QUOTE(Dharma123 @ Oct 23 2013, 10:42 PM)
Yes it is very easy for you to say that is is not suppose to be the auditor role to dig documents. But you are not in the client's shoes.
Its not just me, any job that you will go into next time, you will have to clear shiit. Yes, your predecessor won't be there to teach you how its done and there is a lot of shiit to clear. If there is no shiit, the company won't be bother to hire you. They hire you to solve shiit, that is what commercial job is about.
And don't be thinking that your co-workers will be helping you, guide you and teach you. This is not audit where the senior will provide you with the training. Once you are in commercial, you're on your own, you have to figure everything yourself. I don't like this situation as much as you will, but this is something most of us have to face.
Therefore, its not my tough luck, it is the tough luck that every auditor has to face when they make the transition from audit to commercial.
The thing is, audit firms like EY and BDO, they will dig for the information. I am especially impress with BDO, they are so independent, my boss likes them. Unlike PWC, they seem very spoonfed.
In my past 3 jobs, I have listen to finance bosses make this joke time and tme again, not to give the auditor too much info. Why? Because when you explain to them, they come back and ask more questions. Most of the time they don't understand at all, keep on asking questions. I was once an auditor, so it is understandable that auditors ask questions, because they are not in the shoes of the client doing the work. But to ask for 3k start pay, based on the knowledge thay have, i agree on this matter.
As an auditor in a big 4 (not pwc) with almost 4 years experience, I don't ask my client to dig documents unless their filing is messy.....if my client wants me to dig the documents myself....that is fine.......but he/she (account assistant) must guide me through their filling system, if I cant find any of it, I will ask client again to confirm if my understanding of their filling system is correct...... if I follow their guidance and I don't find some of it.....I will compile a list and push it to the client and get the client to find for me.........
Clearing shit is not an auditors job......it is clients job.... it's stated in stated in risk management policy we can't clear client's messy account...if client pass us a listing and we discover multiple mistakes halfway through testing, we'll push it back to the client and tell the client our findings so that client can re-fix the whole thing.... if i fix client shit, wat if client doesn't agree with the way i'm fixing it? or if the way i'm fixing it is incorrect coz as an outsider my knowledge of company is not in depth? But most importantly, it's a waste of time for me to fix it.....coz as an auditor deadline and time cost is crucial.....
Providing listing is also client job........ ie: you can't expect an auditor to split a receivables list between trade receivables and other non-trade receivables coz obviously we dunno the who's wat...... but of course, if the receivables list has some sort of a code/number which makes it easier to distinguish between the 2, by all means we'll split it ourselves.....
BDO being a mid-tier company is understood they've sub-par client...EY has the biggest number of clients in Malaysia, they do very crappy job/high volume job with low fees, KPMG has many sub-par client too but fees quoted by KPMG for crappy job/high volume job exceeds those quoted by EY quite frequently, Deloitte also has many sub-par clients...
PWC on the other hand has the least amount of sub-par clients, thus they are not used to doing things like fixing shit as many of their other client' dont' require them to do so..........But, PWC is quite good in client liasing as compared to other big 4, I know for sure Deloitte and KPMG loose out to PWC in terms of client liasing....Plus, PWC audit methodology very often is more detailed than the other big 4 and thus they'll ask quite a lot of questions as compared to other auditors..........I am not from PWC but I have friends who worked in all the big 4 so we sorta know wat other big 4 is like.........
Depends on wat client wants in an auditor actually, some clients only require the auditor who comes in and go then give them the financial statements without much emphasis value adding services (ie: management letter points, identification of control deficiencies, a more accurate/usable financial statemetns)...then maybe consider some other audit firms other than PWC....
I have clients who are ex-auditor themselves, for most of them their accounts are quite clean, but most of the time these ex-auditors are quite nasty too and they dont' tolerate stupid questions or associates who asked multiple times on the same thing....etc..but I am very ok working with these clients coz they get their jobs done by making sure the account is clean and all necessary listing is available, all documents are properly filled...basically they know everything including reasons for variances between last year and this year figure, fluctuations in GP margin....all I need to do is to make sure I perform properly as an auditor.......
As an ex-auditor yourself, maybe you could consider to do some improvements so that you can be one of those ex-auditor who gets his/her work done properly so that you get to be nasty in a JUSTIFIED way to stupid auditors who ask you stupid questions? maybe you get the shit fixed before auditor comes in? Or, get your subordinate to do it......one of the very valuable lessons in audit that I've learnt is to there's no shortcut/no escape/no-pushing-responsibilities around in audit/account related work coz in the end you'll still need to do it one-way properly or another......that having said...it's better for you to suffer first (ie: by fixing the shit) and enjoy later (ie: scolding and complaining about auditors who are stupid/impolite/coming in late to client places..etc)..
This post has been edited by NoOne82: Dec 1 2013, 10:26 PM 
Dec 1 2013, 09:40 PM
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