[Anonymous]

I work in a small mfg company where I’m the only staff accountant. Our company’s books are such a mess. The cfo is having everyone (clerks, accountant, controller) clean up all the accounts. I’m finding this to be really hard because I’ve only worked here as a staff accountant for 5 months. Finding lots of weird stuff.. stuff getting charged to the wrong account.. lots of the prepaid stuff got overamortized.. you name it. Our auditors are coming next week and I just want it to go as smoothly as possible. I’m guessing most of you here are auditors. What should I expect? SHould I expect a lot of questioning?

Also.. I heard a lot of stories where clients have recruited auditors to work for them. What about the other way around? Going to work for your auditors after the engagement?

[Skynet]

I don't if it might work but you can try this.

Carry your AUD and FAR CPA review book around and if they ask do what Homer Simpson does. Tell them “But it's my first day.”

[Missy]

Answer every question and provide every backup they ask for but never offer more than you're asked. If they ask how a certain prepaid was amortized, answer as succinctly as possible but don't add that another account used a different method. They'll find every thing they bed without you pointing them toward it. The less you say as long as it is truthful and accurate the better. I've been on the client side of audits dozens of times.

Licensed Massachusetts Non Reporting CPA since 2012
Finance/Admin/HR Manager

[Anonymous]

As for your last question, I keep the books for several dozen clients, and they are all audited at year-end. I don't provide the auditors with just financials, I give them paperless workpapers which cross reference practically every material balance. Auditors have been so impressed with my work, they told me if I ever move to their part of the country, they'd hire me in a second. As things would turn out, we ended up hiring the lead auditor (but after he quit his job at the CPA firm and worked elsewhere for a while). These are tiny companies and none are public, obviously.

[Gronk-a-donk]

I worked at a manufacturing company last year and my first 8 weeks were GL cleanup before the audit (the woman who left before we came in was overwhelmed and was really phoning it in her last 3 weeks). As a staffer, my job was to pull the backup of the tested transactions for A/R from PO to check received. We had a lot of garbage info in the A/R and we didn't have backup for several transactions which were dumped and we were given a new list of tested invoices. Honestly, if you're a staff accountant, I wouldn't worry about the auditors bothering you too much. My controller and the CFO got grilled by the auditors, but the only time I ever saw them was their first day and tour of the plant. Just be honest with what you find and try to give as much info on a transaction that is not 100% complete to your controller/CFO as you can. If there is something wrong with the transactions, it wasn't you who was booking them (assuming year end is/was 12/31). Best of luck, audits suck but you'll get through it!

FAR - Passed!
BEC - Passed!
AUD - Passed!
REG - August 2016

"Be the type of person that when your feet touch the floor in the morning, the devil says 'aww s***, they're up'" - Dwayne Johnson

[StephAV]

When I was an auditor we hired the part time AP person from one of our clients. She was in school getting her accounting degree and everyone knew after graduation she wanted to move on and get into public accounting. That was 7+ years ago that I left and she is still there (at the CPA firm). I wasn't so sure when she started, but I guess it all worked out. A staff audit position is really an entry level job. Their requirements are usually that you are eligible to become a CPA, as in have the necessary coursework and degree.

As far as the audit, are these new auditors or is this the first time the company has had an audit? Some scrambling and clean up happens before most audits. Generally as you pull things together for the auditors you find some errors. I would agree to be honest and do your best to help.

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.

[Mayo]

Don't worry. If your company's books are a cluster, then the auditors will start finding exceptions here and there. Just answer their questions like mla11692 mentioned.

At the end of the day it's their prerogative if they find the risks and materiality of certain exceptions enough to warrant additional testing or adjustments. Just don't expect it to go smoothly without any questions. If you guys are scrubbing the books that'll help with reducing the amount of errors found. But at the end of the day, a crappy process (like what you mentioned) produces a bunch of junk that takes effort from both the client and auditor to clean up. So expect things to pop up.

Mayo, BBA, Macc

[Author]

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