Listicle of the Day: The Accounting Firms on Fortune’s 25 Best Large Workplaces in Consulting and Professional Services
Yikes that headline was a mouthful, sorry about that. Anyway, Fortune has released its 25 Best Large Workplaces in Consulting and Professional Services list and you might be surprised to learn that only one Big 4 firm cleared the top ten. Actually you might not be surprised by that at all once you learn the […]
Audit Partners and MDs Work Much, Much Harder Than Everyone Else at PwC
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? […]
Another Year, Another Revenue Record For Deloitte in 2022
This morning turned out to be a pretty big Big 4 news day. First, we had EY’s top brass approving splitting its auditing and consulting businesses (no surprise here). Then we had Deloitte announcing its global revenue for 2022—and it’s a record amount (no surprise here either). The Green Dot pulled in $59.3 billion in […]
EY HAS BIG NEWS, YOU GUYS
This announcement is the most exciting thing since…uh…yeah, I got nothing. Anyway, the EY split is official. The vote, that is. “EY leaders have reached the decision to move forward with partner votes to separate into two, distinct, multidisciplinary organizations. The next steps include ongoing engagement with partners to provide them with more information in […]
Some Folks at EY Spent Labor Day Working Out the Details of the Audit/Consulting Split
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the EY split is moving forward thanks in part to the big wigs getting together over the holiday weekend to hammer out the plan. Ernst & Young’s leaders are expected this week to give the green light to splitting its auditing and consulting businesses, paving the way for […]
For a Brief Time This Past Weekend, a PwC Twitter Account Was Promoting Crypto Scams
PwC Venezuela’s Twitter account was hijacked over the weekend and started pumping out links to an obvious crypto scam involving (legit) Ripple and its CEO Brad Garlinghouse. The website the scam tweets linked to — xrpgivtoday — was registered on September 3, 2022. You’ve probably seen similar scams all over Twitter, usually involving Elon Musk […]
Deloitte is Out Here Being Cringey on LinkedIn Again
That polar bear’s name? Albert Einstein. Related articles: We Get It Lady, You Work For Deloitte What’s Up With Deloitters and the LinkedIn Cult Mentality? Everyone Knows 11-Year-Olds Can’t Wait to Work at Deloitte
PwC Is Still Not Forcing People Back to the Office (Really)
Since last November, PwC has graciously allowed 40,000 client-facing people to choose whether or not they want to be in the office (when they don’t have to be, that is) and as other companies begin an aggressive push to get people to return to office after Labor Day, the firm is reiterating its stance on […]
EY Staffers Feel Left in the Dark After Death of Their Colleague Last Weekend
In the early hours of last Saturday, the body of a 27-year-old woman (note: she was incorrectly identified as 33 in early reports) was found at EY’s Sydney office and since then, questions have been raised about the events of the final hours of her life. Most reports say she went out for drinks with […]
Did the SEC’s Acting Chief Accountant Have EY in Mind When He Wrote This?
The Australian Financial Review reported today that EY had hoped to temporarily share the EY brand name between a new independent consulting firm and its existing auditing firm if a decision is made to split the two businesses into separate entities. But according to a statement this week from SEC acting chief accountant Paul Munter, […]
A 27-Year-Old Woman Working For EY Died at the Office Over the Weekend in Australia (UPDATE)
Ed. note: the earliest reports identified the woman as 33 years old, this has now been corrected to 27 based on new information. Tragic news coming out of Sydney, a 27-year-old woman working for EY died at the office over the weekend. The original Australian report is behind a paywall so we’re getting some details […]
Deloitte Just Lost a Quiet Cybersquatting Dispute With a Privacy-Focused Crypto Company
Have you heard of DYKC? We haven’t. It’s not like it’s our job to know what giant accounting firms are doing across the globe at any given moment. Apparently Penultimate Media Systems hadn’t heard of Deloitte’s “Know Your Customer” services either when they registered DontKYC.com in August 2021. Deloitte decided to stomp that out lest […]
Even KPMG in South Africa Could Not Escape the Clutches of PCAOB Enforcement
Earlier today the PCAOB gave KPMG of the South African variety a slap on the wrist and punished a couple of partners for the firm collaborating with an outside accounting firm not registered with the PCAOB on three years’ worth of audits of a public company. That non-registered accounting firm was KPMG Zimbabwe. And these […]
ICYMI: KPMG Is Downsizing Its NYC Digs Big Time
KPMG announced last week it will relocate its headquarters to Two Manhattan West, a new building in Midtown Manhattan’s West Side slated for completion in 2023. The new digs mean a huge 40% reduction in NYC office space, signaling the firm expects hybrid work to persist for the foreseeable future and then some (sorry, Boomers). […]
