Audit Assistant Review

As an audit assistant, I have a responsibility to conduct my assigned areas of testing. When I was a junior this would have been P&L areas (Payroll, Expenditure, Income (non-significant areas), and other small areas) whereas now as a semi senior I am responsible for supporting the junior on P&L areas and completing some Balance Sheet areas, (Debtors and Creditors primarily). Other areas like Bank and Fixed Assets are covered as a junior but often I assist with my prior experience.
In order to ensure that we meet the criteria of our testing, we discuss with the client we are auditing for audit evidence and explanations if required, to have comfort over the numbers within the financial statements they wish to submit to companies house. As auditors, our job is to make sure the accounts are free from material misstatement and show a true and fair view, based on the testing we have conducted. If we cannot conclude on a true and fair view, we will be forced to give a qualified audit opinion that we are not comfortable the figures are accurate.

The programme is well structured with tuition booked in advance and exams scheduled around our time booked to audit jobs. We have incremental training courses called Engage which offer on-hand training away from the office, led by individuals from People Development Team, to help consolidate any knowledge we should be familiar with for our role. The managers are flexible and understand the importance of our studies and are more than accommodating with resits and tuition reschedules.

I would say I receive a good amount of support from the employer. Some areas of audit could be better explained for instance Pension Schemes, but this is due to not many people within our office working on those areas. However, I have felt supported well by my line manager and I feel as though I have people to talk to if I needed additional help.

First Intuition is extremely supportive. The teachers are more than happy to assist you with resits, as long as you can show you are trying and putting in effort. The tuition is good and the teachers always encourage questions outside of tuition in case there is anything that wasn't quite clear. My skills coach has been great in supporting my apprenticeship work and keeping me on track to ensure I am to pass my development work side of things.

The AAT/ACA qualification demonstrates the knowledge required for the role I am doing. It not only helps to consolidate the technical audit knowledge, but it also offers softer skill development which is great in making you more of an all-rounder, not just a technical auditor.

Yes

Overall it is a good firm. I enjoy coming to work for the people and the studies side of things. Feeling like I am working on myself to become better in my role is important and this firm definitely supports that. Only thing that could have been improved is the consistency in grading employees (salary wise), especially when it comes to people joining from other firms.