WHO I HELP

Charity and Commercial sectors. The Audit team.

HOW I HELP

Conducting audits. Assisting junior staff with their own development.

SECTORS/SUPPORT

All sectors – it really is a mix!

“CONSTANTLY DEVELOPING ON A PROFESSIONAL LEVEL.”

Emily is an Audit Manager, which means she has a hybrid role where she is still heavily involved in conducting audits, but also assists many junior and assistant staff with their own learning and development. Emily also has her own portfolio to maintain, which helps her to develop constantly on a professional level.

CLIENTS LOOK TO US TO HIGHLIGHT AREAS FOR IMPROVEMENT

“Each client has their own different needs – some are extremely financially minded, so I am able to discuss their methods, procedures and future plans at a high-level with financial terminology. However, there are others that require further help and advice on their processes and handling of some of their more complicated work – such as estimates and judgements calculations/work. Overall, I love helping clients and always get a strong sense of satisfaction from my job!

I like to have a comfortable relationship with clients, where they feel that I’m approachable. My job is not to intimidate or scare clients into giving me answers/evidence to complete my job. An audit is a benefit for a client, and they are looking at us being the experts to highlight weaknesses or ways to improve. It is ideal to be able to conduct this in a safe environment so that clients don’t become stressed and are not afraid to ask for your opinion.

Clients expect me to have up-to-date knowledge and be able to provide the necessary advice they require for their own business needs. They will be looking for answers to their own queries and a good attitude to the job is always helpful!”

MEETING PEOPLE FROM ALL WALKS OF LIFE

“With clients, I love the exposure to meeting different people from all walks of life! Everyone has their own story and it’s great to connect with people from different backgrounds to find out how we all ended up in the finance sector! I love helping clients as well and assisting them to become more efficient or just improve certain processes.

With colleagues, I love helping those that are in training to understand how an audit works, the functionalities of an audit and even just that it is enjoyable. With other colleagues, I love talking to them about their passions and interests (such as VAT or tax) and allowing them to teach me some stuff! It’s always great to improve your skillset and carry some knowledge to the next job where the same issue can crop up again.”

CLEAR & HONEST COMMUNICATION IS KEY

“Audits are difficult because they are a disruption to the entity’s work schedule as we are heavily evidence and communication based. A lot of people now try and book out time in their schedules when they know the audits are being conducted so organisation and initial communication from us is key to ensure we are utilising the client’s time as best as possible.

Clear and honest communication is really important with my own colleagues as well. I mostly work within my own audit team and rely on other people assigned to the job to complete work for review. However, there are sections of an audit whereby I rely on the help of my colleagues such as tax colleagues, VAT colleagues and even cloud team experts! I love chatting to someone rather than immediately looking things up online or in a book.”

BEING TECH-ENABLED SAVES CLIENTS MONEY

“I believe COVID has proven that some audits can work on a virtual/remote basis which can save money and potentially give the client back some time to do their normal workload without the auditors being onsite. Many clients are moving on to cloud based systems (again, a potential change from COVID) meaning a lot of information can be accessed from this as part of the audit findings. I believe going forward, a mix of audit approach can be used to do both virtual and hands-on/onsite work.”

ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS

“The greatest challenge in audit is obtaining the correct evidence, asking the right questions to the client and even conveying yourself on paper (figuratively!) as someone will be reviewing your work. The best way to get over these is just practice, practice, practice! Like anything else, you become better with the more you practice and/or are exposed to something. In addition, it is keeping up to date with changes to auditing standards and accounting standards as you must be ready for training and updates and be able to apply them effectively. This is where having reliable colleagues and easy access to information is useful. Learning from them is a huge part of my development, and I’m excited to see where that development takes me in my role.”