A Counting School - Hardcore Chartered Accountancy : Comment Response

Don't be too proud to admit you've made a mistake

Krupo — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 05:34:00 GMT

It's good to be proud of your work. If you've done a good job, you can take pleasure in the fact that it's error free.

And yet, people may say things like, "are you sure you didn't double-count those items?"

You may be 100% correct in saying, "of course I didn't," with a self-righteous huff. That doesn't mean you should, though.

Let's assume that you are in fact correct. Rather than scorn those who are helping you by examining your work to avoid embarassing mistakes, thank them for their concern and interest.

Then let's assume that the people asking you are very knowledgeable, and they aren't just asking the question to give you a hard time.

Now stop and ask yourself, "why are they asking me this?"

Is it, perhaps, because your work may in fact be entirely correct, but you didn't present your thought process in a very clear and logical manner? Are you hiding some important facts or assumptions which cause people to second guess you?

There's nothing wrong with being proud of your work, but if you're too proud to examine your presentation for weaknesses - let's say you're trying to make a coy point about the 102 steps you need to take to setup your computer, and then you bristle when people point out that not all of the steps you're listing are truly relevant to your argument - then people will be turned off by your haughtiness, despite the fact that you, or Troy Hunt, have a very interesting presentation with some valid points, but you've prepared it in such a manner that people are distracted by side-arguments rather than your main point.

Consider distilling your message again in cases like this, so your argument can land more effectively - advice everyone, myself included - would do well to practice more often.

No I won't post your "fun design for fellow accountants," and I'll tell you why

Krupo — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 05:48:00 GMT

I received an e-mail inviting me to give free marketing to someone who put a lot of effort into a cute cartoon explaining the job prospects for accounting students. I'm responding publically because I can: I won't do link to your graphic, because you ignored who I am and what I do.

Your cartoon is about the US market, and about the American CPA designation.

This is a Canadian blog, and I when I do get around to writing, it's typically about living life with the CA designation. That's Chartered Accountant, not "certified accountant." I may sometimes also venture towards the CMA and CGA, and the ongoing idea of creating a Canadian CPA designation, all worthy topics among the many that I should write more about. But I typically leave the American CPA to people who specialize in that sort of thing.

Sorry to be so harsh about it, but you work for an accounting exam website, so you asked for it: if writing an e-mail to me could be tortuously contorted into a kind UFE question response, you would've failed at it right there.

Advice for the afflicted CA student: surviving the Comp

Krupo — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 09:50:00 GMT

Jaycee is preparing for the UFE, and ran into a wall on the comp. It's natural to get tired of a five hour exam case, especially when those little devils in your head start nagging with those evil thoughts, like "Two of your seniors who had passed claimed to have never done any cases at all. They just practiced outlining and read the evaluation guides."

I of course immediately called shenanigans on that. Being a smart young CA student, she herself quickly dispelled those notions, but I felt like adding more on top of that comment: here are the original thoughts plus at least one more idea while I'm at it.

Don't fail at studying

If you play musical instruments or any sports, you will be familiar with what it's like to "practice" and really practice.

You will only perform, play or write as well as you practice.

If you want to get to SOX City, you'll need to do a few things first.

If you go through the motions of trying to play a piece of music without correcting your little mistakes in timing, tempo, dynamics, your music won't sound very good when you perform.

If you do a half-hearted attempt to jog laps instead of actually trying to build up stamina, you won't last very long in an actual game of soccer or whatever.

If you don't practice for the UFE by treating the practice case like the real deal, you WILL, run the real and dangerous risk of doing the same thing on the final (Oh, I still have 3 hours, I can come back to that later.)

Procrastination is fun and all, but the UFE will murder you if that's your weakness. Promise yourself any mental gift you want (I promised myself a sweet gaming-computer upgrade after the exam) if that helps, but in exchange, practice your cases like you mean it.

And if you are hitting a wall on the comp, bring yourself some tasty energizing treats. As far as I know, you're allowed to bring in whatever foodstuffs you want into the exam hall. Bring whatever snacks you enjoy which aren't liable to make you suddenly experience a sugar crash or food coma and good luck.

Toronto Police Tactical Retreat Saved Lives, Sacrificed Vehicle: A detailed video analysis of the police car fire at Bay and King on Saturday June 26

Krupo — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 06:52:00 GMT

This post is an example of where the mindset of the Hardcore CA will take you.

In AuditLand and other corporate environments, when something goes Horribly Wrong, rather than point blame and string people up, you have a "Lessons Learned" moment, which can either be a casual debrief, or an exhaustive exercise in identifying what mistakes were made, and how they can be avoided in the future.

There will no doubt be some very professional investigations conducted into what happened this weekend at the Toronto G20 riots.

One of the most shocking images online and on TV came from the fires that consumed Toronto police cars, which initially engendered some extremely sceptical treatment. After all, they just bought a water cannon - couldn't they handle a fire quickly and safely?

This presumed that the security teams knew they may need to use it as a firefighting vehicle; given the delays it's probably safe to assume wasn't planned for. This makes sense, considering its stated purpose is for crowd control, and when any large lumbering organization doesn't plan for something to be used for a novel purpose, expect a delay at least long enough for something to burn for 10 or 20 minutes!

Of course, Naomi Klein assumed the opposite - so she will not agree with the analysis which follows - but do check her out at the rally in front of Toronto Police HQ on Monday June 28 to get her succinct point of view. After writing about the madness around the world, I'm sure she felt like this was a perverse "moment to shine" on home turf.

I'm challenging her point of view after watching the video you see embedded below, or available through this link, lasts about nine minutes shows how the fire that consumed a Toronto Police cruiser at Bay and King unfolded

Considering the fact that you have a full-on riot taking place, don't be surprise to hear a fair bit of profanity and anti-capitalist rhetoric - that's of course par for the course.

What's fascinating about the video is that you can see that a "light mobile" police force was in fact present towards the East, on King Street, along with some heavier riot cops in front of the TD bank on the southwest corner.

