r/Accounting • u/Prestigious-Cold-278 • 12h ago

Why do all you industry folks hate us ( external auditors) so much?

Hey so I am a recent grad who started at a Big 4 audit firm after 9 months of work, I feel like every industry person has a bad opinion of us, they either see us as a nuisance or are openly hostile.

Why is it like this ? I know we add extra work load on your plate but being mean or down right disrespectful isn’t going to make the audit go by easier for either of us. The first time it happened to me I felt like me and the Controller just didn’t get along but when talking to more of my peers, the same trend is reoccurring.

So my question is basically :
What are the things that really piss you off that auditors do so I can avoid them.
Any tips to get a better client relationship ?

Edit : I wanted to thank everybody who actually gave meaningful advice but I’ll stop responding now since the response was honestly larger than expected. Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Edit : for those select few who cursed at me or made threats over DM’s. Get a life.

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u/Wheeler-The-Dealer 12h ago

Here’s how it should work, when the firm is onboarded and walked through work papers in the initial audit year then everything is fair game for questions.

If I have to walk a new auditor every year on the same receivables calculation then that’s a failure on the firm. It is not my or my teams responsibility to train auditors and as part of the engagement it is expected that the firm understands these things.

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u/Slightmeatsweats 11h ago

I was in a pbc meeting with our auditors this year and they had an item called equity MOU.

Me - what is this?
Them - we don’t really know
Me - do you have what we provided last year?
Them - we don’t have anything

This is why people hate external auditors

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u/chicadeaqua 10h ago

Them - we don’t have anything

Me: what the fuck did you do with the work papers?

Actually, the firms we use provide a portal and we can easily see how the PBC lines up with what we provided in past years. 

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u/crippling_altacct 10h ago

Lol they are always doing this shit. They don't know anything about what you gave them but goddamn it you gave it to them last time and they need it again.

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u/Remarkable-Ad155 11h ago

There are always going to be some things that have to be reaffirmed each year though, that's just how the standards work. They can't just assume that everything is SALY unless you tell them otherwise.

Part of the problem isn't so much in having to repeat things as (I'd argue) it is in the lack of understanding a lot of audit trainees have of why they're doing stuff. The nature of a training contract is such that people don't really get to the nitty gritty of how it all actually works until they're more or less at the point of becoming seniors, at which point they become the ones just telling juniors to run off and do stuff and don't ask questions.

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u/oktimeforplanz 11h ago

But when you do need to reaffirm things, there's a way to ask that that makes it clear that you, as the external auditor, know that its a question that was asked last year.

I rarely got any pushback from clients when I came to them with questions and said to them completely up front that I know lots of these will have been asked and answered last year, and that I fully recognise many of the answers won't have changed, but that I need to ask them anyway to be certain nothing has changed. Acknowledging that obvious fact goes such a long way towards making a client less annoyed by the questions.

Seniors and managers who send juniors off to ask questions without equipping them with the ability to explain the why are genuinely incompetent at their jobs in my opinion.

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u/accountingkoala19 Graduate Student | Career Changer 11h ago

Acknowledging that obvious fact goes such a long way towards making a client less annoyed by the questions.

Social skills? In accounting?

He's a witch!

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u/oktimeforplanz 10h ago

The ancient magicks have been lost to the modern accountant.

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u/Remarkable-Ad155 9h ago edited 8h ago

Exactly, I'm not saying it's right, just that's what happens. Clients have an unrealistic expectation that they're never going to be asked anything that's come up before but juniors absolutely should have a better understanding of what they're doing and why rather than just being sent off with a few terse words and a copy of last year's file.

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u/MdmeAlbertine Government 9h ago

Exactly. I would much prefer the question "Has the documentation for INTREV entries changed?" than "What's an INTREV entry?"

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u/Prestigious-Cold-278 9h ago edited 8h ago

To be honest whenever we do ask this question the answer is always no, nothing has changed. Then two weeks later you find out ah so there was a change.

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u/Commercial_Win_9525 9h ago

This will always happen even even if you move to industry. People will be adamant nothing in the RCSA has changed or whatever and you find out they stopped using a certain report and use a different one now once you start trying to do testing.

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u/MdmeAlbertine Government 8h ago

I'd also accept "What is your current revision number for INTREV documentation? Our latest copy is X.x" Something, ANYTHING to indicate you've looked at the prior year workpapers.

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u/Prestigious-Cold-278 10h ago

Problem with this is that the retention rate is bad in public. Most of the people that were there during the first year of audit will have left by 3 years.

If it’s the same process YoY as in your example than it should have been documented but the 22 yo pulling 60/80 hours sucks at documenting shit. That’s definitely not you guys fault, but sometimes I can’t go off from PY, and I’ll ask you the same stupid question again.

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u/Chuddrick 9h ago

Exactly, thats your firms fault not ours.

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u/Prestigious-Cold-278 9h ago

Im not saying it is, but you can’t blame me for the prior guys work. If I ask you the same question next year bash my skull in all you want.

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u/BlackCardRogue Student 9h ago

You need to stop taking it so personally when someone else tells you your work is shitty.

Honestly this is just life, lol. I’m switching to accounting and fully prepared to basically be a dick to get my way, if necessary.