Audit Assistant Review

I have the role of an Audit Assistant, generally I tend to be at a client's office/building auditing their accounts after the year end for a week/2 weeks. I work with generally 1-3 colleagues from my department, normally a senior, a semi senior and I am the junior.

I started Level 4 AAT in September, this consists of 3 mandatory courses, and then 2 out of 5 options are chosen. I have also been on various graduate/school leaver training days out of the office for basic training on/around Audit and Mazars. There is also an Audit training day 4 times a year for everyone in the department within our office.

I enjoy the work and get along with everyone I work with, everyone is lovely and understanding and they are more than happy to help with anything I am stuck on - even to the extent of it being in their free time. The company is good and they offer plenty of rewards/benefits. It has met my expectations.

I definitely feel very valued by my appraisal manager and by the teams I work with on a day to day basis. I feel there isn't much recognition for me/other juniors/seniors working above and beyond from more senior management however.

We had an induction 3 days in a hotel with seminars before we started in the office. When we got to the office we then had internal inductions, we also have Basic Audit training every few months for the new starters. My AAT course is once a week and it is quite well structured. I don't feel that supported by management however I receive a lot of support from the seniors and juniors.

I don't feel I receive much/any support from AAT, the course we do is online and I feel it is not anywhere near as affective as face to face teaching. When the online lesson live is finished, we can contact the teacher by email, or in front of everyone online during the session, however it is just not the same as having a good working relationship with a teacher and being supported by them and I feel im spending too much time in my own time looking up questions, as I cannot easily ask my teacher anything. I think it would be more beneficial to occasionally have somebody who has done AAT in the office spend a couple hours face to face going through things, as online training just isn't adequate for learning.

I feel I receive good support from my appraisal manager and other assistant managers, however no higher than that in terms of seniority. The mentor system within audit is hard as I very rarely am in the same place at the same time as my mentor, similar with my appraisal manager.

The salary is adequate although I wouldn't say I had much disposable income after rent, food, petrol etc. However it is better than other apprenticeships ive heard about.

We have plenty of social events going on all the time, this is a great aspect of work, I don't think a fortnight goes by without some sort of event or meeting up outside of work for drinks.

Yes

Because it is a good training scheme and when I have completed it I will definitely be proud. The people I work with are great and I do enjoy day to day work.

I would like to have been told more about the AAT and ACA qualifaction before hand as I was kept in the dark about this until a couple weeks after I started. Also make sure you look up the job role you are applying for eg. Tax, Audit or Outsourcing