Pause the video at the 16 through 19 second marks. You'll see that members of the Toronto Anti-Violence squad (TAV) are getting out of their cars. I don't know if they had just arrived moments earlier, or had been idling in the vehicles, but this makes a great deal of sense: several hundred protesters racing down the street unopposed would no doubt cause any person with half a brain to retreat!

Interestingly shortly afterwards, around 1:07, you can also hear what I presume are cops calling for backup, "let's get some help here," before backing up and waiting for the phalanx to form.

Now a hot-head say, "well then, the cops are heavily armed, who cares if they're outnumbered? They can take those punks!"

Sure, they could.

And yes - the car could have been saved. But then people would have died.

After all, they could run up to their car in the face of a march easily 20 to 40 times larger than their initial numbers. But how do you even odds like that?

Allow me a moment of hyperbole: by turning it into a slaughter.

The police, from what I've learned reading accounts of shooting incidents, are trained to shoot to kill. Sure, the special forces snipers may disable you or shoot the weapon out of your hand. But there's no time for that with line officers: they are trained to take people down.

Even if they shot warning shots over people's heads as if this was some crazy Western, there would nevertheless be a risk of grievous injury, and no promise that it wold work!

If the police started shooting, things would not end well. Or, to be more specific, would end much more poorly.

Enraged, the peaceful protesters could have joined the violent minority and charged police lines. Word would spread like wildfire, the city would then truly see what a massive riot looks like, instead of a few isolated instances of vandalism and mayhem we instead faced.

Is my hypothetical scenario too extreme? Very much so perhaps - our police are brave, and many were itching to take the fight to the crowds. Would it have ended well?

This is where I admit the limits of my own knowledge of counter-insurrection tactics. Perhaps a group of two or three dozen cops wielding billy clubs, not a full riot phalanx, could have turned back that tide. I didn't see these cops armed with tear gas or other crowd control tools, but those aren't a panacea either - rubber bullets can kill too.

So, admitting that a stand at King Street could have worked, it would have been awfully risky. Large institutions discourage legendary charges of their light brigade, in favour of calm responses where control can triumph over raw melee.

We'll revisit the instiutional response below, but first, consider how one woman uses her megaphone/speaker late in the video to challenge the police for setting bait by leaving those police cars there for the protesters.

Well you know what? They sacrificed a $75,000 cruiser - so I'm told is the price - to save the TD Centre seen on the "far lower left"/south western side of of the intersection from being overrun, which incidentally serves to hold back the marchers.

If you agree with my extreme scenario, they in fact sacrificed that one vehicle to save not only the lives of the officers, but also those of the protesters.

Fair trade.

Consider the scenario where the police jumped back in their cars and drove south. Either the security fence would have been attacked, or the surrounding buildings - including the TD bank branch near the corner. It's that black pavillion, with floor-to-second-floor glass. If someone was stupid enough to try and break that glass they'd risk killing themselves in the process. Perhaps the giant nature of the glass saved anyone foolish enough to attack it, but I digress.

Tactically, the violent protesters "screwed up royal" by halting at the alluring cars. They took their eyes "off the true prize", which was forcing a battle at the security fence itself, something a mob of that size could have easily managed, had they reached it in advance of the police phalanx. You know it was the true goal: the G20 "People's Summit" posters in fact

This video then, I believe, is one piece of footage showing the closest that protesters got to the fence - they were a half-block away from its northeastern edge.

No doubt many citizens suffered repercussions the following day, as the police overreacted after their initial embarrassments on Saturday.

Or did they?

Let's talk about the "institutional" factor - these cops aren't autonomous. They respond to orders: to learn more, consider this very interesting CBC news video interview with the RCMP Chief Superintendent who coordinated the G20 security operations from an operations base in a warehouse 100km north of Toronto - roughly halfway between the G8 and G20 sites.

Aside from presenting the security forces' side of the story - declaring a few broken windows and destroyed cars a success - he also mentions - wait for it - that it's too soon for "lessons learned" to take place.

Although I cheerfully rushed into my little analysis - the major media are still arguing over what took place - I will grant that the police didn't fail in their "defence of the fence." Determining whether their success in defending the perimeter and much of the other property in the vicinity of the fence was a matter of good planning, a smart response by the forces on the ground, or simply a serendipitously big stroke of luck is probably what will take more time and analysis to uncover. You would, of course, need to know what was being said in that command centre. They were no doubt keeping an eye on that situation. If they were using one of their 70+ security cameras to note the local team's precarious situation and ordered a retreat, then that was a clever move.

They'll know the answers - perhaps a full inquiry will allow some of the truth to be shared with the public as well.

In the run-up to the G20, some police stood guard on Spadina, under the Gardiner Expressway.

G20 Saturday: Violent Rumble

Krupo — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 09:39:00 GMT

I missed out on the madness downtown today. I followed it on my phone, but missed all the live TV footage which no doubt justifiably enraged my friends.

I did catch stills like this one which from a local Toronto photographer show why the city was on edge all week long.

It's perhaps best I wasn't around - I could've had my camera smacked down to the ground by an imported officer from Peel region. Of course he might've been on edge - not sure if this was before or after one of those police cars was set on fire. The you'll "be on Youtube" response, while accurate, was rather snarky to the point of inviting an assault. Not justifying, of course - this is clearly a criminal offence by a police officer.

Also freakish: random arrest videos by plainclothes officers.

I should point out that some well-meaning people naively claim that when store windows got smashed in, the "peaceful" protesters should've taken action to stop the anarchists and ne'er-do-wells.

Sure, as soon as the laws respecting citizen's arrests are made much more clearer and "vigilante-friendly", you can look forward to that. Until then, you risk being arrested yourself so doing so is a fool's game. I feel bad for the store merchant who has to fight an expensive legal case to defend his right to defend his own property.

I have no problem with widespread condemnation of violence.

I do have a problem with naive and simplistic solutions that seek to blame bystanders for newly created "sins of omission" which seem to be all the rage these days.

It's amazing to see how judgmental and merciless people can be. In many cases moreso than the police.

Scary.

Do I have to drink to fit in?

