[mikiluv]

Does anyone have experience in both? Or have comparisons?

For a 1st year auditor, is work relatively “easier” at a Big4 or Large Regional office?

Thx!

[Anonymous]

Lol I start big 4 next week. I'll let you know how training goes!

[Anonymous]

Regional. Hands down. You'll get to see an audit from beginning to end. At Big 4, if they place you on fixed assets, you will audit fixed assets for a year or two. If you're lucky, maybe you'll get to audit cash before you are a senior. My boss had a buddy when he was younger that did bank recs in Detroit for two years.

Although, some Big 4 clients are smaller. If you're lucky enough to get on one, you could see other aspects of the audit, but I wouldn't cross your fingers. I wouldn't count on that though- It's pretty rough for them to make money on small audits. They normally take them on as a loss leader to get their foot in the door for consulting, or if the company fits a strategic profile.

[Anonymous]

I don't have any comparison but I can tell you I've worked at a regional firm for 10 months and have seen an audit from beginning to end and was just scheduled to in-charge 3 or 4 jobs this coming busy season. My experience may not be perfect scenario since I worked in industry for approximately 5 years before doing public but just a view from the smaller perspective.

[fuzyfro89]

Totally depends on your clients. Big 4 are starting to audit more small/MM companies since that's where all the growth and new clients are.

During my time, I worked on clients with $100m, $1b, $4b, and $60b in revenues… So I guess you could say I got the full Monty. I also got to see many different accounts, so my experience was very well rounded.

I did have friends who spent 80%+ of their time on single clients (either very large or medium sized clients that had enough work to keep staff busy for most of the year), while others like me seemed to get a better variety.

I will say that it's rare to balance a very large client and smaller clients because the big one will just swallow up most of your schedule and it's not really your decision completely.

GT/BDO/Mcg also have their share of clients in the mid range, while smaller firms obviously don't.

[impska]

I work at a smaller firm (a national firm, but a small office) and I get projects dumped on me every week that involve learning something new.

I've done entire audits alone. I do tax during busy season. After only a year, I've directly applied 75% of the CPA exam material to my job (BEC being the least used, but it creeps in there sometimes). I've even done some of that Pension, NFP and Gov't stuff that no one cares about. :p

REG - 94
BEC - 92
FAR - 92
AUD - 99

[silverdice7]

Just curious, what is considered a small office at a national firm? 15 people, 50 people…?

AUD 94
BEC 91
REG 88
FAR 91

Done!

[Anonymous]

I think the KPMG office in Burlington, VT has two partners (it may be four). That would probably end up being <10 people. I'd say that's pretty small.

[impska]

@Silverdice – About 20 people (during busy season). 15 outside of busy season. I think it's the smallest (or second smallest) in the whole firm, which has offices in all major markets nationally. The brand name matters though. We get clients that other local firms can't handle because we have the resources/access to a national firm's knowledge base.

REG - 94
BEC - 92
FAR - 92
AUD - 99

[Anonymous]

I worked at Moss Adams which is a fairly large regional firm on the west coast and I found it be somewhat challenging because I had a lot of different midsize clients. Whereas, at a Big 4 you only have 1 or 2 large clients. I liked the variety because you see so many different things.

[StephAV]

When I was in public accounting I was at a regional firm ~60 professionals. They say they are “the LARGEST local firm” haha. Most of the time there I was on a new audit every week or every other week. I did have one big client I worked on that I spent several months each year on. I think there are +'s and -‘s to both. Being on 1 client for a long time allows you to become a lot more familiar with the entity, at the same time, you might spend several days or weeks just auditing cash versus seeing various different accounts…

FAR - 7/13 - 72, 11/13- 74, 2/14- 82!!! Best score ever (for me)!!!
BEC - 1/14 - 75!!! Perfect score! First Pass! YAY!!!
AUD - 8/14 - 80!!!
REG - 5/14 - 72, 10/14 - 66, 1/15 - 78 - DONE FOREVER!!!
I did 5 of the UNA and CPAExcel classes to earn units.

[Author]

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