How many hours a week do you work during busy season? - Page 4

  • Creator
    Topic
  • #183692
    futureCPA12
    Participant

    For those in Audit, how many hours do you typically work in a week? I’ve been averaging about 45 hours a week and I’m a 1st year staff. Am I an anomaly?

Viewing 15 replies - 46 through 60 (of 76 total)
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    Replies
  • #516588
    payfields
    Participant

    @study monk?

    What is this illegal billing you speak of? Have you read an engagement letter before? When clients walk into your door do you tell them “we charge $200 per hour”? I fail to see how any billing practices in here are “illegal”.

    #516590
    san4596
    Member

    Payfields – Overhead is included in your hourly rate. You tell a client that you charge $200/hr, but are billing them more than you are actually working. That is unethical. You are saying that working 10 hours and billing 15 is alright. I understand minimum fees for clients that do not take much time. (i.e.- no tax return for less than $250) Most audits where I am are strictly bid on, which means you state $$$ and can only bill $$$. We do many things for our clients throughout the year, and accrue small amounts of time until we do a tax return or other service that requires much more time. Then, we give them a detailed invoice showing consultations, tax return, irs audit, etc. To each their own, this is my opinion.

    CPA EXAM: DONE!!!!
    Ethics Course: Passed
    Application Mailed: 3/16/15
    Professional Conduct Exam: 97
    Certification Date: 4/2/15!!!

    #516628
    san4596
    Member

    Payfields – Overhead is included in your hourly rate. You tell a client that you charge $200/hr, but are billing them more than you are actually working. That is unethical. You are saying that working 10 hours and billing 15 is alright. I understand minimum fees for clients that do not take much time. (i.e.- no tax return for less than $250) Most audits where I am are strictly bid on, which means you state $$$ and can only bill $$$. We do many things for our clients throughout the year, and accrue small amounts of time until we do a tax return or other service that requires much more time. Then, we give them a detailed invoice showing consultations, tax return, irs audit, etc. To each their own, this is my opinion.

    CPA EXAM: DONE!!!!
    Ethics Course: Passed
    Application Mailed: 3/16/15
    Professional Conduct Exam: 97
    Certification Date: 4/2/15!!!

    #516630
    taxman89
    Participant

    payfields. It seems like you bill per project (ie we will do this for 5K regardless of how long it takes) in which case your billables would be for purely internal purposes. In my limited experience (work in industry not big 4) projects are usually billed in hours. We often have projects that we dont know what it will completely entail and we are billed for the work of deloitte or e&y on an hourly bases with different rates depending on if its an associate or partner or whoever works on it. In this case we would be very upset (and it would be unethical) if we were billed for 70 hours when only 45 actual hours were worked.

    basically it seems like your firm works different from others and thats why there is confusion

    Aud-75 3x I knew i never liked you
    Bec-77 1x being in the bubble is stressful
    Reg-82 4x its not me its you...and no we cant be friends
    Far-78 1x easiest section

    #516592
    taxman89
    Participant

    payfields. It seems like you bill per project (ie we will do this for 5K regardless of how long it takes) in which case your billables would be for purely internal purposes. In my limited experience (work in industry not big 4) projects are usually billed in hours. We often have projects that we dont know what it will completely entail and we are billed for the work of deloitte or e&y on an hourly bases with different rates depending on if its an associate or partner or whoever works on it. In this case we would be very upset (and it would be unethical) if we were billed for 70 hours when only 45 actual hours were worked.

    basically it seems like your firm works different from others and thats why there is confusion

    Aud-75 3x I knew i never liked you
    Bec-77 1x being in the bubble is stressful
    Reg-82 4x its not me its you...and no we cant be friends
    Far-78 1x easiest section

    #516632
    payfields
    Participant

    @san4596.

    We do not tell any client what we bill per hour, each staff member has a different rate for every different type of work. XXX for 1040's XXX for 1120S's XXX for Bookkeeping, etc. But when there is going to be 2 hours from me, .25 of review from each reviewer, .25 from processor, .25 from process review and .25 from logout/deliver, I am not going to show that on an invoice. If i did, would it be misleading that it took the processor 4 minutes to review but we put in .25 hours. I have never seen a bill from anyone in my life that did not round up to at least a 1/4 hour for per hour items. And like I said anyways, we are not billing per hour, we are billing for a SERVICE.