Krupo — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 06:13:00 GMT

New hires at accounting firms land in what may be a completely new culture. After a hard week or month of audits, some people look forward to spending time with their families, but given the number of young bucks and does in a large Big Four office, heading down to the local bar(s) will also be a popular option.

One CA student is worried about this phenomenon, particularly at formal firm-sponsored functions, asking "you think it will be a problem if I don't drink at the cocktail party due to religious reasons? I'm just worried they'll think I won't "fit in"?"

This is an easy answer - no, not at all.

In any mature firm people will understand if you have personal reasons - be they philosophical, spiritual, practical ("$15 for a mixed drink, what?") or simply rational ("no, I'm driving").

Having said that, there's always a wrinkle: as you can imagine, I'm sure there are cliques of people who never escaped their frat boy days, and there'll be individual offices or departments might harbour contingents of crazy boozing yahoos - but even hard drinking auditors are professional enough to respect people who will just have a glass of tonic water instead.

And if they don't respect you and your beliefs, they're not very professional to begin with. Start preparing your file for reporting them to the local Disciplinary Committee if they're ruining the good reputation of CAs in their professional functions as well.

I doubt it'll ever come to that, but feel confident knowing that you have extreme tools at your hand to deal with extremely stupid people.

And the stereotypical drink-fest party you might imagine are less likely, at least during recruiting season, given how many firms have co-ops and interns who may not be of legal drinking age. Deciding not to drink when you're trying to make a good first impression is also excellent judgement, even if it's not for religious reasons, so this shouldn't be a big concern.

If you do find a company that doesn't like you because you won't drink, ask yourself *would you really want to work there?*

Assuming it's a Big 4 firm in a larger city, they're very cosmpolitan and diverse and know people from different cultures have different traditions - perhaps in smaller (or American?) towns the culture is different and you'll need to make a "practical compromise" to make yourself feel comfortable without abandoning your beliefs. Get yourself a "mocktail" like a virgin Caesar or whatever other beverage you want minus the liquor.

In any event, you'll be fine. Relax.

What do I do if I find a glaring error in an audit by a Canadian CA firm?

Krupo — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 05:00:00 GMT

Sometimes you read things online and wonder, "gee, what if someone in charge of this enforcing The Rules found out what's going on?"

Would some audit firm get in a mess of trouble if things weren't being done properly?

Consider this quote from a lively AuditLand discussion board:

"Having worked for Big 4 firms for almost four years, I feel that Big 4 firms often lack ethics. We learn about ethics in different courses in University. I feel that none of the ethics I learned is being applied in the workplace. Generally speaking, managers do not perform all the Audit procedures in gathering evidence. For example, we take data given to us without validating them. The managers don’t offer its workers any directions or help. When I was in my third month at the firm, I went to audit the inventory of a computer hardware warehouse with another auditor. We had no idea what we were doing. We simply made up numbers that we thought made sense and we left. We compiled those numbers to blend them somewhat with previous year data, which were probably incorrect in the first place, and submitted the data to our supervisor. The Supervisor didn’t even give the numbers a second look and used them. How is that for due diligence?! I can go into deeper details, but I am already too explicit."

If things are as bad as they sound, will anyone catch the glaring problem?

By scrolling up through the conversations, this appears to be a comment coming from the same person who earlier claimed to be working for a Western Canada office of Big 4 firm that is identified by a four letter acronym - I'm being cagey with the details since nothing is verified and these allegations are rather serious considering the fact that this is something that's sufficiently tawdry to cause the comment's author to act uncomfortable.

So it's probably worth probing more deeply though - but how? Where would you go?

Interestingly enough, there's a mechanism in place to report these allegations, whether you work inside the audit firm, or are an end-user receiving financial statements that seem to have issues.

It's not a matter of calling ze Germans - or Austrians.

Fun fact: in Canada, if you receive an audited financial statement and find that the auditors made a glaring error, there's actually someone you can report this to, aside from your client or their auditor - CPAB, the Canadian Public Accountability Board.

Here's a link to their "audit fail" reporting form.

There's an important fact to note about using that form: your report is sent to an independent third party "Whistleblower" agency that will inspect your report, but the form itself is confusing.

If your report is going to CPAB, you don't enter the name of the firm you're reporting on, but instead you select "CPAB" to direct your report to the appropriate party.

Otherwise your report can bypass CPAB and go straight to Deloitte or KPMG, for example - which is fine if you're trying to make an internal claim, since those firms say they will in fact perform a good inspection of the suspected failure.

But the whole point of having an independent third party is to make sure someone outside the organization you're dealing with takes a critical look at the problem you've uncovered, and external parties will probably prefer to go to CPAB.

The reporting system run ClearView, a third party agency which handles the reports and protects your anonymity, explains their policy with the following statement::

"ClearView is making this anonymous reporting system available to our clients to help them collect useful information about their organizations. When you use the ClearView system, we want you to take comfort in knowing that we’ll protect your identity when we receive your report, and as we distribute it to the appropriate organization. We don’t need to know your identity in order to forward a report to an organization. We won’t release any information to the client organization that would identify you, unless you want us to (you do this by including your name in your report). If you do provide identifying information, we will forward it to the client organization and we may also be compelled by law to disclose it to legal or regulatory authorities. So we ask that as you complete your report, be careful not to include any personal details that could identify you to the organization unless you want to be identified."

Impressive. Also worth noting is that they even a protocol in place for dealing with rumours.

"IT’S IMPORTANT TO BE HONEST (in fact, we make you agree to it)!
ClearView and our client organizations treat the information that you submit using this reporting system very seriously. It's your responsibility to be as accurate and honest as possible in providing the information. Of course, there may be instances in which you wish to report a rumour that you have heard, but which you do not know to be true. Please indicate this when making your report." (First emphasis theirs, second emphasis mine)

If you have a serious allegation to make, you now know how to do so and have no excuse to decry that "no one's doing nothing."

Also note that if you encounter this internally, there are some good suggestions on what to do posted by Stefano at myCAsite.

CA Magazine: Afraid of the "L" word!

