Junior Auditor Series #04 What it means when your audit senior rarely gives review comments, and your manager always does If your audit senior rarely gives review comments but your manager always has a long list of them, you're not imagining the pattern, and it doesn't mean your work is bad. Here's what's actually happening in that review chain, and what you can do about it. Not Really a Review Sara had been working with Jerome for three engagements now. Every time she submitted a section, the pattern was the same. Jerome: Hey Sara, can you walk me through how you tested the revenue accruals? Sara: Sure. I traced the year-end balance to the subsequent invoices, verified the cutoff dates against the shipping records, and... Jerome: Okay, sounds good. Send it up to Ee Ling. Rarely a written review comment. Rarely a tracked change. Rarely a "have you considered." Mostly a quick question, a quick initial, and the file sent up to the manager. Two days...

Audit Manager Series #03 For audit managers who feel less sharp since relying more on AI tools A Question That Wasn't Supposed to Be Hard Have you noticed your own technical instincts feel a little rusty since you started relying more on AI tools in audit? Read on to see how one audit manager was caught out by that exact gap. Devi was in the partner's office, watching her finalise the audit report on a mid-sized software company. It was meant to be a quick sign-off conversation, the kind that happens at the very end, almost as a formality. Devi was pleased. The previous team had taken two months to complete the audit. Under her leadership, it had taken just five weeks. Partner: I want to be sure that the huge increase in software revenue is properly supported with robust documentation and that the work done was sufficient. Can you pull out our audit issues memo and tell me how our team addressed the risk of premature revenue recognition? Devi had a ready answer. She ha...

Audit Senior Series #03 For audit seniors who ease up on review because of a junior's reputation The Question He Didn't Have a Good Answer To Have you ever given a junior a lighter review because other seniors said they were sharp, only to have something come back to bite you? Read on to find out where the line is between healthy delegation and stepping back too far. Jacob was two weeks into a construction audit when the partner called him into a meeting room, laptop already open. Partner: The financial ratios in this risk assessment look off. A few areas we'd normally expect to see flagged as risk… aren't. Did you go through this yourself? Jacob felt his stomach drop when his partner asked that question. No, he hadn't gone through it himself, not properly. Zane, a second-year junior on the job, had prepared it. Jacob: Zane worked on this one. I gave it a lighter review than usual, to be honest. He's known among the seniors as one of the fastest, sha...

Audit Manager Series, #2 The Week She Stopped Recognising Herself Wen Qi had four clients on her plate that quarter, each at a different stage of audit. Falcon Textiles' audit was ongoing. Northgate Pharma had a long list of outstanding review points not yet cleared. Brightfield Tyres was racing toward its reporting deadline. Summit Realty, her first-year client, was still getting used to working with her team. None of that, on its own, was unusual for a manager at her level. Then, over about ten days, everything seemed to happen at once. Her partner pulled her senior off Falcon Textiles to help cover another higher-risk audit, promising he'd sort out extra support by the end of the week. The week passed. Each time she asked, the answer was some version of still working on it. With Falcon short-staffed, Wen Qi absorbed the gap herself, on top of Brightfield's looming deadline and Northgate's outstanding review points. She was in the office past midnight most d...

Audit Senior Series: #02 When you're the buffer between your manager's demands and your team's limits The Weekend Wei Ling Lost Do you often feel caught between your manager's demands and your team's limits? Read on to find out why audit seniors end up as the buffer, and what you can do about it. Marcus was midway through fieldwork on Denton Retail Group when Grace called on Thursday afternoon. Grace: The CFO needs finalised numbers ready for the board meeting this coming Monday morning instead of next Wednesday. Marcus: That's tough. Too short a notice. Can we get anyone else to help us cover this? Grace: I already tried. Nobody's free. Can the team work through the weekend? Marcus didn't answer straight away. He was thinking about Wei Ling, who'd asked for this exact weekend off three weeks ago. Her sister was flying in from Perth, first visit in two years. Marcus: Let me see what I can do. He sat with it after the call. Grace wasn...

