When accounting goes unaccounted for
Saw this in PwC’s 2022 Audit Quality Report and wanted to get the peanut gallery’s opinion on this math:
My first thought is imagine how much worse these numbers would be if you people didn’t eat as many hours as you do. Though judging by this, you’re getting much better at it.
Thoughts? Concerns? Outrage? Have at it in the comments.
Oh sure, anything is possible. However, on top of everyone not called Fox News calling P. Dubs the most shameless whore ever to issue a report on anything, Jonathan Weil at Bloomberg is now calling out some of P. Dubs’s (and KPMG probably for good measure) banking clients’ less-than consistent use of mark-to-whatever-the-hell-we-like.
Weil names three PwC clients (Midwest Banc Holdings, First Bancorp, BB&T Corp.) as showing loans with fair values greater than their carrying values as of June 30th. Midwest and First Bancorp’s stock prices are trading far below book value while BB&T’s stock price trades above book value.
As Weil points out, WTFK if these values are right or not? What is obvious is it seem like some banks are legitimately making a run at fair value and others are still using a dart board. Oh, and the PwC audit teams are okay with that. Nevermind comparability, Dow is above 10k bitches! Onward!
Mark-to-Make-Believe Turns Junk Loans to Gold [Bloomberg/Jonathan Weil]
From the mailbag by way of a Deloittian in Rahmville:
[O]ur PPD (Principal, Partner, Direct) group has received word that PWC is going to send recruiting letters to every [Financial Services Industry] senior in the Chicago and New York offices. Apparently the letter states PWC is willing to offer $15,000 more than what Deloitte is paying.
The PPD group had a meeting with all of the FSI managers in Chicago yesterday regarding this situation. On top of that, all Seniors in FSI received a meeting request today from the PPD group. The meeting is schedule for Monday morning and according to the managers, the topic of dicussion is going to be these letters. Now I can’t speak for anyone in New York but in Chicago the PPD group is not taking this lightly. Word as it that one of our senior ranking partners actually called over to PWC. Again this is all a rumor, I have not seen one of these letter but apparently one of our partners said he/she has.
If you happen across this letter, do share it with us.
Earlier:
Experienced Recruiting Amongst The Big 4 Gets Aggressive
This video appears to be from last summer but since we’ve just been made aware of it, we’re brining it to you now. Why there are multiple videos playing off the Backstreet Boys’s “I Want It That Way” is quite baffling in of itself but this particular group decided it would be best to use their own non-studio produced singing voices AND to come up with lyrics that include “351,” “Like-Kind Exchange” and “STD.”
There are a lot of directions to go with this so feel free. Make haste however, I’m sure it won’t be up for long.
Comments are closed.
What a super misleading graphic. They conveniently fail to mention that low level staff often don’t declare overtime worked outside of their contracted hours cause they get in s**t if they do LMAO
Just shows the world how inefficient our profession is.
I am skeptical about the completeness and accuracy of this information.
How much of that is travel and client meals…
The PCAOB would be so proud 🥰
Agreed.
Do it again but for charge hours only. Yeah, partners log a ton more hours, it’s just BD getting evening happy hours and weekend golf with clients paid for by the firm. Partners aren’t sitting in front of their computer logging those hours.
Signed – a partner.
From experience, these figures are questionable, and point to a problem in work allocation of responsibilities.
I call bullshit on all of this. Staff don’t work nearly as hard now as they did even 10 years ago. When I send an email to my audit team at night or on a weekend, I almost never get a response until the next business day. There’s no eating hours going on anymore. If anything, staff are charging hours they didn’t work. The inmates now run the asylum at all the big firms, due to the shitty work ethic and lack of caring by staff entering the workforce, and the shortage of talent that is the subject of almost half the articles on this here website now.
Bro, your hard core attitude is what is making it difficult to attract people to become CPAs. The pay is poor and there are people like you that expect 50 or 60 hour work weeks just because it’s the big 4. Knowing darn well that 25% of your people are going to quit every year because they can make more money working for minimum wage in half the states.
Start paying people properly and treating them with respect. Remember your staff isn’t your staff. They work for the firm and probably five other people just like you.
I think that implies the partners are the sane ones… More like cows running the slaughterhouse.
Exactly! This generation has no idea how lucky they have it.
Given manager and below are told not to log all their hours I mimick the other comments and say this is incorrect.
349/52 = 6.7 hours per week over 40 hr weeks. So they take a 1.5 hour much, book to a client, call it work! Not really working more than the associates… Get a real title… Partner takes paid luck break, calls it work.
at least they can (probably) spell L-U-N-C-H
LOL someone was drunk when writing the comment…new book idea: 100 ways to misspell the word lunch
What a load of **click-bait**.
First, you’re only looking at Audit so may want to correct the title…”…work much, much harder than everyone else IN AUDIT at PWC”
Relatedly, the idea that audit staff work similar hours to transaction advisory staff or strategy is funny to me…having seen both sides, they don’t. I do consistently get a kick out of reading about audit folks complaining about 50-hour work weeks.
Yes, the pay’s better on the transaction/strategy, but the hourly rate may be worse.
What a lier. Mostly drinking, lunch, play golf, partying …. count as working
What a misleading stats. Why didn’t mentioned junior and entry level staff’s hours? That’s make approx 47 hours per week, approx 1.4 hours daily. However junior staffs are easily expected for staying 1-2 hours daily.