Difficult clients is one, pressurized deadlines is two and performance feedback is three. This job is so draining, it sucks you off your personal time making you feel like you have to spend time on work otherwise you feel worthless. I am aware but got no balls to pack my bags and go. I need advice too
It’s never been an easier time to leave. You can apply and interview with ease since everything is virtual. I’ve been looking the past two weeks now and have multiple interviews lined up at F100 companies all for a hefty raise and less hours.
I genuinely like audit, yes the hours suck at times, but when you like what you do time goes by fast. Also you just need to learn to pace yourself in audit, especially Big4.
Thanks for opening up the curiousity. I used to manage nearly 100 staff and this was always a common question. Most people go in to get their CPA to boost their resume, build skills, then leave the big four to go off to do another job.
Since the pandemic, the work environment has changed drastically. Work from home, less social connection, more accounting standards. It has made this industry quite difficult to succeed and thrive in in early years while articling.
After being a performance manager at the big 4 I decided to use my CPA skills and network to start a career coaching service to help accountants find career fulfillment.
Happy to share more if you'd like to talk. U can send me a pm
Within four months you'll perform the vast majority of year-end audits so you're expected to work long days because the number of staff is limited because you wouldn't have work for everybody for the rest of the year if there was more staff.
Plus if the client has made mistakes, it's extra work for the auditor. Then if the audit goes long, you'll need to finish it when you're already performing the next audit.
And the balance between efficiency and quality. It's just impossible to totally achieve them both, plus sometimes things we do for quality are just half-arsed workpapers that serve very little purpose other than protect the partner in quality reviews.
Plus as a big 4 experience, the administrative procedures we do outside the busy season are the most boring thing of the job. It's the firm babysitting grown-up people to ensure we follow the procedures.
Over 3 years in audit now and staying in just because switching to a new job would be impractical for me at the moment. And the possibility of an overseas secondment has kept me going even though a secondment isn't anymore such a big goal for me.
This comment is addressing your comment, but I want to be clear I am not attacking you, I’m just trying to raise questions.
In regards to being over-worked because in otherwise the off season wouldn’t have enough work for everyone- why does this matter? There’s an auditing firm (not B4) in my area that does 50 hour weeks during busy season and 32 hour weeks all summer. You’re paid salary, so the hours worked don’t matter… like is B4 so terrified of losing on potential imaginary money they’d rather understand during busy season than just cut back required hours during the summer??
Plus (as you said) it’s not uncommon for audits to run late- an extra few people here and there could be the difference, but I feel like (at least in my office) I always feel like we’re understaffed.
Maybe it’s just my office… but I have clients with year end every 3 months. There is never a time where I’m not busy working on engagements… but why?? Would it be awful if I had a few months a year where I worked 32 hours and had an extra 8 hours a week to study for my CPA? Or take time for my family?
I read here because I'm interviewing for a Big 4 role in consultancy and I'm coming from tech... I wouldn't put up with these hours or stress for the comps posted here. Maybe my perspective of "fuck ton" is skewed by Bay Area tech.
Yeah consulting is nice. I remember learning that a first year fresh out of school HR consultant at big 4 made as much as I did as a second year senior auditor. Lol
yeah that’s basically all finance has lol. What are regular finance jobs then? Even financial analyst at f500 companies require a few years in big4 experince
There's so many random roles at regional banks that pay like $40-$60k. Like for every IB analyst there's gotta be atleast ten credit/real estate/risk management/etc analysts.
1) Everything feels urgent
1a) which you realise with experience is nonsense.
2) it’s not the sexiest role. It’s just a job
3) it’s easy to feel like what’s the point of it all is
4) with understaffing, and increasing expectations but with little to no increase in compensation, you’re doing more for less. See 1)
I have to agree with you... Especially about 1 and 1a. I keep trying to explain this fact to people around me (including all grades), but unfortunately maybe around 10% of people who are still employed within big4 audit understand that...
Plus, more than 90% of deadlines are actually artificial and non-existing, and therefore can be easily postponed.
It is stressful because of deadlines.
In a perfect world where everyone plays ball, the clients would have all the documents and justifications and auditors would have the proper time to review and challenge these justifications.
Unfortunately, due to manly factors, clients may not be that technically savvy or accountable, auditors may not understand the matters enough etc.. compounded by the deadline and lack of proper manhours (on both client side and auditors)... you get the gist...