Krupo — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 01:49:00 GMT

This month's CA magazine features a mention of Stefano Picone, CA, founder of mycasite, but before you can read that you may read the following unrelated trainwreck of a paragraph - read it and guess what went wrong here:

"Firms only interested in training CA students who wish to practise public accounting but lack the audit hours to do so should also consider hiring experienced CA students who have already completed the required chargeable audit hours at another firm. CA students can complete their practical experience requirements for qualification at your firm and may be eligible to practise public accounting. The current economic situation has resulted in the availability of a number of experienced CA students ready and able to take on new opportunities."

Did you see it?

Avert your eyes children!

Did they just casually say "current economic situation"?

I'm sorry, I think the editors must have accidentally hit "find and replace" on the more technical term EPIC SMACKDOWN OF LAYOFFS.

The scarring from cutbacks takes a while to heel. It leaves people more finely attuned to what they've experienced, even after things have stablized, so that's no doubt what they saw in that casual paragraph.

May the brain trust suggest rewording that paragraph to something a little more direct?

"Do you need staff? Don't worry - a fair-value adjusted consignment of kids a year out of university were released back into the job market like under-sized sea bass last year, in a wave of firings and layoffs to respond to a recession that had already run its course."

To be fair, it's not like CA magazine hasn't mentioned layoffs before - three of the five hits in a search of the online magazine site came up in 2009. Oh wait, one of those hits is a duplicate, so it's actually two of four unique occurrences of the word.

And they don't really address the pain of students who thought they had it made, but suddenly found themselves floundering. Well, at least they did mention the resources available at My CA Site which survived some silliness with the ICAO while at the same time getting official recognition of a sort from CA Magazine.

Perhaps you wouldn't even consider the layoffs epic - if you managed to survive them.

After all, fortunately things have stabilized since the complete disaster known as 2009's job market for CA students. But even if your job survived the cuts, there's now not enough people to manage the remaining workload. Your newfound job security is no doubt of the perverse kind which no doubt makes you confusedly exclaim "Um, hurray...?"

So jeers for the timid "corporatese" language, but kudos to CA Magazine for recognizing young CAs making their own way in the world, and for being brave to climb ladders tall enough to be able to take a photo of Stefano and then print it.

Can you get your 51 CA credits in a year and a half?

Krupo — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 08:34:00 GMT

If you started, say, an engineering program at one given university, could you switch partway through to a Chartered Accountant prep program instead in the same university's business school, and quickly get all the credits you need to graduate in a mere year and a half?

One of the regular CA 'commentators' on the blogs and forums, sardaukar - who does an excellent public service in opening people's eyes to the "hell years" that await them as CA students, incidentally - did just that, and people wondered how this is even possible.

Since I'm not really into Sudoku, and this is just the sort of "puzzle" I enjoy solving, I'll answer the question for the writer of comment #427.

The funny thing about this exercise is that when you review the list of courses needed - I include links at the end of this article - many courses will count for "3 hours" even though they're full year, or half year. That means you can't divide 51 by 3 and decide that means you have to take 17 full year courses. Neither does it mean you need 17 half credits - you have to review the whole list. In addition, the University of Toronto requires that you take 20 credits in total to graduate, unless you started in 2000, the last year I'm aware of where they allowed you to finish with a three year degree.

Remember that the example we're dealing with involves someone who took electrical engineering - doing a quick edit before hitting "publish", yes I do that, made me realize I missed one assumption on my first run. I left my mistake in the post, but you'll see my correction at the end of the post.

The army of Chinese elementary school students leaving class just before the clock struck 6 p.m. is an image that somehow pops up when thinking back to the Commerce program. Very strange reason given the distinct lack of jumpsuits and long days in the classroom.

Your typical engineer faces a situation where the extra credits to hit 20 are already accounted for - let's take a look at what you need year-by-year, along with comments.

First year: Economics, Intro Commerce and Math.

An engineer will have math accounted for no problem, and it'll be "hard math", not the "easier" Commerce math course with which you can squeak by, and still end up learning more than you will ever end up actually using. Running tally: 2 full year credits - excluding the math credit I presume you already got prior to deciding to become a CA. I was happy to get into the Commerce program without having to take the "Intro Commerce" full year program. I'm sure it's quite useful and helps give you a "big picture" of what you're getting yourself into, but I managed just fine without having my hand held by the Commerce administration in first year, thank you.

Second year: For the ECO side, Microeconomics and Stats. For the Commerce side, Financial Accounting, Intermediate Financial Accounting I, Management ("Cost") Accounting and the Legal Environment of Business ("Krupo's other favorite").
Plus add choice of side salad, fries or baked potato (translation: Financial Markets, Marketing, or Organizational Behaviour)

The "ECO" credits are both full year, the "MGT" credits (they call the course codes "RSM" after the wealthy Mr. Rotman's generous donation to the program, but like hell I'm going with the new taxonomy, I'm a product of the Old School) are all half credits. If I can still add despite being a CA, that's 4.5 more full year credits in total - running tally: 6.5 full year credits. Second year, if you were not rushing, would involve a nearly-full plate of courses in the Commerce program.

Two other fun facts about second year: the "Legal" course, which I loved, was previously a third year course, but for whatever reason they bumped it up earlier in the schedule, perhaps to encourage students to get to it sooner. Macroeconomics, to my dismay, is "strongly encouraged" but not required. That's a pity, and no doubt explains why someone in this stream would no longer be an automatic Economics Major. I find one of the strengths of becoming a CA is the strong background you get in Economics, which is why this development is such a shame.

Third year: Intermediate Financial Accounting II, Advanced Financial Accounting Topics, Managerial Accounting and Decision Making ("Advanced Cost Accounting"), Auditing I ("Welcome to AuditLand"), and Canadian Income Taxation I ("Personal Tax. Those of you at Big Four firms may never again touch this topic after the UFE unless you leave for a smaller firm or do your own/friends taxes later"). The Finance MGTs: Capital Market Theory and Intro to Corporate Finance

There you go - 3.5 MGT credits plus an ECO of your choice* - total 4.5, running tally 11 full year credits.

