Friday Footnotes: Big 4 Bullying; Auditor Gets Boned; Where My Girls At? | 7.5.19

Posted on by Going Concern News Desk
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Ed. note: Friday already? Yay! Here’s what you may have missed from around the Internets. If you’ve got a story to share, give us a shout. Have a wonderful weekend, you little lovelies you.

KPMG’s Head of Deal Advisory steps down amid ‘bullying’ storm [Consultancy.uk] KPMG’s UK Head of Deal Advisory has stepped down to take a leave of absence “in the wider interest of the firm”, following complaints regarding the way he spoke to colleagues. The move comes despite the Big Four firm having found Sanjay Thakkar’s behaviour “did not amount to bullying” during an internal investigation, something which seemingly caused two experienced figures to quit the firm in protest.

Jay-Z’s companies sue New York City licensing company for ‘colossal accounting scandal’ [AP] When Roc Nation entered into a brand partnership with Iconix in 2013, the defendant company was fabricating financial reports to falsely inflate its earnings, according to the suit filed Thursday in state court in Manhattan.

An auditor fucked up by failing to disclose he’d been screwing the guy he audited for 15 years [The Press-Enterprise] Meh, immaterial.

AICPA Survey: Business Executives Say Complex Financial Instruments Continue to Pose Risk [Yahoo] Some 55 percent of those surveyed expressed concern about financial instrument valuations.

Innovation in accounting: Why that’s not an oxymoron [Prairie Business] The one in which Eide Bailly humblebrags about being into computer things and stuff.

Congress approves IRS reform bill, drops Free File language [Journal of Accountancy] President Trump has signed the bill into law as of July 1.

Amazon turned 25 this month, some folks think it’s time they pay their fair share [Guardian] The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has sent a barbed birthday card to Jeff Bezos to mark Amazon’s 25th anniversary, wishing the company “many happy tax returns” and demanding it pays more UK tax, pays its staff better and improves working conditions.

Chicks rule at PwC [Financial Times] You might be impressed by just how many new partners at PwC UK are of the female persuasian.

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Busy Season Interns: Don’t Waste Their Time

Continuing with the busy season theme, let’s touch on everyone’s favorite coffee jockeys, the interns. This isn’t prime season for interns at accounting firms but we know there are a few lucky (?) teams out there that have an extra set of hands on deck.

Getting serious for two, this time of year, everyone is under pressure to get things done and if you happen to have an intern on your team, they either make your job infinitely easier or they are the bane of your existence. If you fall into the latter category, why is this the case?

It’s pretty easy for you to conclude that the blade of grass tapping you on the shoulder every ten minutes is the person at fault but a lot of times, interns get thrown into bad situations where they end up working for seniors or managers that are so swamped (or helpless) that they can only think about their own workload while there’s a 21 year old that needs something to do (besides looking through menus and making copies).


Since accounting firms put so much effort into recruiting the next wave you’d think that this enthusiasm would spread to teams like the Plague. Unfortch, there are many that see interns as an annoyance during this time of year because, “I have so much work to do and I don’t have time to handhold interns” and we think that’s bullshit.

We’re not saying that there aren’t bad interns out there. And we’re not saying you’re not busy. We know better. But if you gave that intern something meaningful to do instead of whining about how busy you are, they might make your life a speck (or a few) easier.

And interns need hand holding because they’re interns. Don’t forget that up until this point, they’ve been wearing sweats 24/7 and that you used to be just like them. Experienced team members should take this time to utilize them in a meaningful way and not as gofers. If you’re one of those teams that needs a gofer, at least squeeze some meaningful work somewhere so they can learn something and they probably won’t mind the gofering as much.

Yeah, it might take some effort on your part but it’s definitely worth your time to mentor these future associates. If you give them some challenging work now and show them a little bit of appreciation for their efforts, they’ll run through walls for you later.