r/auditing

Most retellings treat Arthur Andersen as a firm destroyed by a bad client. I've been digging into the internal structure and I think that gets the causality backwards.

In the 1970s, Andersen leadership introduced a quota system that required every audit partner to sell roughly twice their audit fee in consulting services to the same clients they were independently auditing. Charge a client $10,000 for an audit, and you were expected to sell them $20,000 in consulting.

Think about the actual mechanics of that. The person hired to be your independent check was financially incentivized to never make the client unhappy — because an unhappy client kills the consulting revenue that was now the bigger number on the partner's book. If an auditor found a real problem, flagging it risked the far more profitable relationship sitting on top of it.

By the time Enron came along, that structure had already been running for two decades across other clients — Waste Management, Sunbeam, DeLorean's GPD shell company. Andersen's own junior auditors reportedly caught issues and wrote them up. Senior partners overruled them, in at least one case explicitly because the client was paying millions in non-audit fees.

Enron didn't corrupt Andersen. Enron just found a firm that had already spent 20+ years training itself not to say no to a paying client.

Curious whether people who've actually worked in a multi-service firm see the same structural bind today, or whether post-Sarbanes-Oxley separation rules genuinely fixed this. Is the audit/consulting firewall real in practice, or is it more of a compliance fiction?

Not an auditor myself, I write software for accounting workflows, and I keep hitting the same wall I can't size properly.

The tools I've seen will tell you a transaction looks risky, and then the person still has to open the ledger, find it, and match it by hand to the invoice or receipt to confirm it's real. The flagging is automated; the proving isn't.

Trying to figure out if that manual proving step is genuinely where the hours go, or if I've fixated on something minor:

• Is the tie-back to the underlying document a real time sink, or already handled by what you use?
• When something's flagged, do you trust an auto-generated trail, or is doing the tie-out yourself part of how you sign off?
• Does testing the whole population instead of a sample actually matter to you, or does sampling cover you fine?

My coworkers and I have been using this nice slow time at work to dive in to the compliance side of the house. One of the things we talked about where controls that pass an audit that are actually useless for us in practice. 😂

For example, we have audit logs going to a SIEM but most of our application and database logs do not and the client, server, network logs that do go are so large that they are never reviewed. Sure, we have setup alerts but it seems pointless with the amount of logs being stored and we have found that some of the alerts being generated people ignore anyway 😬

So I’m curious what other people see… what’s a control that passes in your org but secretly fails in practice?

I am a Chartered Accountant from India with around 3 years of experience in offshore audit, worked with both US and UK clients in a Big 4 firm. Over time, I’ve started feeling burnt out in audit and am looking to transition into SEC reporting or technical accounting roles.

To support this transition, I have already enrolled in ACCA and will be appearing for exams in September and have further plans to pursue US CPA as well.

I also have an SEC reporting interview scheduled for tomorrow (which is 4th technical round). The competition is quite intense — out of nearly 50 candidates interviewed, only 2 have been shortlisted, and just 1 candidate will be selected.

I am putting in a lot of effort, but things haven’t been working out as expected so far. I would really appreciate guidance from anyone with a similar background who has successfully made this transition into SEC reporting or technical accounting — especially on what next steps I should focus on.

Based on our team's size (5–10 internal auditors) and the nature of our audit activities, we are looking for an internal audit software solution that can support the following requirements:

• Annual audit planning
• Standardized audit templates and checklists
• Fieldwork documentation (e.g., inventory counts, cash counts, vouching, and branch audits)
• Head office process audits (e.g., accounting, purchasing, and other support functions)
• Findings management
• Management responses with assigned due dates
• Automated reminders and escalation for overdue action plans
• Follow-up audits and issue closure
• Dashboards for monitoring audit progress and the status of findings
• The ability to support the growth and maturity of our internal audit methodology over time

Dm if interested

Audit report

Liquidation report

Hi everyone!

