you get it to them, you could've just done the testing yourself, haha.
One of my goals (once I'm fully employed that is) is to devote some brain power to how we can use our India resources. Part of the problem, despite all the technology, is still American seniors who have a hard time communicating with Indian employees.
February 20, 2009 at 6:56 PM
notfordisplay said…
Anonymous -
loaded question, I'd refer you to retheauditors.com to give you a better idea. It's a really good website/blog by Francine Mckenna, who used to work for PWC.
February 21, 2009 at 8:18 AM
Anonymous said…
@Anon#1 - hell I just bypassed the madness by asking for a copy of the original XLS file.

Review the formulas. Re-calculate them if you're ultra-paranoid. Boom, done.

It stands as one of my favourite audit memories.
March 4, 2009 at 10:12 PM
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