EY Gone Wild? 1200 Rowdy EYers Are Partying Like It’s 1999 in the Netherlands
A tipster has directed us to some news coming out of the Netherlands this week that otherwise would have flown under our radar so thanks for that, tipster. The tip: 1200 Scandinavian employees of EY partying in a beach hotel in the Netherlands. OK that sounds tame enough, how much trouble can 1200 EYers cause? […]
Why Are People at Big 4 Firms So Elitist? A Rant
Here’s a fun one from Fishbowl today: Thankfully someone pointed out how bizarre it is for someone to have worked at Big 4, a small firm, and GT, BDO, and RSM. OP clarified that they only worked for Grant Thornton — which they called “awful and primitive” — and lumped similar size firms together as […]
PwC Manager is Suing the Firm After He Lost a Chunk of His Skull at a Drunken Work Event
In 2019, PwCer Michael Brockie (UK) was at an after-hours pub golf outing with colleagues when he got blackout drunk and awoke in the street later that night with no memory of the evening. He suffered a life-changing head injury and had to have part of his skull removed, most likely due to a fall […]
Here’s the Deck EY Put Together to Sell the Audit/Consulting Split to Staff
Australian Financial Review has published slides shown to EY staff in a July global webcast led by Carmine Di Sibio and in them we learn more about EY’s plan — code-named Project Everest — to split off consulting and audit. First up, the why. “The transformative forces reshaping professional services are evolving at unprecedented speed and […]
Only One Big 4 Firm Made This Top 100 Internship Programs of 2022 List, You’ll Never Guess Who
DEI and Early Talent Recruitment platform provider Yello has released its sixth annual Top 100 Internship Programs List to highlight “companies across all industries who have gone above and beyond for their interns.” This year’s winner is Boeing with the remaining 99 on the list unranked. Companies nominate themselves for consideration and the anonymized judging […]
Compensation Watch ’22: Here’s Everything We Know About EY Raises and Promotions
First it was Deloitte, then PwC, and most recently EY that waded into the Big 4 compensation discussion waters with its employees. We’ve written quite a bit over the past several months about EY being the only Big 4 firm that didn’t give its grunts a mid-year salary adjustment. But Uncle Ernie did make one […]
Would You Rock These KPMG Kicks?
A simple yes or no will suffice.
Word Hits TikTok That Big 4 Firms Are Cheap Bastards, “It’s Modern Day Slavery”
Deloitte Australia is trying to be transparent by releasing salary data but apparently this tactic isn’t working, not with Daily Mail writing headlines like Young Aussie reveals why many millennials no longer want to work in corporate jobs – after boomers said the generation was ‘lazy and entitled’ that is. Here’s the TikTok that inspired […]
KPMG Poaches Someone From PwC and Issues a Press Release, Part XVII
Last month KPMG made a big deal in a press release about how it had added eight partners and managing directors to “advance its Tax Reimagined service offering.” Good for you, KPMG. But what’s somewhat interesting is that the eight new partners and managing directors came from two other Big 4 firms, one of which […]
Hoping Everyone Has Forgotten About All the Scandals, KPMG UK Is Bidding for Government Contracts Again
Late last year KPMG UK decided to stop bidding for government contracts for a bit while they worked out some scandals, piss poor audit quality, and client collapses. Well, it wasn’t so much that they decided but rather that the government threatened them and told them to get their shit together or they’d be banned […]
Everyone Knows 11-Year-Olds Can’t Wait to Work at Deloitte
Why do people post this crap on LinkedIn. Thanks for doing your part to feed the pipeline, ma’am.
How Do You Know When It’s Time to GTFO of Big 4? One Manager’s Opinion
Came across this on r/big4 this morning, let’s remember half of what you see on Reddit is just someone’s creative writing exercise and people who claim to make $200k/yr are often 14-year-old larpers but hey what kind of weirdo would pretend to be a Big 4 manager on the internet. Read on. I don’t think […]
Let’s Take a Quick Tour of EY’s Metaverse Space (It Doesn’t Suck)
When the first glimpses of KPMG’s metaverse space appeared earlier this summer, my first thought was how much it looked like first-person shooters I played 20 years ago. I was also struck with a sense of deja vu, it looked oddly similar to the Maryland Association of CPAs’ CPA Island in Second Life which existed […]
Here’s How Much Auditors and Consultants at Deloitte Australia Make
Deloitte Australia is putting it all out there and revealing exactly how much its people make. Australian Financial Review reports: Deloitte Australia chief executive Adam Powick has revealed the minimum pay rates for the firm’s audit and consulting divisions as part of a strategy to be more transparent with staff and attract more skilled professionals. […]
Happy 125th Birthday, KPMG!
