New Job in Audit

Hi People,

I've been a temp for a few months and they have decided to take me on as a collections / credit controller, but also training to become an auditor. I impressed several supervisors and managers there with my Excel skills and they have seen potential in me. I was very good at completing reconciliations and tidying accounts up so they have decided audit would be something I could do. However, I have never worked in audit and I have to get up to speed very quickly.

Has anyone worked in audit and what kind of things should I expect and get up to speed with? My main area will be looking for fake invoicing / fraud.

If anybody can provide any help and/or support, it would be hugely appreciated!

Thanks for reading,

Lee.

Cool - internal audit I presume? What is your academic background?

Hi,

It's external audit and my degree is Ancient History. An unusual combination, I know. There's a lot to learn and I need to get up to speed very quickly!

Lee.

Ok - so you will be working for a large accounting firm? I don't think ancient history is a particularly unusual degree. Which training scheme will you be on?

At the moment, I'm not sure. It'll be some credit control and for the first few months I'll be travelling out to companies with her to audit. She said it's not a job you can teach because it's all about having a feel for what is wrong. They haven't mentioned any training courses at the moment; I think they want to see how I am to begin with.

Lee.

Cool - I've known people who've done similar things and have done something related myself but within a large company.

The main thing is to think about how large datasets work, what the information in them means, and how different companies manage their purchase to pay/ procurement to pay (p2p) processes end to end, where the weak points are, and how you find them. You tend to need to be very precise in using IT tools to analyse data, and be used to handling large amounts of data.

I'd spend some time googling p2p and see if you know anyone within company accounts teams who can talk you through how different systems and processes work. You might easily pick up a second hand ACCA textbook for auditing and read through the relevant chapter(s).

You could also google for anti fraud software/ procurement fraud software and preventing duplicate payments. Fiscal technologies are a major software supplier in this field so you could look at their website.