Video: Professional Development in an Audit Firm

In this lesson, Nick Palazzolo discusses the importance of professional development in an audit firm and how it helps ensure proper supervision and prevent employee burnout. The lesson dives into the importance of reviewing and overseeing team members, addressing potential disagreements, and the significance of documenting such disagreements. Moreover, it covers the importance of firms establishing criteria for professional development, recruitment, and hiring, and adopting a human resource-focused system of quality control. Additionally, Nick shares personal experiences as both a junior staff member and reviewer to emphasize the need for a balanced skillset within an audit team and the key aspects to consider when assigning personnel to an engagement.

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Video Transcript

Instructor: Nick Palazzolo

Nick Palazzolo is head instructor of ExamPrep.ai CPA Review. Nick's teaching style is engaging & upbeat, combining practical Big 4 tax & assurance expertise with years of 1-on-1 coaching. His lessons are concise and emphasize what you need to know to pass. Whether you're a recent grad or working full-time, we’re confident you can conquer your CPA exams with Nick’s review.

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Professional development in an audit firm, this hits home. As someone who rose to the ranks at audit firms, yeah, it's important and it's fun. It's fun to see yourself advance and learn new skills. As a junior staff member myself and someone who's also reviewed work, this hits home. And I'm sure it hits home for a lot of you candidates studying here. You want proper supervision of these junior audit staff and others who assist in the engagement. That's greatly beneficial for firm sustainability. You don't want burnout. Oh, I know about burnout. I know about turn and employee turnover. But in a positive, healthy environment for an audit firm, which we know they're all positive and healthy, there's no such thing as an unhealthy accounting environment, you want to make sure that everyone's getting developed, everyone's getting exposure to different clients. These team members need review. So the associates need to get reviewed by the senior associates. The senior associates need to get reviewed by the manager. They need review and oversight to ensure that they can advance with the firm and eventually replace the senior members. It's just a ladder. You climb the ladder, right? And then you go down the slide and enjoy the ride down as partner. I guess that's what it's like. I don't know. As of right now, I'm not a partner at an accounting firm, but I'll let you know if that changes. Junior engagement members may disagree with senior members on certain components. Now, I can't say I've ever disagreed with the manager and had it work out well, but it can happen, such as the types of testing performed, accounting or auditing issues, or the conclusions reached. So yeah, these disagreements should be documented with the final conclusion of

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Engagement Planning, Understanding an Entity, & Understanding its Internal Control

Module: 2 Concepts, 36 Videos

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Management's Responsibility for Disclosing Related Parties, Going Concern, Litigation, Estimates, & More Objectives

4:41

Introduction to Management's Representation and Responsibility

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