    We are not misleading or being unethical and for you to say that is starting to piss me off.

    We are charging for a service, not an hourly rate. If i were to put on a bill or told a client that i worked 46 hours @ xxx and i only worked 2 hours that would be misleading but we do not do that. We do not put any hours or rates on our bills at all. I bill XXX and how much time or my rate is our business.

    @taxman89

    You mention E&Y and Deloitte. Our founding partner brought this ideal from Touche Ross (Deloitte). This is exactly how it was done when he was a manager there and how we've done it for the past 30 years.

    So you mention billing for 70 hours when only actually 45 were worked.

    So let's say for example you take a phone call, or write an email for a client a few times that literally takes you 2 minutes each, you would recommend entering 2 minutes of time for each call?

    I think i read how your bro being a lawyer. So if he met with a client for 10 minutes and his rate is $250 per hour you're telling me he would send them a bill for 42 bucks?

    #516594
    payfields
    Participant

    @san4596.

    We do not tell any client what we bill per hour, each staff member has a different rate for every different type of work. XXX for 1040's XXX for 1120S's XXX for Bookkeeping, etc. But when there is going to be 2 hours from me, .25 of review from each reviewer, .25 from processor, .25 from process review and .25 from logout/deliver, I am not going to show that on an invoice. If i did, would it be misleading that it took the processor 4 minutes to review but we put in .25 hours. I have never seen a bill from anyone in my life that did not round up to at least a 1/4 hour for per hour items. And like I said anyways, we are not billing per hour, we are billing for a SERVICE.

    We are not misleading or being unethical and for you to say that is starting to piss me off.

    We are charging for a service, not an hourly rate. If i were to put on a bill or told a client that i worked 46 hours @ xxx and i only worked 2 hours that would be misleading but we do not do that. We do not put any hours or rates on our bills at all. I bill XXX and how much time or my rate is our business.

    @taxman89

    You mention E&Y and Deloitte. Our founding partner brought this ideal from Touche Ross (Deloitte). This is exactly how it was done when he was a manager there and how we've done it for the past 30 years.

    So you mention billing for 70 hours when only actually 45 were worked.

    So let's say for example you take a phone call, or write an email for a client a few times that literally takes you 2 minutes each, you would recommend entering 2 minutes of time for each call?

    I think i read how your bro being a lawyer. So if he met with a client for 10 minutes and his rate is $250 per hour you're telling me he would send them a bill for 42 bucks?

    #516634
    taxman89
    Participant

    i would think a 2 min phone call would go under the non billable because its so inconsequential especially if it was with a big client, but again my visibility on this is really really low. i have very little experience with billables . I do know that my brothers law firm bills to the 1/10th of an hour (breaks it out every 6 min (i know…nuts)). He literally has a start/stop clock on his desk so if he is working on a client and gets a phone call he stops one clock and starts another.

    Aud-75 3x I knew i never liked you
    Bec-77 1x being in the bubble is stressful
    Reg-82 4x its not me its you...and no we cant be friends
    Far-78 1x easiest section

    #516596
    taxman89
    Participant

    i would think a 2 min phone call would go under the non billable because its so inconsequential especially if it was with a big client, but again my visibility on this is really really low. i have very little experience with billables . I do know that my brothers law firm bills to the 1/10th of an hour (breaks it out every 6 min (i know…nuts)). He literally has a start/stop clock on his desk so if he is working on a client and gets a phone call he stops one clock and starts another.

    Aud-75 3x I knew i never liked you
    Bec-77 1x being in the bubble is stressful
    Reg-82 4x its not me its you...and no we cant be friends
    Far-78 1x easiest section

    #516636
    taxman89
    Participant

    And i dont know for sure (at all) if thats how Deloitte and E&Y do it. It make sense if its a specific standardize service to bill by the service instead of hour, but when its something very client specific and unique then you kind of have to bill by hour. If you are billing by hour i think you should have a threshold of some sort. like if you bill every 1/4 an hour dont count it as a quarter unless it hits 10 mins…figuring for every 10 min “1/4 hr” you have a couple 5,6min emails or calls that you didnt bill so you dont overbill for your work.

    just my opinion. and again i dont have much/any experience with this lol

    Aud-75 3x I knew i never liked you
    Bec-77 1x being in the bubble is stressful
    Reg-82 4x its not me its you...and no we cant be friends
    Far-78 1x easiest section