A few more observations are in order - shoving the fourth year taxation course into third year is pretty clever, as it makes Rotman's students more competitive when applying for summer jobs with accounting firms, having some formal tax learning under their belts. Good call there. Advanced Financial Accounting is another fourth year course moved up in the queue. Presumably to also get those interns and summer co-ops in a stronger position in their summer jobs, I guess.

Splitting the full year Finance course into two halves was a surprise to me. Perhaps the ICAO's requirements were behind this. If anyone knows I'd be happy to know more behind that split, but nothing shocking there.

*There's that little asterisk popping up like a delightful footnote warning you that we've stumbled upon something that mildly infuriates me more than dropping Macroeconomics from the "required" list, and that's the list of courses you can't take towards your requirement. That "your choice" excludes what looks like the entire list of third and fourth year Economic History courses, it seems. Perhaps one or two snuck through, but my quick review suggests that this is not the case. Maybe this was always the case; the Economic History credit I took perhaps not doubt counted only towards my history minor and economics major, but I consider discouraging Commies from studying the lessons of the past an idiotic path to embark upon.

My friends agreed that the Economic History course we happened to take - Canada's, in case you're curious - was one of the biggest eye-openers throughout university. The amount of intellectual maturity a course like that can bestow upon you is simply amazing - it's one of those courses you hope to experience. The kind that makes you challenge everything you're taught in the other "this is how things work, don't question it and you'll do fine" courses.

If anything, taking something that makes you really think should be made mandatory. Anyway, let's climb off the soapbox and check out what lies ahead.

Let's not even get me started on taking the third year "Business Information Systems" course down from "required" to "strongly recommended." CAs need to be strong on their IT skills. Or at least not laughably deficient. Removing this course from the "required" list is a poor choice, although it definitely brings you a half credit closer to your target of rushing through the courses to get your "51 hour requirement" with a minimum of fuss.

Fourth Year: Management Control, Auditing II ("Going deeper into Auditland"), Canadian Income Taxation II ("Welcome to the Suck"), Critical Thinking, Analysis and Decision Making ("U of T's UFE Prep course. Please do well here, and can one several of you please then get on the Honour Roll to get us to stop looking bad compared to Laurier?"), and Auditing and Information Systems ("Krupo's favourite")

Six more half credits, equal three full year courses. Running tally: 14 full year credits.

It would be 15, but as I stated above, but we'll assume you already nailed the first math requirement as an engineering student.

Come to think of it, an engineer would probably already have taken a "hard stats" course, so you're down to the need to take 13. Missing "Stats" is the mistake I alluded to at the start of my post - did you catch it? If so, you win five bonus points, now add them to your Hello Kitty scorebook.

Is the 1.5 Year Thunder Run possible?

So can you do it in 1.5 years? Last time I checked, you can take 2 courses per summer term - and possibly 3 with special permission, if they still allow you to apply for that option - and 6 credits per winter.

Let's hold off on the "special beg" and see what we get as a "normal" student: start in "summer one" with 2, take a "full winter" of 6, and "summer two" with another 2. That's 10 credits right there. Then take your last three credits during half a winter term.

Boom, CA credits accounted for in a "long" year and a half.

Definitely doable, albeit at the cost of a couple of your summers: you're ready to graduate since I've assumed your engineering courses gave you math, stats and the other five credits you needed, no doubt including the "science breadth requirement".

In fact, if you could petition to "overload" your schedule and take 3 courses in summer and 7 in the winter term, you could start the process in September and finish it in August the next year - basically one calendar year!

Even hardcore Engies used to killing themselves with long hours of coursework might, however, find that a bit on the ridiculous side. Not that I doubt they could handle the load, but the more realistic argument for "spreading" things out over the extra half year or so is the schedule of "pre-requisite" courses which would conspire to slow down your sprint through the course catalog.

Edit: after I finished writing up this post I saw a follow-up post by Sardaukar explaining that the economics course were done as the "Engineering electives" prior to entering commerce. That reduces the load of courses even further, with the first, second and third year courses off the radar - all you then need is 10 credits, done with two summers and a winter term.

Source?

If you're wondering where all this information came from, you just need to search for the ICAO's 51 course credit requirements, or just skip that step and check out my links to the ICAO's webpage for the Rotman Commerce program, which then leads you to the Rotman page itself. There's also a detailed ICAO page for people who don't feel like getting a "Specialist in Accounting" designation, but they'll be one course short of the full 51 credits - that list is here.

The ICAO is quite helpful for everyone in Ontario, mind you - a list of all other schools is also available here if you're attempting this from any other place in the province.

To answer one question I already heard, the secret to this approach is doing it at the same university. Generally speaking 100% of your credits are transferable within the same school. When you start jumping from school to school you encounter limits on the number of "transfer" credits which are eligible for your degree - some limit you to 5 which would make the above strategy, which relies on 7 credits, less feasible.

Is this approach insane? Well I didn't it, but it's both doable and has been done - I welcome your comments - click here to start leaving them.

If you got all the way to the bottom of this admittedly lengthy post you must be a superfan - so it's worth mentioning to you that I somehow got listed a while ago on the top accounting sites "magazine rack" at Alltop. Thanks, readers, for following along the adventure.

Dark days at PwC advisory: word of layoffs leaked, chaos ensues

Krupo — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 09:52:00 GMT

PriceWaterhouseCoopers Advisory has made some significant cuts to their US workforce, as mentioned off-hand by Francine and discussed in detail here

Skip down to comment 4 in the post for an interesting dissection of firm revenue math and the possible impact it'll have on partner income. It's a topic everyone seems to be curious about knowing more about, gets very little information about, and is often to afraid ask questions about - so go check out "TT"'s breakdown and the follow up if you want to know more. Or skim all the way down to comment 114, which points out that while the cut of roughly 300 people is small compared to the size of the entire US firm, the internal PwC webcast apparently stated that this represents a cut of 6% of the affected group - one value provided by a commenter is 260 of about 4300 people.

I spent way too much type going through all the other comments, and things did in fact get kind of dark. Consider this post - it's anonymous, but let's play along and assume there's no false identities at play, particularly with what follows.

