Audit Intern
Date: January 2021 – April 2021
Competencies: Values lv. 4, Teams lv. 2&3
Competencies: Values lv. 4, Teams lv. 2&3
Summary
During the spring of 2021, I was hired as an intern at CLA (CliftonLarsonAllen). In public accounting, the ‘busy season’ is generally during the beginning of the year, running through tax day on April 15th. Since there is so much extra work to be done at these times, many firms hire interns to help do work and as a learning experience. After being asked my preferences of what areas and industries I would prefer to work in, I was assigned to do audits for rural electric cooperatives and local (city) governments for the duration of my internship. I generally worked on 2 or 3 engagements a week, working on a team of 3-4 people.
During the spring of 2021, I was hired as an intern at CLA (CliftonLarsonAllen). In public accounting, the ‘busy season’ is generally during the beginning of the year, running through tax day on April 15th. Since there is so much extra work to be done at these times, many firms hire interns to help do work and as a learning experience. After being asked my preferences of what areas and industries I would prefer to work in, I was assigned to do audits for rural electric cooperatives and local (city) governments for the duration of my internship. I generally worked on 2 or 3 engagements a week, working on a team of 3-4 people.
Reflection
Since I had been hired for an internship with CLA two years before I actually got to intern, my first day was the culmination of a very large amount of excitement and anticipation. After about two weeks of orientation and training, I got to work on my first audit. The first day was spent asking Ben, my buddy, numerous questions about how to use the software and read the worksheets. During some of this learning time, I reflected upon how, depending on where I was working, sometimes I was the trainer, and sometimes the trainee. There were different attitudes and actions I had to take as each one to best fulfill the mentor-mentee relationship (Teams lv. 2). Having someone who was dedicated to helping me understand my work and grow was so helpful in getting adjusted to auditing.
After I had been interning for two months, I got to go on my first in-person audit! Due to COVID-19, my team for my first industry had been doing most of our audits remotely. However, when I started helping audit city governments, some did not have the capabilities of doing a remote audit. That week was the first time I was in the same room as the rest of my audit team was. Having my coworkers so close made answering my questions and getting advice on problems much easier, and helped to keep us all on track (Teams lv. 3).
During the last month of my internship, I was given an exciting project: to do the audit of an extremely small township. But there was one caveat: I would primarily be working the audit on my own! Doing all parts of the audit process for that township taught me a lot about the start-to-end process of an audit’s detail work, as well as helped me build my self-managing skills (Values lv. 4). As my own manager for this project, I had to decide when the best time was to work on my project as opposed to helping out on my other engagements. I learned how to judge when I would be able to juggle multiple engagements, and when I had to hunker down and focus on one particular audit engagement’s section. Using physical and virtual sticky notes, flagged emails, and personal documents, I found the best way for myself to stay on top of several engagements at once was to not rely on my memory, but to put information in writing. I also had to be very cognizant of when I was getting stuck and needed to reach out for help.
My internship at CLA helped me become much more confident in my auditing and accounting skills, and helped me realize that I actually did enjoy working in public accounting. I will build on this base knowledge when I start working as an Associate at CLA in 1 ½ years.
Since I had been hired for an internship with CLA two years before I actually got to intern, my first day was the culmination of a very large amount of excitement and anticipation. After about two weeks of orientation and training, I got to work on my first audit. The first day was spent asking Ben, my buddy, numerous questions about how to use the software and read the worksheets. During some of this learning time, I reflected upon how, depending on where I was working, sometimes I was the trainer, and sometimes the trainee. There were different attitudes and actions I had to take as each one to best fulfill the mentor-mentee relationship (Teams lv. 2). Having someone who was dedicated to helping me understand my work and grow was so helpful in getting adjusted to auditing.
After I had been interning for two months, I got to go on my first in-person audit! Due to COVID-19, my team for my first industry had been doing most of our audits remotely. However, when I started helping audit city governments, some did not have the capabilities of doing a remote audit. That week was the first time I was in the same room as the rest of my audit team was. Having my coworkers so close made answering my questions and getting advice on problems much easier, and helped to keep us all on track (Teams lv. 3).
During the last month of my internship, I was given an exciting project: to do the audit of an extremely small township. But there was one caveat: I would primarily be working the audit on my own! Doing all parts of the audit process for that township taught me a lot about the start-to-end process of an audit’s detail work, as well as helped me build my self-managing skills (Values lv. 4). As my own manager for this project, I had to decide when the best time was to work on my project as opposed to helping out on my other engagements. I learned how to judge when I would be able to juggle multiple engagements, and when I had to hunker down and focus on one particular audit engagement’s section. Using physical and virtual sticky notes, flagged emails, and personal documents, I found the best way for myself to stay on top of several engagements at once was to not rely on my memory, but to put information in writing. I also had to be very cognizant of when I was getting stuck and needed to reach out for help.
My internship at CLA helped me become much more confident in my auditing and accounting skills, and helped me realize that I actually did enjoy working in public accounting. I will build on this base knowledge when I start working as an Associate at CLA in 1 ½ years.
Artifact
Attached is a spreadsheet containing written feedback I received from my supervisors and coworkers throughout my internship.
Attached is a spreadsheet containing written feedback I received from my supervisors and coworkers throughout my internship.
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