Auditor in PwC Shanghai dies from work fatigue

This junior auditor pictured below died in PwC Shanghai from fatigue from work. Quote from the original story: "Pan's classmate and friend, surnamed Yu, said Pan had told her before she died that she had been working up to 18 hours a day and about 120 hours a week. One of Pan's colleagues, a senior-level auditor at PwC, who asked not to be identified, told Shanghai Daily 100-hour work weeks were common in recent months as it was peak auditing season."


A very sad story for our profession, that someone would have to work that much. Whether work caused this young girls death or not, it certainly didn't help out the situation.

Full story at the following link:
http://english.cri.cn/6909/2011/04/14/2021s631992.htm

MPAcc Interview Questions

A lot of people end up coming to our website based on the topic "MPAcc Interview Questions", so I figured it was about time to have a dedicated post to the topic.

MPAcc typically describes the interview as informal, that being said it's actually pretty formal. I'm guessing they just say that to try and take the edge off. That being said it is by no means a stressful interview, it is very similar to the interviews you would have had with the professional accounting firms. It's a combination of getting to know each other, getting more depth on your background, and determining your suitability and fit with MPAcc (as well as your motivations behind wanting to attend).

Here are few MPAcc interview sample questions:

• How would you describe your leadership style?
• What are some of the characteristics of an effective leader that you've worked with?
• Do you take an active or a passive role when working in teams?
• What are some characteristics that you consider to be important in an effective team?
• Tell me what some of your strengths are.
• What is your biggest accomplishment to date?
• If you could go back in time and change one thing, what would it be? (Didn't necessarily have to be a regret.)
• What type of classes have you already taken?
• Did you have group work in those classes? How were the groups selected? Did you have a say in who you would work with?
• Do you prefer being able to choose your own groups? Describe a situation where you encountered difficulties when working in a team. What is an example of a positive team experience that you've had?
• Have you secured employement post graduation?
• What makes you want to go to MPAcc instead of CASB?
• Have a little discussion around any work experience you have had previously (key on accounting firm experience)
• Have a little discussion around non-academic activities

MPAcc has a lot of group work, so they'll be looking for well rounded people who can bring something to the table and who are able to work well in groups and resolve any differences professionally. Any questions just leave us a comment and we'll answer them!

Rolling

Video version of the popular accounting firm e-mail forward.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsWCr8h2SKQ

Audit Terminology Translation

Auditor's have a lot of terms and phrases that they use.  This guide will help to demystify some of these common phrases.  Please post any more terms that you use in your audit room.  This guide should be especially helpful to new audit staff:

1.  No further work required = I'm too lazy to do any more work.  Please don't leave me a review/coaching note.
2. Balance appears reasonable = see translation in 1. above.
3. As per prior year's understanding obtained = I don't understand so I'm going to do the exact same thing as prior year.
4. This is consistent with cumulative audit knowledge and experience (CAKE) = I'm assuming the person who did this last year was smarter than me, so I'll take their word for it.
5. Per discussion with Julie and corroborated with Bob = Julie and Bob didn't really know what was going on, but after I gave them leading questions I coerced them into both saying the same thing, so I'm all good.
6. Balance is immaterial = Thank goodness this balance is below materiality because I don't understand it at all.
7. This balance is reasonable because it is tested by tax = I've never discussed with tax if they test it or not, chances are they don't, but it's tax so I'll say this to avoid testing it.  Conversely on the exact same account tax said "I can rely on the inputs to my tax calculation because audit tested the balance."
8. Information is reliable as it has been obtained directly from the system, see ITGC section = Please don't look at the ITGC section because this system has not been tested there.

PwC Ireland Top 10 Email

I'm sure everyone remembers this scandal.  No matter what firm you work for or what country you are in approximately 1 month ago you would have received a reminder of your firms privacy policy, online social behaviour policies, HR policies, etc.  This was all due to PwC Ireland and the famous e-mail that went around ranking the hotness of their female colleagues.  I don't see what the big deal is though, you get underpaid, wouldn't you like the opportunity to do some modeling on the side?

See below for the image of the original e-mail that started all the fuss.

Good luck UFE Writers!

Good luck to all the UFE Writers! I notice that http://www.casb.com isn't loading, so I hope you're all getting your results. Maybe CASB should purchase more bandwidth or a better server so that these issues don't happen again. You're messing with peoples lives CASB, they're stressed out enough without your website not working.

Client Pet Peeves

1. Picking up their phone before you enter their office and pretending to make a call.

2. Answering their phone in the middle of an interview and not just saying “I’ll call you back” but getting into an issue with whoever called while you sit there awkwardly.

3. Bob telling you that he doesn’t deal with "that" Margaret does, then you talk to Margaret and she says Suzie deals with "it", then you talk to Suzie and she says Bob deals with "it".  

4. Clearly BS'ing an answer.  Ex. You “Why did sales go down?”, Client “Because of the economy”, You “Do you have any documentation to substantiate that?”, Client “No”.

5. Making comments like “oh no, the auditors, ugh not again!”.  Yes we come every year, get used to it.  FYI we’re also human beings so please treat us as such.