Today is August 2 and KPMG is turning 125! Way to prove the naysayers wrong as they pointed and jeered and insisted that we’d be down to just three Big 4 firms by the end of the 2010s. YOU GO, KPMG. Don’t listen to those haters. There’s a press release because of course there is: […]
Los Angeles Might Outsource Its 211 Phone Service to Deloitte and People Are Not Happy
Deloitte Consulting might be picking up a new client: the downtrodden of Los Angeles County. ABC7 reports: Los Angeles County’s nonprofit “211LA” hotline to health, human and social services is on the verge of being turned over to a private company, pending a vote by the county’s Board of Supervisors. The supervisors are slated to […]
The Accounting Profession is Scaring Away Gay People (and Lesbians, and Transgender People, and…)
Despite accounting firms changing their Twitter logos to rainbows for the month of June, a shocking number of LGBT accountants are straight up leaving the profession because they feel they don’t belong. This is very bad news considering how shallow the talent pool is to begin with. Thomson Reuters on IMA and CalCPA research: LGBTQ+ […]
Big 4 Global Revenue Numbers For 2022 Have Started to Trickle Out
While not officially official yet, two of the Big 4’s global CEOs recently teased how good things were revenue-wise at their respective firms in 2022. In an interview with the Financial Times earlier this month, PwC’s Bob Mortiz said the firm’s global revenue for its most recent fiscal year would be close to $50 billion, […]
A Senior Partner Who Has Probably Been Burned Out Since 1997 Gives Tips on Avoiding Burnout
Why do I feel like this screenshot is going to end up on r/thanksimcured? Now this may be blasphemy to say this around these parts but he’s mostly right. Exercise? Hell yeah, great for you. Healthy eating? Also great for you, those takeout dinners can really take a toll on your health. Passion projects? Super […]
Is It Time To Break Up With Your Big 4 Firm? A Quiz
Some of you are familiar with the ubiquitous Cosmopolitan Magazine quiz and for those of you who aren’t, well, sorry you’ve never quantified your sex life using a five question quiz developed by some sassy intern. Today we’ve got one of our own. Is It Time To Break Up With Your Big 4 Firm? Pick […]
Deloitte’s Prized Playground Might Be Getting An Upgrade (UPDATE)
[UPDATE] Deloitte University, aka Deloitte Disneyland, will be getting some new attractions now that Tarrant County commissioners approved tax breaks for Deloitte to proceed with a $300 million expansion of its training center campus in Westlake, TX. The Dallas Morning News reported on July 26: Commissioners unanimously approved a 10-year deal that could save the […]
PwC’s Summer Break Works, Says Tim Ryan
From a recent CNBC article on company-wide vacation breaks to foster employee well-being: Feeling revitalized is what many employees and their employers both want. Starting this year, accounting and consulting firm PwC is giving its 60,000 U.S. employees two annual company-wide, week-long breaks — one in July and one in December — in addition to […]
Mass Exodus at KPMG or Just a Day Ending in Y?
Meanwhile, in the Asia-Pacific (India, we think)… Twelve years ago my esteemed former colleague Caleb Newquist got clowned for calling six resignations at KPMG NYC an exodus so we’ll refrain from warnings about skies falling down for now.
Deloitte Has Calculated the Tangible and Intangible Value of the Roman Colosseum Because of Course They Did
Deloitte got their calculators out and put a dollar value on The Colosseum of Rome, the largest amphitheater built during the Roman Empire, the largest standing amphitheater in the world today, and top Italian tourist destination. Despite listening to Tiziano Ferro for 20 years, my Italian sucks so here’s Google’s translation of the newly released […]
This EY Canada Recruitment Video Said ‘Belong’ So Many Times the Word Lost Its Meaning
You ever repeated a word so many times in a row the word becomes alien? Belong. Belong. Belong. Belong. Belong. Belong. Belo…..
