Life of an auditor

And so it has begun...the attrition rate is slowly climbing. People ranking from senior managers down to staff associates are leaving, albeit in trickles.There are still a huge employee base remaining, and we're not gaining any new clients, so the firms still have some room before they get pressured into doing something drastic, like hiring "experienced hires". Short term, they're feeling the squeeze, since it is busy season and there's not much wiggle room when employees leave during this time period. (On a side note, HR turns into an angry divorcee that'll refuse to speak to you during the divorce process if you leave during busy season). But come the spring/summer, when the number of people "on the bench" (not assigned to clients) increases, that gives the firms more leeway to expend some expendables. Unless the attrition rate jumps back to normalcy, this will happen. So for the sake of job security, here's hoping that happens.

You know when you're in high school, and the teacher singles you out or goes after you, but you can't say anything, or you'd get suspended or go to detention. That's how I feel when dealing with certain clients these days. How do i explain to them that calendar years can be different than fiscal years, when they're certain there's no difference? It's almost like any request my team asks them gets attacked. "Well we gave you everything you requested prior to the audit, so why do you need more?" Well, that isn't exactly how an audit works. And how about some of their excel schedules? Oh god, i mean..don't just give me an excel schedule and say that my answer's in there. If it takes more than 20 mins sifting through different unnamed tabs in the schedule to find the reconciliation i'm looking for, please take them back and make them look presentable. And don't go into fight club mode everytime we question your accounting. That just...

So this link has been making the rounds amongst big 4 employees. Here's an excerpt - "The documents show that Ernst & Young partners had cash earnings averaging $565,000 for each partner in the 12 months ended June 30, 2002, up 9.7 percent from $515,000 the previous year, and that 31 percent of revenue was profit." I'm assuming that it's a good ballpark figure for all 4 firms. Keep in mind that this was 2002, so it's obviously higher right now. Gotta love divorce proceedings for revealing everything. I'd say this is about what we expected the average partner to be pulling down. Makes it easy to buy those much needed country club memberships and vacation houses.

"I am interning now, in audit. I have never been so bored in my life. I am getting plenty of work, but the work seems so meaningless and unfullfilling. Tic, Tie, copy/paste in excel, check this, check that. It is all so boring and lacking substance. I realize that as an staff auditor, this is what you do, but is the essence of auditing really just that? Wondering if Advisory tax or risk management would be more to my liking.." I hear ya loud and clear. I did feel like that too during my associate years at the firm. Here's the thing; as an intern/associate..you are going to be the bitch. All the tick and tie stuff, looking at invoices, footing numbers, making sure numbers in one doc are in an another, that's part of the job, sadly, an important aspect of the job. Is it meaningless? Our adjustments, usually in the scheme of things, are pretty meaningless. But our very existence is like a check on the companies, because they do not want to get caught committing fraud. W...