Audit Associate Review

I spend my day assisting on a variety of audit related tasks. This can range from simple work papers to more complex work papers over material balances from the financial statements. As I have become more senior I have also begun to delegate tasks to junior team members and coach them.

The accounting qualification which we do while we are working has provided me with the opportunity to learn a lot. The exams and syllabuses are very wide ranging so I have been exposed to a variety of skills and concepts that I was not previously familiar with. This is good.

The programme is quite dull and process driven, and engagements are under staffed. This creates unreasonable pressure on junior team members. As the majority of my time at the firm has been during covid, there has been limited opportunity to really get to know a wide and broad range of people.

The actual work is structured as you are part of audit teams at various points in the year like with any other job. The learning and exams are terribly organised, with arbitrary policies, poor communication, and a learning operations team staffed by incompetent jobsworths who have no idea what they are doing.

Support is there when you really need it in extreme scenarios, but the firm is reactive rather than preventative. This is a great shame and the work they do is very on the surface and superficial, more to keep up appearances, especially from the learning operations team where you have to fight your own corner.

BPP teachers are very good and will always answer emails. However, the online live classrooms are dull, over full, and a terrible way to learn. It’s cheaper for both Bpp and the firm this way, but is damaging to the cohort as a whole and on an individual level

The role is so basic that you only really need tot know the content from the first few exams to do it. All the other material is far more interesting but unfortunately not applicable to audit. This is a really big shame but it’s better than not learning it.

No. The firm has some groups but they are not well advertised or organised and there is little effort to involve younger staff from the outset. This means it is hard to find other communities to participate in other than just your cohort. This is a really big shame tbh.

No

There are better apprenticeships out there and the ACA is of limited use early in your career unless you want to be an auditor or work in a finance team. It is not widely respected at this stage in our careers but does become useful later down the line e

Perform well in the tests, be personable, and don’t be intimidated. The Assessment centre is a good day out virtual or otherwise and is quite easy as long as you are not overly dominant in the group activity and can produce a good writing sample. Most of all have fun