Deloitte Is Getting a Service Doggo!
We are putting aside our usual bitterness toward Big 4 firms for a moment here because PUPPY. Deloitte is getting a dog! We’re excited to share that @deloitte is getting another #puppywithapurpose 🐶💪– deepening our commitment to #veterans and their families. Before our puppy officially joins – he needs a name! Naming contest is open […]
KPMG UK Somehow Won’t Be Getting a Record Fine From the Financial Reporting Council For Carillion Mess (UPDATE)
[UPDATE] The Queen’s KPMG was finally, officially fined £14.4 million by the Financial Reporting Council earlier this morning for all the stupidity that happened during the 2016 audit of collapsed construction and services company Carillion, as well as for the mistakes that occurred in its 2014 audit of IT software company Regenersis. KPMG UK and […]
UK Audit Watchdog Says Deloitte Is Doing Some Good Auditing Across the Pond
Deloitte is doing a great job keeping the Financial Reporting Council happy these days. Per the FRC’s recently released 2022 Audit Quality Inspection and Supervision Report, the audit watchdog is pleased with the progress the firm has made and the absence of serious deficiencies: In the 2020/21 public report, we concluded that the firm had […]
EY Is Leaving $10 Billion in Consulting Fees On the Table If It Doesn’t Split, Says Global Chairman Carmine Di Sibio
In comments to Financial Times, EY Global Chairman and CEO Carmine Di Sibio says splitting consulting and audit “would win its consulting division up to $10bn in extra fees by liberating it from conflicts of interest that block partnerships with the world’s largest tech groups.” Those consulting fees are as yet out of EY’s reach […]
KPMG Poaches Someone From Grant Thornton and Issues a Press Release, Part IV
It‘s been awhile since we paid attention to people leaving Grant Thornton for KPMG and vice versa, but this news that was made public yesterday is a biggie: well-known Grant Thornton Chief Economist Diane Swonk turned in her purple rose after more than four years with the firm and has joined the House of Klynveld […]
A Labor Shortage in Singapore Is Forcing Big 4 Firms to Cough Up Higher Salaries
Picture it. Singapore. 2022. Bloomberg reports: The Big Four accounting firms are showering staff with pay increases in Singapore, where an acute labor shortage is driving a fierce contest for talent. PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and Deloitte LLP lifted base salaries starting from July 1, according to internal documents from the two firms reviewed by Bloomberg News. […]
Compensation Watch ’22: Does the New Equation Add Up to Better Raises For PwC Employees? (UPDATED)
[Updated original post from July 2 with new raise percentages for A2->S1, A3->S1, and S1->S2; added raise percentages for 2015, 2014, and 2013.] Now that raises have been doled out at Deloitte, next up is PwC. This is the first compensation cycle in the era of the New Equation, which is just a fancy way […]
PwC Director Lets His Family Know He Probably Won’t See Much of Them on Their Family Beach Vacation (UPDATED)
This is so sad. This is almost as bad as the time Moss Adams boasted about how this one guy would be working on dual monitors at the pool all weekend because flexibility. Update: We received the following this morning, thought we’d share. Nice try with the hate toward someone and their family. This guy is […]
Pittsburgh Man Acquitted of Manslaughter In the Death of Deloitte Consultant
A jury in Honolulu reached a not guilty verdict on July 11 in the manslaughter trial of 39-year-old Pittsburgh resident Benjamin Fleming who was charged last year in the death of his college classmate and Deloitte Consulting employee Abhishek Gupta while the two vacationed with another friend in Hawaii. “I emphasized throughout the trial that […]
EYers Are Waking Up to Overdrafts This Morning Due to a Serious Payroll Snafu (UPDATED)
We’re learning this morning that folks at EY will not be getting lunchtime DoorDash today, their paychecks from last Friday have been unceremoniously yeeted from their bank accounts. Per a tipster: There’s a payroll snafu of some sort at EY and seems just about everyone had their payroll reversed. Mass panic and overdrafts. And a […]
The KPMG Australia Cheaters Have Been Disciplined, Much Slapping of Wrists All Around
Back in May Australian Financial Review reported that 12 of the 422 KPMGers who took part in systemic exam cheating would be put through the Chartered Accountants ANZ individual disciplinary process. That process has now concluded. Here’s the update from CA ANZ: Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CA ANZ) takes all allegations of academic […]
Working 60-70 Hours a Week is ‘Fine’ Says Underpaid Big 4 Auditor Skilled in the Art of Minimizing
