[justgivemea75]

Do you agree or disagree with the statement in the title. I acknowledge that they are obviously related, but having worked at a Big 4 for almost a year now, I truly feel as though there are more senior people that I can probably out-think around when it comes to financial accounting and how to apply rules, what the business impact is, etc. but I can also tell you right now that I’m not even close to being the best auditor in my class.

Anyone agree with my perspective’ or am I premature in my assumptions?

FAR - 84
AUD - 76 (phew)
BEC - 88
REG - 77

DONE!

[thechapman]

From what I've experienced so far, I haven't had to know squat about accounting. Whether or not I use spell check in a cash confirmation workpaper is much more important

Passed - 2014

[Pandarama]

I work for a small audit firm, we have about 2 interns per summer. This will be my 5th round of interns. By the end of the summer, it's pretty clear to me which interns should stick in auditing and which should go towards tax or accounting.

I had an intern at me a question. Literally 2 minutes after I answered the question, she would ask the question again and apologize because she knew I just answered it. Again she asked the same question for the 89th time and again I would remind her where to find something or point out something simple that she missed. At one point she said (in front of the owner), “my attention to detail is bad”. I laughed hysterically for a good 5 minutes and reminded her that was this entire job and practically requirement #1 to be good at it. She was not a good fit for auditing.

The intern before her was also terrible at audit but perfect for tax.

BEC - 80
AUD - 64, 75 - credit lost, 90!!
REG - 73, 74, 83
FAR - 61, 72, 85

Feels good finishing on my best note. Time to watch the mailbox.

[sdguy]

A strong financial accountant can manage a company by the numbers, do strategic planning, create budgets and forecasts, etc. Completely different than what an auditor is trained to do, which is mostly GAAP and internal control compliance.

A person can certainly be good at both, but a good auditor doesn't necessarily transfer to being a good accountant.

AUD: 83
FAR: 77
REG: 86
BEC: 86

[gennatay]

They are different. I have a strong financial accounting background and limited auditing experience. When I landed my current position, I was offered staff auditor because I knew so little. There are audit managers at my job that has never experienced a monthly close or posted a journal entry. Now that I have audit experience, I may be looking for another position later in the year.

[Anonymous]

This is sorta a wierd question. To be a good auditor or a good accountant you have to know/be able to research and apply GAAP. In industry you are in the details in audit you are not but for audit you generally will have a more surface level understanding (just enough to audit and be able to tell if something is wrong) but in a broader range of acctg areas. There is definitely crossover but the actual day to day tasks are MUCH different.

[Anonymous]

I agree in part. An Accountant does not need to understand auditing. However an Auditor does need to understand accounting.

There are many staff accountants who don't have the slightest inkling of what's involved in an audit. But an auditor needs to understand the fundamentals of accounting in order to perform an audit.

[Skynet]

Absolutely agree.

A guy like me must have both Auditing & Accounting Skills.

Having Auditing Skills will help me verify whether a A Woman's Physical Assets are Fairly Represented as stated on her Tinder Profile.

After auditing a Woman's Physical Assets, and based on my either Unmodified or Modified Opinion, my Accounting Skills will help determine whether to Swipe left on Tinder and allocate the amount of money for such an engagement.

[Martin]

Pandarama, I only have private Accounting experience,so pardon my ignorance,but I thought that in taxes, you also needed to have a good attention to detail. In Private Accounting, it does not really matter cause you are in charge of the same accounts and every single month you do the same thing,so it becomes second nature to you. Please elaborate as I would love to join a tax practice if what you are saying is correct.

Through God all things can happen!

“You never fail until you stop trying.”
― Albert Einstein
When I was young, I used to admire intelligent people;as I grow older, I admire kind people.
“Just keep swimming, just keep swimming.”

FAR= 72-84
Audit= 73-82
BEC= 74-75
Reg=77

[Anonymous]

Funny because I had an auditor ask me “whats that?” when I was referring to an accrual …

[Anonymous]

You can be a successful accountant without knowledge in audit.

You cannot be a successful auditor without knowledge in accounting.

My experience: 3 years audit and 3.5 years SEC reporting with a 1 year stint in Revenue accounting.

I mean I think it's pretty obvious. How does one properly audit SBC expense without knowing ASC 718? (Formerly FAS 123R) Outside of: “following what we did last year.”

[justgivemea75]

I agree with the people saying that you can't be an auditor without knowledge of accounting. The question is how much do you honestly need? Again, it could just be that I'm a first-year, but so far, I've learned more studying for FAR about accounting than I have in almost 9 months on the job. That's why I'm wondering why big 4 experience is so valued. Sure, you need to generally understand how fixed assets get accounted for, but are you really going to have as much depth of knowledge as someone who works in-house?

FAR - 84
AUD - 76 (phew)
BEC - 88
REG - 77

DONE!

[Anonymous]

Nope. In house person will generally have a much greater understanding than the auditor. BUT the auditor will have a better understanding of a wider array of areas. If you want a known quality, someone who is driven, can learn and able to work long hours when needed, hiring from big 4 makes sense. Most hiring managers know exactly what auditing is and know their hires from big 4 are not accounting geniuses but they are sorta a known quality and with right training can do great.

[jschrei2]

As an auditor, Saly will quickly become your best friend 🙂

FAR- 88
REG- 88
AUD- 93
BEC-86

[Thrawn]

My experience as someone who worked in tax for 2 years and now works in internal audit for the same company, auditors who have never been in the “real world” often have very good auditing skill-sets, you can know which questions to ask, tests to run etc. But often are missing practicality, and have a hard-time truly understanding whether a response is legitimate or not. It is also very difficult to audit without that real world experience, which is why I had to explain some very simple stuff to our big 4 audit team (staff and seniors).

BEC 87 Feb 14
REG 84 Apr 14
FAR 82 Nov 14
AUD 86 Feb 15

[Pandarama]

Martin, “Pandarama, I only have private Accounting experience,so pardon my ignorance,but I thought that in taxes, you also needed to have a good attention to detail. In Private Accounting, it does not really matter cause you are in charge of the same accounts and every single month you do the same thing,so it becomes second nature to you. Please elaborate as I would love to join a tax practice if what you are saying is correct.”

Forgive me, I should've been more clear. In my opinion, attention to detail is important in any accounting field. But I do feel that to be a great auditor, your attention to detail should go above and beyond. I guess what I mean is an enhanced attention to detail more in the sense of recognizing patterns, noticing things that stand out or that are missing. But don't get me wrong, attention to detail isn't the only thing that makes a great auditor. There are plenty of other factors that may offset this trait.

Police officers are also expected to go above and beyond with attention to detail. Remember as a kid they had two pictures side by side and you had to find the differences between those two pictures? I'm going to start giving my interns that test, and see how many differences they find in what time period. I'll let you know in a few months, which intern was better at it and if the results from that test agreed with my opinion of them sticking with auditing later down the line. lol

BEC - 80
AUD - 64, 75 - credit lost, 90!!
REG - 73, 74, 83
FAR - 61, 72, 85

Feels good finishing on my best note. Time to watch the mailbox.

[Author]

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