Business Service Lines (1 Viewer)

[KittySanchez]

Hey guys,

Don't know if there is a thread about this already, but does anyone have any inside info about the best/most useful service lines to work in within an accounting firm?? Has anyone worked in areas such as business advisory, assurance services, auditing, transaction advisory, etc., and can give some much needed practical advice about what you do on a daily basis??

thx muchly!!

 

[turtleface]

heres a quick 1 min guide, got a class to go to

assurance is usually linked with auditing, I think audit is a subset of assurance. the most opportunities exist in audit

business advisory services do not really exist as a department in big 4 firms, only mid tier and surburban

transaction advisory and corporate finance are pretty much exactly the same as investment banking but they do not act as the financiers (provide capital or whatever the term is) like Investment Banks do.

 

[turtleface]

ok more opinions from me:

audit: often denigrated as being boring cause its considered "traditional accounting" and also because a lot of accounting grads go here cause they don't know what else to go to because audit is considered generic accounting, however many business leaders (e.g. Frank Halloran CEO of QBE Insurance) started here, and audit is considered a very good career path

tax: people think this is boring too ( i wouldnt know) but is (generally) paid a bit higher than audit, although audit has increased significantly recently. some people think having a law degree is advantageous for tax.

corporate finance: also paid slightly more than tax. basically what they do in investment banking (all that modelling/excel stuff, besides the capital raising) (probably suits Finance majors, although generally they have a mix of CAs and FINSIA qualified people)

Those are the 3 main ones

others include:
Corporate Recovery/Insolvency: can be very good. Some of the most high profile accountants are external administrators, and although a lot of people will hate you, employees, creditors, shareholders, regulators will all be affected by what you do.

Forensic: probably a bit over glorified due to the "forensic" name. From waht I've heard its basically audit, but sometimes you go in undercover as auditors. Thats for the investigation area. Other areas include dispute resolution etc where you go in and quantify losses etc. e.g. divorce cases, you may have to value assets

Transaction support: a mix of audit and Corporate Finance depending on where you are

internal audit:
Business Process Analysis-ish, internal control analysis etc.

 

[seremify007]

For the Big4, Audit (assurance) is the one which brings in the dough. It's the largest revenue earner, and even though a lot of people like to bag it out- you'll learn a lot in audit. The skills you learn here can be applied to all other areas whether it be consulting work, forensics, or even running your own business I suppose.

If you don't know what audit is- it's basically checking controls and ensuring that financial statements produced by a company are reasonably truthful and an accurate representation of the company. It sounds simple, but bear in mind we have to go through a whole FY's worth of transactions in a limited time period with much less staff- so we need to develop ways of testing certain transactions to give comfort over a whole lot of them, or test their controls in place to ensure the transactions are done correctly, etc... in short, you oversee everything which goes on inside the company whether it be something like cash management, AP, AR or even payroll!

This might be of interest to you: http://www.unswcomsoc.com/forum/index.php?topic=566.0

I don't know much about the others in terms of what it's like to actually work in them, but turtleface has given a pretty basic (and somewhat opinionated) rundown on how they are perceived, but most are quite self explanatory as to what they involve.

 

[jase_]

There are also other types of audits other than financial, such as internal audits as mentioned above and technology audits (which is what I do). While the basic concepts remain the same across all types of audits, some interest people more than others.

 

[ND]

o
corporate finance: also paid slightly more than tax. basically what they do in investment banking (all that modelling/excel stuff, besides the capital raising) (probably suits Finance majors, although generally they have a mix of CAs and FINSIA qualified people)

I was actually speaking with an IBer who said that corp fin. in big4 is extremely different to corp fin in an IB (she was previously from big4) - i can't remember how she said that they were different (i didn't really care), but she said that the work in IB is far more interesting (to her at least).

 

[KittySanchez]

I was actually speaking with an IBer who said that corp fin. in big4 is extremely different to corp fin in an IB (she was previously from big4) - i can't remember how she said that they were different (i didn't really care), but she said that the work in IB is far more interesting (to her at least).

I had the same thing said to me by an employee in transaction services (basically corp finance) from ernst & young. I think youd have far more exposure in an IB to different business areas than you would in a big4... but im just being presumptious!

 

[turtleface]

I realise I sort of associated TS with Corp Fin a bit too much in my posts.

Some areas of TS are like due diligence and stuff...i.e. basically audit, so I can see how thats not related to IBanking

...turtleface has given a pretty basic (and somewhat opinionated) rundown on how they are perceived...

lol

 

[seremify007]

Exposure to different areas (in Big4) would depend what business unit you were in- whilst it may seem restrictive, it does let you specialize a bit and also there's nothing stopping you from going across to other BUs temporarily.

 

[aandrew]

Hey guys,

Don't know if there is a thread about this already, but does anyone have any inside info about the best/most useful service lines to work in within an accounting firm?? Has anyone worked in areas such as business advisory, assurance services, auditing, transaction advisory, etc., and can give some much needed practical advice about what you do on a daily basis??

thx muchly!!

If you want more information about the business and drive your business then visit Small business payroll services

 

[seremify007]

For the Big4, Audit (assurance) is the one which brings in the dough. It's the largest revenue earner, and even though a lot of people like to bag it out- you'll learn a lot in audit. The skills you learn here can be applied to all other areas whether it be consulting work, forensics, or even running your own business I suppose.

If you don't know what audit is- it's basically checking controls and ensuring that financial statements produced by a company are reasonably truthful and an accurate representation of the company. It sounds simple, but bear in mind we have to go through a whole FY's worth of transactions in a limited time period with much less staff- so we need to develop ways of testing certain transactions to give comfort over a whole lot of them, or test their controls in place to ensure the transactions are done correctly, etc... in short, you oversee everything which goes on inside the company whether it be something like cash management, AP, AR or even payroll!

This might be of interest to you: http://www.unswcomsoc.com/forum/index.php?topic=566.0

I don't know much about the others in terms of what it's like to actually work in them, but turtleface has given a pretty basic (and somewhat opinionated) rundown on how they are perceived, but most are quite self explanatory as to what they involve.

Very old post and the link doesn't work, but someone recently gave me rep for it and it still seems relevant now!