Check out this Big 4 auditor recently profiled on eFinancialCareers. Blink twice if you need work-life balance, buddy. I’m an auditor for a Big Four firm. Audit jobs don’t always have a good reputation: they pay less than some other Big Four jobs and offer less chance of making partner. But this is fine because […]
Exit Opportunities: Quit Auditing and Start Influencing
£3,000 ($3,600) a month. That’s how much Tanvi Shah made in audit before she decided to quit Big 4 for good and make her social media side hustle a full-time gig. Insider has the details: Shah said that before giving up her corporate job, managing a side hustle felt like having a double life. She […]
Big 4 Conflicts of Interest Are in Regulators’ Crosshairs, EY Tops the Independence Naughty List
There’s a story in the New York Times today about how EY “devised an elaborate arrangement” for nonprescription drugmaker Perrigo to avoid more than $100 million in taxes, an arrangement that was questioned by Perrigo’s then-auditor BDO. Perrigo did what any reasonable tax-avoiding nonprescription drugmaker would do and dropped BDO for EY, hence totally resolving […]
EY Continues Streak As Big 4’s Busiest Audit Firm
EY has had a few firsts in recent years: first Big 4 firm with unlimited PTO, first audit firm to get a $100 million fine from the SEC, first Big 4 firm to compare men and women with waffles and pancakes, and first place among the Big 4 in public company audit clients for the […]
Promotion Watch ’22: EY Admits 1,033 New Partners Across the Globe
Move over, EY new partner class of 2021. There’s a much larger class of brand-new rainmakers at the firm this year: The EY organization announces that 1,033 people have been promoted to partner across the globe, the largest ever cohort of new partners. Women and the Assurance service line represent 32% and 33% of this […]
Some Guy in Montana Thinks Audit Firms Are Corrupt, Untrustworthy
Jim Elliott writes an opinion column for the widely-distributed Missoula Current (that’s a joke) and in today’s column he decided to address the EY cheating scandal. His familiarity with the ethics exam EY auditors cheated on begins and ends with a quick Google search but as an outsider to accounting and a member of the […]
Big 4 Firms Are Fighting Engineers Over the Right to Bill Clients For Climate Disclosure Audits
Interesting piece over at the Wall Street Journal this morning about environmental disclosures or, more significantly, who gets to charge clients for auditing this data under SEC climate disclosure rules proposed in March. Read: Firms that verify businesses’ climate data are at odds over who is qualified to perform the work, a pivotal and potentially […]
Happy 4th of July and Also a Lesson in How Not to Be
On this, the best holiday of the summer, let us all try not to be angry and bitter like this guy who got mad at KPMG for flexing Omaha Steaks on Facebook many years ago: Speaking of steaks, did they ever come back after The Great Unsteakoning of 2020? Stay safe out there everyone and […]
Who’s Smarter, Big 4 Accountants or Industry Accountants? A Debate
Yesterday we retweeted an observation about how the smartest people work at Big 4 firms hoping for some good discussion and discussion did in fact ensue. Decent discussion, actually. It warms my cold black heart to know that at least in our little corner of the internet people with differing opinions are still capable of […]
Let’s Bid EY U.S. Chair Kelly Grier a Fond Going Concern Farewell
Today is Kelly Grier’s last day building a better working world. So in honor of her retirement, we wanted to take a look back at KG’s career at EY, especially the last four years as the firm’s U.S. chair and managing partner and Americas managing partner, and all the fun Kelly Grier moments (fun for […]
This 5 Year Old Fishbowl Thread About EY WBLs Aged Badly
“In real life you’re allowed to use other teams work papers, google, etc. there’s no difference” Digging around a bit for shits and gigs I found this, which was posted on Fishbowl five years ago: I know you’re just dying to hear what the Kool-Aid chugger EY6 said. Here you go: LOL. Full discussion on […]
How Exactly Did EY Auditors Cheat on CPE Exams? Details From the SEC Order
With the EY cheating scandal making headlines even outside of our precious little accountosphere we decided to take a look at the full SEC order to answer the question — how and why were EY auditors cheating on CPE exams? This post will be long so we’ll get deeper into the CPA ethics portion of […]
Deloitte Survey: C-suite Execs are Burned Out, Delusional, and Lack Empathy (And Also Want to Quit)