"Francine - Current Pwc Director here in another line of service. I can only tell you that my Advisory friends are “freaking out” by what has been published by you. You have definitely made your mark with this posting. The level of unrest that you have caused should make you proud. One of my friends told me last night that he heard that one of the Advisory Directors is so stressed out that he was talking about taking his life if he loses his job. If that happens, the sky is the limit for you and your little blog!"

Nothing to make light of, sadly - this is dark stuff. At least that's what it sounds like when the commenter goes on to add:

"Had you let this RIF run its normal course, it would have been done confidentially and all affected parties would be notified on the same day and only those impacted would have the stress. But you like to cause unrest and panic…as it is obviously what drives you. You were like a little kid announcing this on your blog Tuesday morning….”look at what I know….I’m am so important!”"

I appreciate the sentiment expressed, but I think it's a little naive to think that the plan as described above really would work as claimed. Any major layoff causes unrest and panic, in the firm affected, and in competing firms, even among people who feel their positions are secure. "If it can happen there, it can happen here," can cross peoples' minds.

Is it really beneficial to bury this news and leave people blissfully unaware?

No, it's not.

Starting off with university students, you need to take your intelligent young professionals, open their eyes, and make them realize that they're starting off on careers at highly respected firms which will give them lots of opportunities. But they also need to know and understand the risks that are tightly linked to the rewards which they are pursuing. Your better university professors may point this out to you, but these warnings can sound empty and hollow without facts to back them up.

Clever young Commerce students may think they're dodging bullets by avoiding the General Motors of the world. But even the Big Four can be perilous places - sure you can prepare yourself by saving up your salary, keeping your resume up to date and making yourself an indispensable member of your team. But you're never truly secure, unless you live in a country like France which has renowned job security rules. Out in Canada and the US the realities of "at will" employment are something you should never overlook, and sharing news like this is an uncomfortable but also equally indispensable way to educate people.

Given all this turmoil, entrepreneurial types may roll their eyes, but is it any wonder that the Government of Canada is considered a top employer of choice by risk-averse students around here?

The other bonus to reading about these posts is to be reminded about your rights - including avoiding being pressured into signing the severance agreement until you've had a chance to review it with an independent adviser!

And if you're just starting out as a student, you see eye-opening comments such as this:

"I got a whiff that I dodged the cut. And honestly, I feel cheated. I want my severance and an excuse to leave this place on good terms."

Contrast that with someone who didn't dodge the cut:

"Confirmed. I was axed today and appreciated the advanced notice from the blog so I could bring in an extra bag this morning to take things home.

Folks, the blog is like listening to the weather forecast the night before……."

Finally, just scroll down to comment 103 which offers advice for people trying to get their final paycheque - and which also provides this handy link to the USA's state regulations on final paycheques.

At least if people were writing their UFE exam they got that out of the way before these announcements came out, but that's probably the only bitter ray of sunshine available. Well that, and the fact that many of the people who are laid off manage to find more interesting jobs. Wel, if they've already achieved their professional designation in accounting or audit - be it the CA, CPA, CIA or CISA. I feel worst for people who have to start looking for work with only a year or so of experience under their belts.

Good luck - if there's any consolation, recruiters have suddenly ramped up their efforts - my voicemail was getting hit daily this week as I'm often away from my desk for extended stretches auditing this, analyzing that - so there seems to be a ready supply of jobs for clever experienced people out there and available.

And what exactly does this arrow symbolize? The recent frequency of posting? I really should take detailed notes about all the clever topics that come to mind for me to write about, as it'll probably be far too easy to forget lots of intelligent tips and tricks as time goes on. I would share them now, but the typical excuses associated with busy season are still present. Which is why it took me an entire week to note that I got hit 332 times last month, a fall from September's count of 376. I try to be prompt in reporting that total, so at least I won't lose track of it - anyway, that's your statistic for October nestled in with a much more substantial post.

I've received a few direct requests for help from repeat UFE writers: some here's 8 CA accounting exam case writing tips

Krupo — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 07:34:00 GMT

A few people have written to me looking for help either getting a job with the Big Four, or with SOA/UFE exam preparation tips.

I'm unable to offer any one-on-one services to help people with these exams as I'm fully booked helping colleagues at work and writing here. I will address specific requests that I'm able to write about here, but if you're a repeat writer I can't offer a complete set of diagnostics and advice via e-mail or phone calls. Among many reasons, there's the fact that if I'm going to respond with advice, I'd like to share the tips here, because that's the whole point of writing here in the first place is to help as many people as possible.

I am, however, not one to turn away someone looking for help, so here are a few tips to keep in mind so if you didn't pass the SOA this year or are unlucky on the UFE on any year you can do better next time:

Figure out what went wrong. This is the single most important piece of advice, complemented only by its cousin, #2:
Once you know what went wrong, work on a plan to fix it. If you didn't study enough hours - talk to a successful writer and compare your old study schedule to yours. If you didn't write enough or if you spent too much time and burned out, that's something relatively easy to fix. All my other advice is a variation on the first two points, really. And so we continue.
Get all the detailed exam results you can get - some argue the standard PAR is worth the fee to receive the full UFE-debriefing report pointing out which areas were you strong and weak points. If you only missed out on small areas, make sure you go back to #1 and identify why. If your problem was pervasive - you did poorly everywhere, again, ask yourself why.
If you spent enough time but had other issues which affected you writing - a poor study-group, personal issues, interference from work when you should've been thinking only about writing - do everything you need to do to eliminate those factors from bothering you on your next attempt. Yes, this is basically #1 being rephrased: it's that important, it bears repeating. Do a proper diagnosis.
If you don't write, or more importantly, type very fast, fix that now. You want to be able to type out your thoughts as fast you can think.
Thinking fast is crucial. And I don't mean to say you're not smart: but can you think fast in English or French? Whichever Official Language you're using to write the exam, if you're not a native speaker, don't let this turn into a handicap. Several of the letters I've received are from people who didn't grow up in Canada. Immerse yourself in reading in Canadian. The exam requires that you know your technical skills and have the ability to communicate your findings. But if you're running out of time because it's taking too much time to read the case and write your response, you have to fix that. Practicing reading and writing quickly and well is therefore crucial.
Read your old exams, particularly your practice cases. Identify the mistakes you made. Determine whether you're still making them. It's smart to build a list of all the mistakes and solutions to review so you can avoid falling into common traps.
Get more advice. Trusted advice. That's because there are many other possible factors that could have caused you to do poorly. Discuss your experience with people you know and trust. This is the most important skill a CA possesses, so it's kind of neat how the UFE process forces you to develop it. If you think you know everything and don't need to ask others for advice, you're setting yourself up for trouble. You may be thinking, "gee, this is a clever idea and I'm sure everyone will appreciate the wise and witty response I've written." And maybe you'll be right. But it's much smarter to get a second opinion from someone who's both bold and honest and ready to point out the potential flaws in your course of action.

