Audit Senior Associate Review

As an associate, you will be involved in auditing different areas such as cash, expenses and equity. This may involve going to the client site or working together at the office. As you become a senior associate, day to day tasks involve auditing more challenging areas such as fraud, revenue, accruals and impairment. You may also be involved in more administrative tasks such as managing the team budget for the following year. Also, you may be involved in client interaction such as presenting to them on the audit status and issues that have arisen.

A major skill is analytical and scepticism skills whereby the majority of your work involves analysing and scanning documentation to ensure it reconciles to the trial balance and to your listings. On top of this, you will significantly improve your communication skills as not only do you work with different people within different teams (such as tax, SDC and other PwC office teams), you will also communicate with the client.

At first, I found it very challenging and overwhelming purely because you are exposed to so many areas of the financial statements that you can test. Also, you can be involved in an audit only for a few days which may not be very effective/efficient. However, as I progressed into a senior associate, you remain on continuous clients, which makes the job much more interesting as you actually get to know the client and the business in much more depth. You also start seeing how each audit process connects to each other and understand the more wider audit picture/process. However, the only downside is the long working hours, but if you have a good and motivating team, this is not always a downside.

Extremely well structured. I never had to worry about what I was doing next in terms of completing my ACA qualification. Kaplan and PwC were amazing at ensuring I was prepared for my next exam. Kaplan themselves are a great training provider, where their high quality tutors and resource materials meant that I passed first time. Would 100% recommend Kaplan as a training provider.

PwC are great at keeping you informed of your pathway when completing your exams. They also have a professional qualification team who are solely focused on making sure you are on the right pathway. There is also a PwC team who are around everyday to answer any questions you have in regards to your question banks/practice papers which I thought was an amazing addition from PwC. Even after exams, PwC always have additional training that you want to get involved in.

Kaplan were amazing at ensuring I was prepared for my next exam. Kaplan would provide pre-course sessions where they walked through the exam at a high level as well as who the key Kaplan and PwC tutors/contacts are. This made you feel more comfortable when you started your first day at college. Kaplan tutors were incredible, where they always answered emails in a timely manner if you had any questions where some tutors would even set up a call with yourselves if you were really stuck. Overall, Kaplan themselves are a great training provider, where their high quality tutors and resource materials meant that I passed first time. Would 100% recommend Kaplan as a training provider.

A lot of the exam content became very relevant for my role. For example, when studying for FAR and CR, there were topics on cash flow statements and pensions for example, which are both areas which I wouldn't audit every day. Therefore, by understanding how these areas work, when I came to audit them, I had a high level of knowledge already which improved my audit quality. Also, having to learn how to be organised when studying and working, benefited me when I finished exams as I still feel I am very organised with my time which helps me meet my deadlines.

Yes there are plenty of extra curricular activities to get involved in at work. There are many social teams such as badminton and rock climbing funded by PwC. If you wanted to create your own social club, PwC are always willing to give you the funds to budget socials. On top of this, you can join the social events team, who organise the whole office events, from christmas balls to boat parties. There are also mental health teams where you can get involved in helping create events to help employees' mental health.

Yes

Despite the role being challenging, the work environment at PwC is great. PwC has so much to offer once you become qualified such as secondments, overseas rotations, or just transfering anywhere in the firm. PwC creates the feeling that everyone wants you to do well as there is always so much training and events to get involved in. PwC also tries to ensure the social side is prominent, such as having a coronation party for King Charles' coronation, or having an easter egg hunt. It helps you feel much more connected to the firm and it makes you feel that PwC really care about your wellbeing and experience at work

You need to be open to challenges as there will be a lot throughout the role. Even as you progress to become a senior associate, new challenges arise. I feel that understanding the job role is a marathon not a sprint, as you cannot possibly learn everything in a year. It is a gradual process and you need to be open to being proactive in getting coaching and exposing yourself to new areas of the role.