There’s some new Deloitte research out this week and it is hi-lar-ious. It seems executives have absolutely no clue what their underlings are going through, mistakenly think they’re doing a good job of making said underlings think they care, oh and they too are stressed AF and thinking about quitting their jobs. Man, things are […]
EY New Hires Are Gonna Have a Tough Time Getting Straight Answers From Reddit For the Time Being
In case you’ve been in a 24 hour coma and missed the news, we heard yesterday of an EY cheating scandal that led to the SEC slapping them with a $100 million penalty, the largest ever imposed by the SEC on an audit firm. Well Reddit certainly didn’t miss the story. Good luck to any […]
KPMG Will Pay the Department of Justice $307k For Discriminatory Job Postings
Apparently KPMG was discriminating against non-U.S. citizens in job postings? News to us. Now it’s news to you, too. Anyway, the firm was ordered to pay $306,656, the largest fine of the 16 total employers involved in the Department of Justice settlement. These civil penalties depend, in part, on the number of discriminatory advertisements employers […]
EY Auditors Cheated on Ethics Exams and Tried to Cover It Up, Will Pay a Record Fine for Naughtiness
Well this is bad. The SEC has fined EY a record $100 million after an investigation revealed auditors at EY were cheating on ethics exams (open book ethics exams we presume) and CPE; worse than cheating alone, they actively tried to cover it up and hide the cheating from the SEC. From the SEC news […]
Raises at the Queen’s PwC Are Better Than Other Big 4s But Still Not Beating Inflation
UK inflation is at a balmy 9.1% and rising, the job market is red hot, and accounting firm partners everywhere are digging through their kitchen junk drawers for all the buy-one-get-one pizza coupons they can find. It’s rough out there — for employers. eFinancialCareers is busy sharing details on Big 4 salaries across the pond […]
Former EY Partner Calls Newly-Released Tax Salary Data “Disturbingly Low”
Australian Financial Review said this morning they are in possession of tax salary data that EY is providing to some of its teams internally: Staff in EY’s tax division have learnt for the first time the salary ranges paid for graduates, consultants, managers and directors as part of a pay transparency drive at the big […]
Compensation Watch ’22: Deloitte Lifts the Lid on Raises (UPDATED)
[Updated post from June 6 with new data from Going Concern’s 2013 comp thread.] Big 4 compensation season kicked off a little more than a week ago when Deloitte employees got their comp statements and then proceeded to head over to r/accounting to whip it out and show it off for all to see. Since […]
KPMG CEO Pats His Firm on the Back For Being So Behind the Times, Roasts EY While He Does It
Sky News has obtained part of an internal memo KPMG Global Chairman and CEO Bill Thomas sent to firm partners earlier this month in which Mr. Thomas turns his nose up at EY’s plan to split consulting and audit practices. Some choice quotes from the memo: We are a partnership that has been strong and […]
EY Throws a Fit When Your Job Circumstances Change
I got an offer in a corporate role and turned in my two week notice at EY. Everything was fine: HR treated me well and wished me luck in the next chapter of my career. However, on my LAST DAY at EY, the new company rescinded their offer for reasons that I won’t get into […]
KPMG’s New Metaverse Space is Like the First-Person Shooters You Played in 1999 But Worse
14 or 15 years ago I trolled Bill Sheridan of the Maryland Association of CPAs on Twitter about uncovering a weapons cache they’d stashed on CPA Island, a then-revolutionary virtual space in the game Second Life MACPA had set up for…accounting things. Back in 2008 CPA Island was the first (only? It never really caught […]
Partners Stand to Make Millions (Maybe) If EY Breaks Up
The big hurdle in EY’s plan to split audit and consulting lies in whether or not its partners want to take the risk per earlier Wall Street Journal coverage in which people familiar with the matter told WSJ its roughly 12,000 partners will need to vote to approve the spinoff. Well according to this it […]
[UPDATED] Singer Pitbull Set to Perform His Worst Collaboration to Date
¡Dale! Remember Pitbull? I swear I had Culo on repeat for all of 2004 and some of 2009 when I suddenly got nostalgic for the raspy exclamation of “YEAH!” over and over. Well TB4A posted this last week on Insta… When he sent me this screenshot via Slack my esteemed colleague Jason Bramwell said: “Dude […]
PwC UK is Being Very Picky About Who They Hire (Yes, Even in This Market)
PwC has whipped out their prestige and is wagging it around in everyone’s faces. eFinancialCareers reports that despite accounting firms everywhere struggling to recruit and retain any talent not just the best and brightest PwC is being picky about who it brings in: There’s been no shortage of applications for PWC’s student jobs this year. […]