As much as some people prefer to watch drama - witness the smear tactics in election campaigns - it's much smarter to use the 'no drama' approach to exam.

That's my way of telling you to take advantage of the fact that virtually everyone you'll come across is willing to help you, in some way.

As long as you're willing listen.

Ignore people's advice at your own peril. You'll keep making embarrassing mistakes which will harm you professionally and can ultimately leave you in a place you don't want to be in - the negative spotlight.

The casino sign does not share the right approach. First off, it's not about winning. Though some have correctly likened the UFE process to a game, but that's another story.

Feel free to leave comments if you have other questions.

A little bit of CA student career advice

Krupo — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 07:00:00 GMT

I have, not surprisingly given my little writing-break, an extensive backlog of topics to write about.

I'm going to do two things right now: shine the spotlight on an aspiring CA, and answer someone's question.

Judging a book by its cover, "Second Rate CA" has an excellent dark sense of humour, and the wicked good funny writing there supports that view.

The writer is going through the difficult process of getting that all-important start on the road to having a CA. I wish lots of luck towards anyone in that challenging position, and especially those who are writing and sharing their thoughts. It's a valuable service.

I myself did some extensive travelling and worked at a place best described as "anything but an approved CA training office", until I accomplished all I could there, and at the same time successfully landed my current job.

Travel is always an option; it can be surprisingly affordable too.

The question to answer, on the other hand, is from someone who finally made it through the gruelling process. I received the query last June - again, I apologize for being so slow.

Dan from GT left the following comment:

Probably one of the biggest challenges I've gone through so far is to get a job during the CA recruit. I think the best advice is keep busy, and don't turn down anything that gives you some relevant business experience. That's how I got my job at GT. Krupo, do you have any tips on how to stand out from the crowd in a firm? I'm starting in my small business group, but plan to transfer to audit after a year. Want to perform well so I won't have any problems transferring.

This is one of the toughest things to accomplish, you'll say to yourself, when you realize that your firm hired dozens of smart young things like you, and everyone's keen to be the best at everything they do, and everyone's willing to take on more work, and it's seemingly impossible to stand out.

That's how it seems, anyway. Everyone has their unique qualities and traits, and people have different goals in life. Some want to make it to the position of partner by their early 30s, others want to get their CA and leave as soon as possible. Yet another set of people doesn't even know what they want to do.

I'm going to pull that lousy trick that people tease consultants about - I'm going to answer someone's question... with their question.

If you want to stand out over time, as Dan asks, you have to take his attitude towards the job search process - don't turn down anything that gives you some relevant ... experience - and apply it to your day job!

To avoid stopping there with the cheap and easy answer, we'll go for the "value added" answer and add something to what Dan has already unconsciously revealed - and I'm going to steal from Francine this time. Keep developing yourself.

Although her advice is originally geared to the recently laid off, it can be used to great effect by people still waiting to get recruited, as well as those who are gainfully employed. If all you do is shuttle back and forth from the office on a daily basis, and you feel like you're living a shell of a human existence, you need to break out of that routine and do something different.

You don't need to radically invent a new "you". You may end up doing that later on, but baby steps are just as valuable. Check out your local library and borrow a book "you always meant to read". Call up friends you haven't talked to in ages. Sign up for a university course. Start planning that awesome road trip or vacation to a place you've never been to. The list of ideas is endless.

This is the delicious advice that the "good consultants" and CAs will give you - I fondly recall my university professors doing the same thing. After all, you may rightfully ask, but doesn't this have nothing to do with my day job, where I'm trying to shine?

Exactly.

If you're "unique like everyone else", you're no longer unique.

Make yourself an interesting person by living a more animated and energized life, and the effects will affect everything you do, including your day job.

If you want more examples on how to be energized, go check out what Mr. Kennedy has to say - more good tips!

Banned by PwC - again?! This time with Big Four job application advice

Krupo — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 05:32:00 GMT

Another one of my intelligent comments to the PwC blog got blocked.

This is getting a bit annoying.

This time, I had some free job application advice to share. The pumpkins sum up my feelings about this shabby treatment rather succinctly.

Here's the advice, for those of you looking for tips on how to prepare your resume and cover letter for that CA student position you're trying to land:

"For most candidates the one page cover letter is a good call, but I've said before and had success personally with the mythical two page cover letter. It only works if you have very strong writing skills and know you're actually going to deliver a solid message - that means, no buzzwords or filler, but strong selling points that show why you're a good candidate. Maybe one out of a hundred candidates can pull it off, so make sure you know what you're doing if go down this route.

Checking with your university career centre is a very good idea no matter what - but sharing your planned letter with them is also a good idea. They will probably try and talk you out of it, but make sure they read your letter first - they’ll probably correctly point out parts you can delete.

But if they go through it and say, well yes, these are all valid, strong points and there’s no obvious space to save by deleting this or that, you might be th at 1% person for whom it’s not a bad idea.

Tip: if you know when to use the word “whom” correctly it might be you."

I suppose you're not really "banned again" if the original ban was never lifted, but I was labouring under the idea that perhaps this would be a one-off thing rather than a consistent kibosh against any idea I try and share. The pessimist in me did, however, save the comment before posting it, otherwise I would have to re-write my paragraphs of advice - that's right, the above is a verbatim copy of what I was trying to share with the public. Again, perhaps it's a blessing in disguise as a larger audience will likely get to enjoy these pearls of wisdom, whatever they're worth.