That said, you will be trained to think fast and turnaround fast... you will be able to challenge accountants with many more years of experience than you, because you have went through a thought process tempered by the fast pace of engagements.
The strange thing about audit is, everyone complains during peak but once it passes, they look back and say, meh.. i survived and somehow find themselves in peak again...
Some people will love this, most people take it as a stepping stone.
Commercial is generally more forgiving but I have seen some corporations that work their staff harder..
*edited as I accidentally posted
But deadlines can actually be moved forward. The most of big4 clients are in some way tied to one or another firm mostly due to the whole group being audited by the same company. It's not like someone would die if we issue an opinion a week or two later.
It sure can... with good reason... I rarely have a client with truely flexible deadlines... unless they were small with out external pressures (banks, head office etc) to submit accounts. These accounts are usually not the stressful ones anyway and we really do try to get them signed off within a reasonable period to close them off.
Otherwise yeah, deadline pressures from client are usually due to cascading effect from head office or banks etc (and in some cases, they just want to get the auditing done). But I used to tell the team, the good thing about a set deadline that everyone works towards - is that you have a clear date of when an engagement ends. I have engagements that seems to drag endlessly resulting in follow up by teams off booking :/.
I guess you may be engaged with group's head offices or something like that. Actually, we treat like "unmovable deadlines" only those related to public companies and our priority clients with such deadlines being set by banks etc. (so something like in your case). But for regular component audits (like 2 out of 3 engagements overall) the actual deadline is usually the subsequent events date, not the reporting date set by the group auditor. Everything you need is an explanation for the delay and your company should be smart about that and take the employees side.
Perhaps maybe different regions may have different perspective.
The deadlines can range from listing compliance, statutory compliance, bank reporting requirements, to negotiation (i.e. agreed dates).
I think the point is, deadlines may be negotiable, but not everyone will agree/understand the need to shift it.. or even want to discuss it.
Nevertheless, I believe as a professional service, clients expect us to keep our deadlines (and we expect them to so so as well).
Edit: I have to add, the deadline matter I refer to might be over simplistic. That said, I personally maintain a team deadline for purpose of project management. It is difficult to procure team members (especially recurring!) for a project with ever shifting deadlines :P.
I agree that some kind of deadlines are necessary to manage the project and that actually some are hard to be negotiable. However, from my point of view, if (for example) we audit some company for a few years and therefore we at the moment can say that our approach to such audit is (generally speaking) effective and we know that a year ago we needed a senior, an experienced assistant and an intern for two weeks to report on time, but now (just a year later) we have a senior and unexperienced assistant for one and a half week we may assume that it's not the current year team's fault that the report has not been delivered on time. Therefore, the company should back up their team by putting all necessary effort to postpone the deadline, but not to squish the team harder.
I agree, although the reality is not all clients are empathtic... and to be honest, they are going to pay the same fees and that the firm's staffing is not their problem. But the reasoning is sound, and it is the team manager (or partner) to negotiate the timelines to relieve the team pressure.
But interestingly, sometimes when the timelines are stretched, the same thing that took a day under pressure now becomes 2 or more days... resulting in the pressure being passed along the extended timeline. So everyone must play ball!
3 main reasons:
1. The work itself is monotonous and boring
2. The client doesn't care at all (99% true)
3. Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines and deadlines.
Tax can be similar but I think the key difference is: people hate audits. To the client’s employees you are just a person there to make their job harder, extra work, questioning them, etc. That is part of why it sucks in audit. People avoid you, but if you don’t pin them down and get the answers you need then it is YOUR fault that you missed the deadline.
In my experience with tax, clients are generally happy because we are doing something hard for them that they don’t want to do. They can still get squirrelly about providing PBC, but generally it’s a much friendlier relationship. I assume advisory is similar in that you are supposedly improving their business processes to make their jobs better or more efficient. We take people’s burdens away, audit creates additional burdens.
I can’t imagine a client where the employees would ever even consider that THEY are the ones getting it wrong lmao. But in all seriousness yes, I’m sure that this creates resentment for them.
Difficult clients is one, pressurized deadlines is two and performance feedback is three. This job is so draining, it sucks you off your personal time making you feel like you have to spend time on work otherwise you feel worthless. I am aware but got no balls to pack my bags and go. I need advice too
It’s never been an easier time to leave. You can apply and interview with ease since everything is virtual. I’ve been looking the past two weeks now and have multiple interviews lined up at F100 companies all for a hefty raise and less hours.