Junior Auditor Series: #03 For junior auditors afraid of asking too many questions Three Rounds on Kelvin Bakeries Do you worry that you're asking your audit senior too many questions? Read on to find out what's actually going on when a reply feels short or not forthcoming. Priya was testing trade receivables for Kelvin Bakeries, her first time doing this section on her own. She checked last year's working papers to see how the confirmations had been selected. The file just said, "per our audit approach," with no criteria explained. Rather than guessing, she walked over to Marcus. Priya: How should I approach the receivable confirmations for Kelvin Bakeries? Last year's file didn't explain how the customers were selected. Marcus: Start with those balances above PM, then include a few overdue accounts as well. The smaller balances can be covered through other audit procedures, such as testing subsequent receipts. Priya prepared the confirmation let...

Junior Auditor Series: #02 For junior auditors who feel guilty leaving before their team The Birthday Party She Almost Missed Do you feel guilty leaving the office before your team does, even when your work is finished? Read on to find out why this happens, and what you can do about it. Nurul had promised her best friend weeks ago that she would be at her birthday dinner on Thursday evening. The reservation was for 6:30pm, and everyone else had already confirmed they were coming. That week she was covering three sections on the Rosemont Trading file: bank reconciliations, prepayments, and accrued expenses. None of it was due until Friday. She still had some working paper documentation to complete, but it wasn't much, and she was confident she would finish it well before Friday. At quarter to six, she started packing up her laptop. Then she looked around. Most of the team were still at their desks. She slowly sat back down and picked up her phone. For a moment, she wondered wh...

Audit Manager Series: #01 For audit managers who feel like every day is reactive Four Fires Do you spend your day reacting to problems instead of following the plan? Read on to find out why the role ends up this way, and how one manager handled it. Daniel was managing four engagements that quarter: Meridian Retail, two weeks from signoff; Straits Components, midway through fieldwork; Horizon Logistics, only a week into fieldwork; and Cedar Manufacturing, awaiting the partner's final review. He had spent the past few weeks working late most nights, dealing with one problem after another. Just as he thought the following week might finally ease up, his phone rang at 8:40pm on a Sunday. Partner: Daniel, I know it's late, but I need to move Reena onto a new listing engagement. It came in earlier than expected, and she's the only available senior with the right experience. Daniel: She's my senior on Horizon. We only started fieldwork there last week, and it's just...

Audit Senior Series: #01 When your junior skips a step they already knew to do The Walkthrough That Never Happened Has a junior on your team ever skipped a step they clearly already knew, under pressure from the client to finish faster? Read on to find out whose responsibility that actually is, and what to do differently next time. Farid was reviewing the inventory file for a manufacturing client. He was looking for the team's notes on obsolete and slow-moving stock identified during last Friday's year-end stocktake. There weren't any. He called Ravi, the second-year junior on the job, over to his desk. Farid: Where's your note on the physical identification of obsolete and slow-moving inventory from the stocktake? Ravi: We didn't get to it. The warehouse team wanted to finish early, so once the counts were done, we packed up and left. Farid: You know we always do that walkthrough, right? Especially for this client where the obsolescence risk is high. Rav...

Junior Auditor Series: #01 When your audit senior's instructions keep changing mid-engagement The Message That Confused Her If your audit senior's instructions keep changing partway through a section, you're not alone. Read on to find out what it could actually mean. Mandy was in her second year of audit and had recently been assigned to audit a software company. Her senior told her to test 15 contracts for appropriate revenue recognition in line with IFRS 15. Mandy completed the testing, documented her results, and moved on to the next section. Three days later, her senior called her while she was at the client's office. Senior: Hi Mandy, we need you to test 40 contracts instead of the planned 15. Mandy: Sure, I can do that. Can I ask why the number went up so much? Senior: Robin found out from the client that some of the terms in certain contracts with customers were revised, so let's just play it safe and cover more ground this time. Remember to scrutin...