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Do you want to work in Big 4? Do u think it is that easy to work there for 4-5 yrs? Do you want to know the reality inside? I had worked there for a long time. The life was totally miserable! You will not only lose all your friends and but also may have chance to lose your beloved one. You have to work days to nights from Monday to Saturday or even Sunday without much incentive. Managers are “A-shoulder”,whereas partners don’t care about you at all. They only will push you hard so as to finish the job on time but with limited staffs. Are you planning to stay in China for 2-3 months? if you are such unlucky and have been assigned to work for an IPO, then you have to stay there for a long time. Don’t think you can date beautiful girls there. Working in China is like living in hell. You have to wake up early every day at about 8:30am, then work until 10-12 or later, then go back to hotel and sleep and work again. Normally you have to work from Monday to Saturday of which the normal working days are from Monday to Friday. Don’t think you are entitled to claim OT. Unless the manager-in-charge allows you to claim, you may be blamed by other people for asking such stupid but lawful compensation. They may think you are not working efficiently enough so have to claim OT! What a lie! Also if you are working as a junior, you may have to live in the sameroom with another senior. Congratulation! You may become his “Ar 4″, and have to serve him even after finish your work late in the client’s office. No doubt if you are going with a team that is familar and friendly to u, then life may not be that harsh as gossiping will kill time. But if you are so unlucky and have to work with people you really don’t like, then working in PRC is like locking in a jail! You can learn and see a lot of stuffs in PRC, e.g. large factories, their operation processes, varieties kinds of industry. Other than broadening your horizon, those things won’t help your career much unless you plan to work in PRC again for the rest of your life. PRC’s accounting and auditing standards are inferior and totally different with those in Hong Kong. Most of the companies don’t have internal control, so you have to do a lot of works to ensure that their financial statements are true and fair. It implies that you have to take lots of samples as the inherent risk is so high. Such kind of job is called “wok” job! No one wants to do it, and everyone tries their best to escape from it! Why? It is because there is something called “continuity”. It means that once u are assigned to do a job in the first year, u may be asked to do the same job in next year. The reasoning behind is that u are familar with the nature and the process of that company, which imfers that u are able to work faster and more efficient! So if you are so “lucky” and get a “wok” job when u are still a junior, then God bless you! You will do the same job again next year! Worst still, by that time you are a grade higher than you were and the burden upon you will be much heavier!
Most people after finished working in Big 4 for 4-5 yrs, they will find it difficult to work as an accountant in commercial field. Employers often claim that they like people having Big 4’s experience. But on the other hand, they also claim that people from Big 4 don’t have enough commercial experience as what you know is only restricted to the extend about auditing! What a dilemma! As you are coming from the audit department of Big 4, you may not familar with taxation as it is performed by taxation department. You may have to learn something about taxation once more as your employers or even will often ask you about tax issues. In my view, Knowledge in taxation is very useful and important because people usually will want to know how much tax they can save, rather than those accounting treatments. Employers do not treat accounting as a productive department but a supporting department. It is your duty to well prepare the financial statements. It infers that it is beneficial to recognise profit earlier but defer expenses later by applying the accouting standards. However the accounting standards change every year, as HKICPA’s technical department thinks it is more suitable to adopt different treatments to deal with changing business environment. I really think that it is not necessity to change treatments every year. I really feel doubt how many accountants will know the new treatment, especially those local firms which are not necessarily to deal with big clients. It gives me a feeling that HKICPA changes because they are being paid to be changed, but not because there is a need to change!
Overtime is a norm in auditing. You may argue that before you join the firm you have already known that you have to work so harsh as an auditor in Hong Kong. But what overtime I’m talking at this moment is an overtime for 7-8 hours per day! In peak season (usually between February and July, but it depends on how lucky you are), you may have to work from 8:30am or 9am to 2-3am. It is not a joke, it is real! Sometimes I really doubt whether it is such necessarily to work so late. We are human being not machine. Body simply will not function at all after working for such a long time. I’d even vomitted in washroom for so many times! Junior staffs may be scared of leaving the office early, even though they may not have much things to do. But some seniors want their teammates to stay late, as to show off or to tell their bosses that they are hard working in order to get a promotion for himself or herself. There are so many such selfish person in Big 4, especially those want to be promoted to manager. Promoting to senior is not that hard, as long as throughout the life in the firm you are not being disliked or blamed by other people. When you are working as a junior, you should be extremely careful! Once you have done something carelessly, recklessly or negligently, your “bad” reputation will be wide spread soon and your life there will be miserable! Your story will be spread to other seniors within a short period of time. People will not book you, and you may be idle most of the time. You may do some filings in the office or may be assigned to some jobs that no one wants to do!
Don’t think auditing is something very professional! The opinion given in Auditor’s Report is only a joke! The standard is to give “reasonable assurance as to whether the accounts are free from material misstatement.” To be honest, such kind of statement has already protected the CPA firm from being sued of negligence. Do you think that the financial statements really truely reflect the company’s financial position? I really feel doubt about it, especially you know how the auditors do their jobs. There is a jargon in auditing called “Flying airplane”. It means that the auditor does not check every stuffs he is required to do. It is so common in auditing because time is limited and staffs are not enough. If people want to go home earlier, then they have to skip things that may not be important. But the implication of such skip may not underestaimated. Even though some problems have been found during the process of the finding, people simply will ignore it and replace it with a proper sample, so that they can leave the office and go home earlier.
Salary in Big 4 is more than those in local firms, no doubt workload will be heavier. However by comparing with hours that a person works, the salary is not so high at all! Most people quit in Big 4 after working 3-4 yrs. Usually tbey will find jobs as an internal auditors or they may sacrifice a salary cut when working in commercial field. In Hong Kong, there are about 60,000 qualified accountants but only 3,000 are holding practice certificates. Why? It is very hard to open a CPA firm because it is hard to survive under the fierce competition from firms like “LA Accounting”. Theoretically such kind of firm is not a regular CPA firm, but they are doing accounting works. In law only a CPA who has a practise certificate can sign and express opinion on financial statements. However it is not required by law that the auditing work should be done by CPAs and can be performed by others so long as the Auditor’s Report will be signed by a CPA. Thus, such “accounting” firms make use of this loophole doing audit work, helping clients to fill in tax return but at the end just ask a CPA with practise certicate to sign the report for them. They make huge bucks of money! Still now HKICPA hasn’t done much to stop such kind of activities.
At last, don’t be cheated or misled by the promotional campaign from Big 4. The accounting industry is not as prosperous as they talk. There are too many accountants, and mostly they are under paid! Their workloads are too much. Also they have to fact a lot of risks and pressure from management. People may be forced to make fake accounting records or else they will be fired. Remember these are criminal, and would be jailed! So please think twice before joining the accounting industry!
Wiley CPA Review 2007, 4-Volume SET