Deloitte Shares Unique Data on How Many Bullies and Perverts Used to Work for Them
Deloitte Australia has disclosed stats on workplace misconduct and revealed how many people got punted as a result of internal investigations reports Australian Financial Review: Deloitte has investigated 145 misconduct allegations over the past year and found more than half, or 80, were substantiated, leading to 20 employees being “exited” from the consulting firm. The […]
EY Puts Its Money Where Its Mouth Is on Audit Quality With a Technology Investment
EY announced today it is making a $1 billion investment in audit technology just weeks after WSJ reported that the firm is in the process of splitting its audit and consulting arms. $13.6 billion of EY’s $40 billion global revenue last year came from audit. From EY: EY today announces an investment of more than […]
Deloitte is Coming to Take PwC’s Consulting Crown in Australia
News is slow over here in the land of Coors and corn syrup, let’s take a quick trip to Oceania. Via AFR: Deloitte is challenging PwC’s place as the largest consultancy by revenue in Australia as the firm posts a 19 per cent jump in income to $2.5 billion in the year to May. The […]
Promotion Watch ’22: PwC Admits 283 New Partners and Principals
PwC will be swimming in new partners and principals on July 1, the day when members of one of the largest classes in recent memory at the firm officially earn their stripes. Of the 283 members of the class of 2022 at PwC, 169 will be principals and 114 will be partners. It’s the biggest […]
Do Accounting Firms Care if You’re On Drugs? Part III
12 years ago my former colleague Caleb Newquist published a post titled “Do Accounting Firms Care if You’re On Drugs?” A good chunk of that post describes Wall Streeters getting blitzed at real estate investment trust companies because back in those days accounting news was extra slow and we wrote about a lot more finance-adjacent […]
[UPDATED] KPMG Will Pay Audit New Hires to Study for the CPA Exam
Ed. note: update at the bottom, our hopes have been dashed. Second update includes a statement from KPMG As I’m sure you’ve heard by now the profession is having trouble recruiting future CPAs. Accounting student numbers aren’t critically low yet but fewer and fewer graduates are taking the CPA exam, an issue that keeps AICPA […]
Deloitte Sued by Former Manager After the Partner She Was Banging Turned Weird and Stalkery (Allegedly)
Guys (and gals) I don’t know how many times we have to say this but please, please don’t bang people you work with. There are like three billion men or women in the world for you to pick from (6 billion if you’re bisexual heck yeah *high five*); more precisely there are 2.3 billion adults […]
Deloitte Will Be the Next Big 4 Firm to Split Audit and Consulting, Says WSJ; Deloitte Denies
The rumor mill got fired up a mere 14 days ago when the Wall Street Journal reported EY was considering splitting its audit and advisory arms (pesky regulators and conflicts of interest and whatnot). As interns and accounting students who aren’t even going to Meet the Firms yet blew up social media asking what this […]
PwC Will Not Let Economic Chaos Foil Its Aggressive Hiring Plans
That’s per PwC US chair Tim Ryan who told Insider the firm has its all-seeing eye firmly focused on the market. For now though? Let’s get those warm bodies into chairs. Tim Ryan, the US chair of PricewaterhouseCoopers, said the firm’s hiring plans aren’t going through “any major shocks or changes right now” and that […]
You Know Things Are Bad at EY When Its US and Global CEOs Are Beefing
We now know the reason, courtesy of the Financial Times, why Kelly Grier decided not to seek a second term as EY US chair and managing partner and Americas managing partner. Apparently there’s no love lost between her and Carmine Di Sibio, EY global chairman and CEO. FT reported today: The head of EY’s US […]
Young People Want to Return to the Office Says Old Guy Who’s Never Spoken to a Young Person
EY Global Chairman and CEO Carmine Di Sibio is out here making some wild claims, namely that EY’s 20-somethings are eager to get back to the office. From CNBC: In the tug of war between returning to the office and working from home, Ernst & Young (EY) CEO and Global Chairman Carmine Di Sibio falls […]
RIP Norah Bruther, EY Senior Associate Who Was Killed By Alleged Drunk Driver
Funeral services were held this past weekend for 23-year-old Norah Bruther, an EY assurance senior associate from New Jersey who was struck and killed by a vehicle on May 7 while on vacation in Arizona. NJ.com reported: Norah Bruther was hit by a car around 1:30 a.m. Saturday while trying to cross Camelback Road near […]