Is it PwC's UFE prep program or the related viral marketing campaign that's truly unique?

Krupo — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 01:48:00 GMT

I found another CA blog out there - the first French Canadian one I've come across.

If you have trouble reading Julien's French, run it through Google Translate. The translation's not perfect, but it'll do.

The newest posting caught my eye; in the spirit of hyper-critical UFE prep, here's some analysis.

His writing's pretty good - the post about travel is a good read, and it's amusing to note that he looks forward to the chance to perfect his English in his travels, whereas I could say the same about improving my French when I'm sent on the road to the francophone parts of the world.

Going back to his newest post about the UFE process, however, Julien talks about two factors that he claims make his program unique compared to those experienced at other firms - any message like that delivered on an official blog deserves closer scrutiny since new recruits are going to put some weight into what they're being told.

Special Educators

The first claim is that Quebec gets the best coach in the business hired externally to prepare the students with a proprietary method.

I know of at least three such services - so to make it sound like you're the only people who have a special UFE prep consultant there to guide you is a little disingenuous.

If you're going to boldly claim that what you're doing is not replicated by anyone else, you should probably do a bit more research first. Of course, on the UFE you have limited time to look up facts, so you should be well prepared with knowledge of whatever you expect to be asked about - or you should know where to look it up.

We won't even get into a subjective discussion over which consultant is the best since everyone has different styles of both learning and teaching, so, as much fun as it would be, crowning any single person as the Chosen One won't fly.

Who cares if a given person has been doing UFE prep for a few years to a few decades? If you don't learn well with them, keep searching until you find someone who helps you prepare and improve.

The long road approach

The secondly point, Julien raises is his belief that most firms offer merely a week long information bombardment session for the UFE, while he seems to suggest that his firm's process is the longest, and by extension best, prep around.

Decent firms have a UFE prep process that starts in many cases shortly after you get hired, and continues until your UFE graduation, with regular monthly or weekly sessions depending on which point you're at in the process.

The best firms also continually tinker with their process, using feedback from the writers and their coaches and mentors to find ways of delivering support more effectively.

I myself have to go read and mark some more cases this week to help my mentees. They're doing well but everyone always has room for improvement.

Sure the French Toast portrayed above may be unique in terms of the delicious bread used, but I wouldn't be so forward as to claim we're the only people to have ever consumed such agreeable French Toast..

In case you're wondering, I wrote up an analysis here instead of leaving a comment there because "over there" is an official Pricewaterhouse blog and we have our own fun history with trying to comment over there, though a recent test comment went through. We'll see if relations are thawing.

In other measures of unique items, I got hit by 725 pieces of spam in August, well down from 902 in July.

Comments?

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I got banned by PwC, for offering UFE case writing tips

Krupo — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 06:38:00 GMT

I try to help people, they turn me down.

That's about par for the course, I should say - auditors are used to not getting much respect.

With the exception that other auditors usually listen to what we have to say.

If I offer help to someone, they're usually happy to get it. My UFE mentees are a prime example.

They listen carefully to my suggestions, and pass their exams. It's a strong symbiotic relationship - I'm happy to share knowledge.

With that in mind, imagine my surprise when, while stationed a day's drive north of the city, I checked my mail in the morning to find an unusual e-mail from another writer.

What I received was a polite e-mail from PriceWaterhouseCoopers explaining why my commentary isn't welcome at Nisha's PwC blog , part of the new "PwC Connect" recruiting site that's gradually rolling out.

That they don't want to permit my voice to be heard at their site doesn't concern me too greatly as I have - oh, my own little soapbox, with a sizable and dedicated readership who continue to supply me with excellent questions which I do my best to answer objectively and fairly.

I knew something was amiss when my comments weren't appearing. But until I heard back from PwC, I was hesitant to write a post about my dropped comments.

It happens.

Perhaps someone made a mistake and hit delete. Maybe I just forgot to hit send last time, and it was all my own dumb fault.

So before jumping off with a rashly written post, I sent in a new comment.

This time I saved the text of my comments in my notes, however, in case my suspicions that I was being censored were proven correct.

Sadly, they were.

The upside is that the comment I originally was going to leave there gains a much larger audience by being published here - after all, there's no sense in wasting a perfectly good piece of my writing.

The banned commentary

As a bit of context and background, in response to the announcement of the site's new name, one university student wrote "Before I begin with any suggestions, I would like to state that the name and/or title "PwC Connect" is awesome. From my experience, selecting an appropriate name and/or title is by far one of the most challenging tasks when embarking upon new initiatives. “PwC Connect” maintains creativity and professionalism."

This sounded like a good moment to step in and be the voice of reason. Or to at least foster some healthy debate. If you like something, that's great. But by bolding claiming it's awesome, you should support your claim.

I wrote, "Yes, PwC Connect will do as a title - it's good and all, but "awesome"? How exactly does it maintain "creativity and professionalism"? I don't want to shoot down the fine concept, only to challenge your writing: there's only so much that a name can accomplish. Your argument or compliment will be much stronger if you offer logical support for your position instead of just making naked statements. Keep this advice in mind and it'll help you greatly as you prepare for the UFE down the road."

PwC's response?

Thank you for all of your comments, but unfortunately I will not be posting them as we don't feel as though they are relevant or appropriate
to the subject matter.
Thanks for being a loyal reader however, and take care!

Not relevant?

You're asking for feedback on your new name. You get honest feedback, and you shoo it away.

Not appropriate?

What?

Did I make a dead baby joke or something?

Honestly.

Always delivering a bit of extra value, forget about the negative experience and consider some bonus UFE advice to share: there are some true gems up on David Fleming's blog.

He's a Commerce grad who went into real estate instead of getting his CA - and judging from his stories, I'm glad he did because the information he shares is invaluable. Plus, I have no doubt he would've aced the UFE - this posting here is a fine example of the type of sharp analytical thinking you need to either have or develop to do well on that exam.

And he doesn't arbitrarily censor my comments either.

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