    #516598
    taxman89
    Participant

    And i dont know for sure (at all) if thats how Deloitte and E&Y do it. It make sense if its a specific standardize service to bill by the service instead of hour, but when its something very client specific and unique then you kind of have to bill by hour. If you are billing by hour i think you should have a threshold of some sort. like if you bill every 1/4 an hour dont count it as a quarter unless it hits 10 mins…figuring for every 10 min “1/4 hr” you have a couple 5,6min emails or calls that you didnt bill so you dont overbill for your work.

    just my opinion. and again i dont have much/any experience with this lol

    Aud-75 3x I knew i never liked you
    Bec-77 1x being in the bubble is stressful
    Reg-82 4x its not me its you...and no we cant be friends
    Far-78 1x easiest section

    #516638
    payfields
    Participant

    Well between the 20 emails/5+ phone calls a day if i wrote all of those off to nonbillable would i time into those clients really reflect how much time i spent on them?

    1/10th is pretty low, but even at that, i can't imagine every call happens to be at exactly 6 minute increments. So what if its 10 minutes, does he just write that back down to 1/10th? or round up? Our policy is almost any contact with a project is .25 of an hour. That's just how it is.

    If i am in the middle of something else, and have to take the time to put down what i am doing, answer the phone, close my file to pull up theirs, input a number and spit something back, then hang up and re open the other file and find my place that may only take 5 minutes but if that happens 5 or more times a day and i don't put any time in, ill never show my true time spent on clients.

    #516600
    payfields
    Participant

    Well between the 20 emails/5+ phone calls a day if i wrote all of those off to nonbillable would i time into those clients really reflect how much time i spent on them?

    1/10th is pretty low, but even at that, i can't imagine every call happens to be at exactly 6 minute increments. So what if its 10 minutes, does he just write that back down to 1/10th? or round up? Our policy is almost any contact with a project is .25 of an hour. That's just how it is.

    If i am in the middle of something else, and have to take the time to put down what i am doing, answer the phone, close my file to pull up theirs, input a number and spit something back, then hang up and re open the other file and find my place that may only take 5 minutes but if that happens 5 or more times a day and i don't put any time in, ill never show my true time spent on clients.

    #516640
    san4596
    Member

    Pay – our invoice does not show rate and time. However, we bill by time and not service, with the exception of audits that are bids. It does get tedious, but 20 phone calls in a year can add up. That's why we accrue small time and put it on the bill as a consolidated figure on a line item. (1040 = $$$, Consultations = $$$) You do not send out a bill every time you get a call. This is how every law firm I have dealt with bills as well. Except they do put the actual amount of hours spent on each item.

    I do think we have a missunderstanding somewhere. I do not see it as unethical if you are billing a flat rate for services such a $$$ for 1120 or $$$ for 1040. However, I do think it is unethical if you are telling a client their bill depends on the amount of time it takes to complete this service, and then bill 20 hours over what you actually did.

    Sorry if this offends you, but it is my unjudgemental opinion.

    CPA EXAM: DONE!!!!
    Ethics Course: Passed
    Application Mailed: 3/16/15
    Professional Conduct Exam: 97
    Certification Date: 4/2/15!!!

    #516602
    san4596
    Member

    Pay – our invoice does not show rate and time. However, we bill by time and not service, with the exception of audits that are bids. It does get tedious, but 20 phone calls in a year can add up. That's why we accrue small time and put it on the bill as a consolidated figure on a line item. (1040 = $$$, Consultations = $$$) You do not send out a bill every time you get a call. This is how every law firm I have dealt with bills as well. Except they do put the actual amount of hours spent on each item.

    I do think we have a missunderstanding somewhere. I do not see it as unethical if you are billing a flat rate for services such a $$$ for 1120 or $$$ for 1040. However, I do think it is unethical if you are telling a client their bill depends on the amount of time it takes to complete this service, and then bill 20 hours over what you actually did.

    Sorry if this offends you, but it is my unjudgemental opinion.

    CPA EXAM: DONE!!!!
    Ethics Course: Passed
    Application Mailed: 3/16/15
    Professional Conduct Exam: 97
    Certification Date: 4/2/15!!!

Viewing 15 replies - 46 through 60 (of 76 total)
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