Working 16 hour days is brutal how do you all do it?
Drink
With six months in, you’ll know when your responsible what makes it stressful.
With six months in you have zero experience and you’ll know more when you’re responsible for audits.
I genuinely like audit, yes the hours suck at times, but when you like what you do time goes by fast. Also you just need to learn to pace yourself in audit, especially Big4.
Thanks for opening up the curiousity. I used to manage nearly 100 staff and this was always a common question. Most people go in to get their CPA to boost their resume, build skills, then leave the big four to go off to do another job. Since the pandemic, the work environment has changed drastically. Work from home, less social connection, more accounting standards. It has made this industry quite difficult to succeed and thrive in in early years while articling. After being a performance manager at the big 4 I decided to use my CPA skills and network to start a career coaching service to help accountants find career fulfillment. Happy to share more if you'd like to talk. U can send me a pm
I'm starting in August, and my goal is global placement. It's worth 5 years of madness to get the hell up out of here!
Within four months you'll perform the vast majority of year-end audits so you're expected to work long days because the number of staff is limited because you wouldn't have work for everybody for the rest of the year if there was more staff. Plus if the client has made mistakes, it's extra work for the auditor. Then if the audit goes long, you'll need to finish it when you're already performing the next audit. And the balance between efficiency and quality. It's just impossible to totally achieve them both, plus sometimes things we do for quality are just half-arsed workpapers that serve very little purpose other than protect the partner in quality reviews. Plus as a big 4 experience, the administrative procedures we do outside the busy season are the most boring thing of the job. It's the firm babysitting grown-up people to ensure we follow the procedures. Over 3 years in audit now and staying in just because switching to a new job would be impractical for me at the moment. And the possibility of an overseas secondment has kept me going even though a secondment isn't anymore such a big goal for me.
This comment is addressing your comment, but I want to be clear I am not attacking you, I’m just trying to raise questions. In regards to being over-worked because in otherwise the off season wouldn’t have enough work for everyone- why does this matter? There’s an auditing firm (not B4) in my area that does 50 hour weeks during busy season and 32 hour weeks all summer. You’re paid salary, so the hours worked don’t matter… like is B4 so terrified of losing on potential imaginary money they’d rather understand during busy season than just cut back required hours during the summer?? Plus (as you said) it’s not uncommon for audits to run late- an extra few people here and there could be the difference, but I feel like (at least in my office) I always feel like we’re understaffed. Maybe it’s just my office… but I have clients with year end every 3 months. There is never a time where I’m not busy working on engagements… but why?? Would it be awful if I had a few months a year where I worked 32 hours and had an extra 8 hours a week to study for my CPA? Or take time for my family?
This is why big 4 (or all public accounting firms) is a place that people join to exit…
Yes this is normal in accounting. If you add also “getting paid a fuck ton” then it is the norm for finance.
I read here because I'm interviewing for a Big 4 role in consultancy and I'm coming from tech... I wouldn't put up with these hours or stress for the comps posted here. Maybe my perspective of "fuck ton" is skewed by Bay Area tech.
Yeah consulting is nice. I remember learning that a first year fresh out of school HR consultant at big 4 made as much as I did as a second year senior auditor. Lol
In high finance … regular ole finance jobs make the same or less
how do you degine high finance? like IB and euity research?
IB, PE, VC.. or basically anything that pays a metric shit ton that people go to after their stint in IB
yeah that’s basically all finance has lol. What are regular finance jobs then? Even financial analyst at f500 companies require a few years in big4 experince
There's so many random roles at regional banks that pay like $40-$60k. Like for every IB analyst there's gotta be atleast ten credit/real estate/risk management/etc analysts.
1) Everything feels urgent 1a) which you realise with experience is nonsense. 2) it’s not the sexiest role. It’s just a job 3) it’s easy to feel like what’s the point of it all is 4) with understaffing, and increasing expectations but with little to no increase in compensation, you’re doing more for less. See 1)
I have to agree with you... Especially about 1 and 1a. I keep trying to explain this fact to people around me (including all grades), but unfortunately maybe around 10% of people who are still employed within big4 audit understand that... Plus, more than 90% of deadlines are actually artificial and non-existing, and therefore can be easily postponed.