I'm a first-time ABA business owner in California and recently started Blooming ABA. I've spent months trying to build everything correctly before serving my first client, but I'm getting to the point where I feel like I'm overthinking every decision and could really use guidance from someone who's been through this.

So far I've:

• Formed my LLC
• Obtained my EIN and Group NPI
• Secured office space
• Set up my EMR, billing company, and payroll
• Started credentialing with Blue Shield, Aetna, and Medi-Cal (PAVE)
• Begun the Regional Center vendorization process
• Created intake packets, clinical templates, and onboarding documents
• Started recruiting BCBAs and BTs

My biggest concern right now is the DOJ ORI and Live Scan process.

I'm confused about:

• Whether I should wait for my ORI before having employees complete Live Scan.
• Whether there's anything I should be doing while my ORI is pending.
• What a compliant employee onboarding process should look like before serving my first client.

At this point, I honestly don't know if I'm overthinking things or if I'm actually missing important compliance steps.

If you've successfully started an ABA company, especially in California, I'd really appreciate your perspective.

If you were auditing Blooming ABA before opening, what are the top 3–5 things you would make sure are completed before accepting the first client?

I'm not looking for anyone to build my business for me. I genuinely want to learn from people who've already been through this so I can avoid preventable mistakes and build a strong foundation.

If anyone offers startup consulting or mentorship for California ABA agencies, or knows someone who does, I'd truly appreciate any recommendations as well.

Thank you in advance! I really appreciate your time and any guidance you're willing to share.

I take audit tomorrow. Can someone share with me their notes please? I find it helpful seeing how others take in the info. Anything helps. Thank you!!!

anyone would be interested in Agentic AI based solution for automatic Audit evidence collection system solution such as ISO, SOC2, GDPR etc? Just upload your application list, automatic controls mapping to backend integration to collect evidence and keep it Audit ready. Anyone interested send a note to me

Posting this from a throwaway because I don't want to burn bridges.

I recently worked for an audit firm and if I could give one piece of advice to fresh graduates, it's this:

Do not ignore red flags just because you're desperate to gain experience.

Some things I experienced:

• Frequent overtime that eventually became "normal."
• Poor work-life balance.
• Management issues that made communication difficult.
• Concerns regarding employee benefits and deductions.
• High turnover that should have been a warning sign.
• Constant pressure with very little support.

The saddest part is that many fresh graduates stay because they think suffering is a normal part of the profession.

Yes, accounting and auditing are demanding careers. Busy seasons exist. Deadlines exist.

But there's a difference between ~ challenging work that helps you grow and being overworked, under-supported, and constantly stressed.

If you're applying to a firm, ask former employees:

• How long do people usually stay?
• How often do employees resign?
• How is overtime handled?
• Are government contributions updated and properly remitted?
• How responsive is management to employee concerns?

I wish someone had told me these questions before I accepted my offer.

To anyone currently job hunting: experience is important, but your mental health, career growth, and legal employment rights matter too.

Honestly, I really want to name my company to warn fresh graduates and applicants, kaso baka I might get retaliated against or sued. 😭

So share ko na lang experience ko and the red flags that I wish I had seen back then.

Got audited for 2 years for claiming Work related self education expenses was not aware before as I was doing it myself working as AIN and claiming Bachelor of Nursing as I had completed Diploma of Nursing Already.
I have submitted voluntary disclosure and whatever evidence I have. The Case officer has replied with an ato audit deadline date of early August, 2026 and stated they will contact if any further info is required.
Does that date mean they will send their final decision on that date? or it could be before that date?

CAs and finance professionals:

Think about the last tax audit you worked on.

- What went wrong?

- What took longer than expected?

- What required the most follow-ups?

- Where did you spend most of your time?

- What do you wish someone had automated for you?

I'm trying to understand whether the biggest challenge is:

- collecting data,

- chasing people,

- validating numbers,

- reconciling mismatches,

- preparing documentation,

or something else entirely.

Would love to hear real experiences.