Former Deloitte CEO Is a Big Fan of ‘Smors’
No, Cathy Engelbert isn’t talking about the delicious summertime treat. She’s talking about “small moments of recovery.” “I learned this at Deloitte because when you’re running a firm of that size, you have to find time. We dubbed them smors. My EA used to put them on my calendar: Small moments of recovery. You need moments during […]
Things Are Getting Spicy Between PwC UK Employees and Lord Sugar
After being called “lazy gits” in a tweet last Friday by British businessman, entrepreneur, and TV show host Lord Alan Sugar, who reacted negatively to PwC UK announcing that it would allow employees to take Friday afternoons off from June to the end of August, we were curious to see if any PwCers across the […]
Compensation Watch ’22: Big 4 Firm With the Most Negative Publicity In the U.K. Tries to Change All That By Giving Staff Raises of At Least £2,000
If you’re a regular visitor to this website, it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out which Big 4 firm we’re referring to: Carillion, loads of fines from the Financial Reporting Council, chairman’s rant leads to his resignation, Carillion, “unacceptable” bank audits, partners who are bullies, lawsuits, and layoffs. And did we mention Carillion? Yes, […]
Back In My Day, Accountants Had to Walk Uphill Both Ways In the Hot Sun to Get to Work, Says Crotchety Old British Guy
British businessman, entrepreneur, and media person Lord Alan Sugar thinks employees of the Queen’s PwC are a bunch of “lazy gits [that] make me sick” for being allowed to take Friday afternoons off this summer. This is a bloody joke. The lazy gits make me sick. Call me old fashioned but all this work from […]
In KPMG Australia Cheating Scandal, Apparently Cheaters *Do* Win
From Australian Financial Review: Chartered Accountants ANZ has belatedly ruled that only 12 of the 422 members from big four consulting firm KPMG who took part in systemic exam cheating will be put through the professional body’s individual disciplinary process. The body’s disciplinary committee ruled that the “activities undertaken” by 410 KPMG CA ANZ members […]
The Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For: PwC #63 (2022)
The last of the Big 4 to be ranked in the 2022 Fortune BCTWF and the one that took the biggest drop over the last year is the proudest and trustiest firm of them all, PwC. Fortune doesn’t reveal why a particular company fell so many spots in its ranking from one year to the […]
The Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For: EY #52 (2022)
Coming in at No. 52 on the 2022 Fortune BCTWF is the ol’ Black and Yellow. EY has made quite a few head-scratching, unpopular decisions over the last couple of years, but here they are on the BCTWF for the 24th time in the ranking’s 25-year history. While doors will open for someone with experience […]
The Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For: KPMG #41 (2022)
Following one spot behind RSM US in the 2022 Fortune BCTWF is KPMG, the second Big 4 firm in the ranking behind Deloitte at No. 24. It’s not too often that KPMG finishes ahead of PwC in anything, so the House of Klynveld should celebrate this accomplishment while it can. For the most part, people […]
PwC Finishes First In Vault’s Accounting Firm Prestige Ranking For the Gazillionth Time (2023)
Another year, another first-place finish for PwC in Vault’s ranking of the most prestigious public accounting firms. At this point, you can just pencil in PwC as being the most prestigious firm now until the end of time. If a firm was to eventually unseat PwC in prestige, it would be as big of an […]
PwC Does Not Relinquish Top Spot In Vault Accounting 25 (2023)
Vault today released its newest ranking of the best public accounting firms to work for, and it’s a slimmed-down version for 2023: the number of firms ranked went from 50 (as has been the case for many years) to 25. But one thing remains constant: PwC is No. 1. This is the 10th straight year […]
Listicle of the Day: Firms That Have Topped the Vault Accounting 50/25 Through the Years
Except for 2012 when the Purple Rose of Chicago shockingly was named the best accounting firm to work for, a Big 4 firm has been ranked No. 1 in all the other Vault Accounting 50s. And even though Vault’s latest ranking for 2023, released earlier today, includes only 25 firms instead of 50, a Big […]
Senior Managers Out of F*cks to Give Are Acting Up in Review Comments
Saw this on Reddit this morning, good thing I grabbed it before it got deleted just like this Sr. Manager’s career. Text of the original post transcribed below: I’m a Manager, a Sr. Manager is leaving me profanity / border line insulting review comments – what to do. First time working with this guy and […]