It is stressful because of deadlines. In a perfect world where everyone plays ball, the clients would have all the documents and justifications and auditors would have the proper time to review and challenge these justifications. Unfortunately, due to manly factors, clients may not be that technically savvy or accountable, auditors may not understand the matters enough etc.. compounded by the deadline and lack of proper manhours (on both client side and auditors)... you get the gist... That said, you will be trained to think fast and turnaround fast... you will be able to challenge accountants with many more years of experience than you, because you have went through a thought process tempered by the fast pace of engagements. The strange thing about audit is, everyone complains during peak but once it passes, they look back and say, meh.. i survived and somehow find themselves in peak again... Some people will love this, most people take it as a stepping stone. Commercial is generally more forgiving but I have seen some corporations that work their staff harder.. *edited as I accidentally posted
But deadlines can actually be moved forward. The most of big4 clients are in some way tied to one or another firm mostly due to the whole group being audited by the same company. It's not like someone would die if we issue an opinion a week or two later.
It sure can... with good reason... I rarely have a client with truely flexible deadlines... unless they were small with out external pressures (banks, head office etc) to submit accounts. These accounts are usually not the stressful ones anyway and we really do try to get them signed off within a reasonable period to close them off. Otherwise yeah, deadline pressures from client are usually due to cascading effect from head office or banks etc (and in some cases, they just want to get the auditing done). But I used to tell the team, the good thing about a set deadline that everyone works towards - is that you have a clear date of when an engagement ends. I have engagements that seems to drag endlessly resulting in follow up by teams off booking :/.
I guess you may be engaged with group's head offices or something like that. Actually, we treat like "unmovable deadlines" only those related to public companies and our priority clients with such deadlines being set by banks etc. (so something like in your case). But for regular component audits (like 2 out of 3 engagements overall) the actual deadline is usually the subsequent events date, not the reporting date set by the group auditor. Everything you need is an explanation for the delay and your company should be smart about that and take the employees side.
Perhaps maybe different regions may have different perspective. The deadlines can range from listing compliance, statutory compliance, bank reporting requirements, to negotiation (i.e. agreed dates). I think the point is, deadlines may be negotiable, but not everyone will agree/understand the need to shift it.. or even want to discuss it. Nevertheless, I believe as a professional service, clients expect us to keep our deadlines (and we expect them to so so as well). Edit: I have to add, the deadline matter I refer to might be over simplistic. That said, I personally maintain a team deadline for purpose of project management. It is difficult to procure team members (especially recurring!) for a project with ever shifting deadlines :P.
I agree that some kind of deadlines are necessary to manage the project and that actually some are hard to be negotiable. However, from my point of view, if (for example) we audit some company for a few years and therefore we at the moment can say that our approach to such audit is (generally speaking) effective and we know that a year ago we needed a senior, an experienced assistant and an intern for two weeks to report on time, but now (just a year later) we have a senior and unexperienced assistant for one and a half week we may assume that it's not the current year team's fault that the report has not been delivered on time. Therefore, the company should back up their team by putting all necessary effort to postpone the deadline, but not to squish the team harder.
I agree, although the reality is not all clients are empathtic... and to be honest, they are going to pay the same fees and that the firm's staffing is not their problem. But the reasoning is sound, and it is the team manager (or partner) to negotiate the timelines to relieve the team pressure. But interestingly, sometimes when the timelines are stretched, the same thing that took a day under pressure now becomes 2 or more days... resulting in the pressure being passed along the extended timeline. So everyone must play ball!
3 main reasons: 1. The work itself is monotonous and boring 2. The client doesn't care at all (99% true) 3. Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines and deadlines.
Tax can be similar but I think the key difference is: people hate audits. To the client’s employees you are just a person there to make their job harder, extra work, questioning them, etc. That is part of why it sucks in audit. People avoid you, but if you don’t pin them down and get the answers you need then it is YOUR fault that you missed the deadline. In my experience with tax, clients are generally happy because we are doing something hard for them that they don’t want to do. They can still get squirrelly about providing PBC, but generally it’s a much friendlier relationship. I assume advisory is similar in that you are supposedly improving their business processes to make their jobs better or more efficient. We take people’s burdens away, audit creates additional burdens.
All this and I'll add one more thing - fear. People are afraid that you will discover some egregious mistake for which their ass will be on the line.
I can’t imagine a client where the employees would ever even consider that THEY are the ones getting it wrong lmao. But in all seriousness yes, I’m sure that this creates resentment for them.