[Jimmy Dugan]

Does anyone have any training materials from big 4 programs or other public accounting firms with formal training programs they’d feel comfortable sharing? Audit, tax, doesn’t really matter. I am not trying to steal trade secrets, I just work on the private side and see posts/hear folks I work with talk all the time about how beneficial their public firm training was. Just want to see what I’m missing.

[DM]

You will not find this material anywhere except joining a Big4. This wealth of information is kept under very tight security. In your current firm, you may have to do your own primary/secondary research, but at Big4 everything is already done for you, all you need to do is search the database for implementation guidance and you can find an e-learning, memo, guide, etc. that will get you to the correct response.
Big4 training has a few components; CPE (or e-learnings), required firm trainings (i.e., regulatory matters like independence, covered persons, etc.) and position-based training. The position-based training happens on engagement teams, local office and at a national level. Engagement team training varies with team onboarding. National training hosts all same-level peers at a neutral site, like Orlando, Dallas, etc. where people from offices over the US meet for a standard training (annually). There is an incredible wealth of resources for Big4 personnel to specialize in a specific area. There has to be thousands of e-learnings where you can expand your areas of expertise. You can track your areas of expertise in your company profile, where HR and staffing people look at your strengths for placement. Overall, there is more industry exposure and the Big4 has training to cover just about anything and everything from new accounting guidance implementation to new tax regulatory matters to specific industry guidance. Big4 is a wealth of information that private and smaller firms do not have access to or have to pay up to get access.

[Adam]

Public is valuable as you are working with multiple businesses in various industries and doing all aspect of businees..Private youre doing one part of the spectrum..for one company..your skills are valuable to that company, and possibly industry only

[Pork Flavored Bacon]

Adam summed it up pretty nicely.
And just to share my story, when I switched from assurance to advisory, I went to my firm's training and I'll tell you this: The training had absolutely nothing to do with any advisory work we might encounter. It took me a couple of days to figure it out but it was a week-long lesson in social engineering. It was weird.

FAR - 75 | REG - 87 | AUD - 82 | LAW - 81

[Son]

I don't know about audit or assurance practices but tax service lines of all Big4s routinely organize webcasts on the latest and hottest topics in tax (as you can imagine it's all tax reform right now). Those are free, and you can also download training materials afterwards to get a sense for how they are typically structured.

Keep in mind they give away only about 30% of the information on those webcasts (since they are free). I.e., they only cover the basics. Internal trainings are a lot more detailed and include planning ideas that Big4 folks can then sell to their clients.

AUD - passed
REG - passed
BEC - passed
FAR - passed

[Author]

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