Audit Assistant Review

I am an audit assistant so I spend the majority of my time out at clients. Some of this time is spent doing planning work, which involves looking at the controls clients have in place for systems such as sales, purchases and payroll. The execution stage involves carrying out testing to ensure different areas of the accounts are right such as debtors, creditors, fixed assets and bank. Office work involves some review work like completing call & casts of accounts

Working in the audit department has definitely improved my confidence as I am out at clients a lot of the time so am regularly meeting new people, and also have to go speak to the client to discuss the work we are doing. Therefore, communication skills have been developed more.

I do enjoy my programme. I think that being in the audit department helps to keep the job interesting because you are working in different places every week rather than being in the same place all the time. The only down side to this is that it involves a lot of travelling so some of the clients take longer to get to than others. However, I've also had opportunities to work away in London for other offices which is good.

I'd say the programme is fairly well structured. It involved a year studying AAT level 3, another year studying level 4, and then will have 3 years studying ACA. At the minute, I am in college once a week to study my AAT, so there is structure to the course.

I feel that I receive enough support from my employer. When you work any over time or have to travel to training courses, you can claim this time back as TOIL. This can then be used as study days before exams which is really helpful to use as final preparation for them.

The training provider that we use in my office for AAT is Kaplan. I feel that the tutors at Kaplan are very helpful. You also receive free textbooks, study notes and online resources from them which is good. However, the admin side of Kaplan is less organised as the enrolment process was slow.

As I work in the audit department, the AAT qualification isn't always very applicable to the job role as so far I have covered units such as tax, book keeping and management accounting. However, although the qualification isn't audit specific, it does help me to have a better understanding of accounting and what I am auditing.

There are some social activities to get involved in. For example, as a department we go for an Indian once a year. There is also the district young accountants formal dinner each year to go to. However, there aren't any clubs or activities for things such as sports to get involved in.

Yes

I would recommend RSM to a friend because I feel that it is a good place to train. I think that being in a bigger firm gives you more opportunities to do different things than working for a smaller company would. All study courses and exams are paid for and it is nice to have the option to take extra days for study with TOIL

When applying to RSM the first stages are online which are online tests and a video interview. After this you progress on to a proper interview. My advice for the video interview would be not to panic as you get two attempts to record your answer if it goes wrong the first time. For the in person interview, this is also quite relaxed and feels like more of a chat about the role.