I have been relaxing this week, but working on getting started on my internship essays. I have changed my mind about a hundred times about the topic for my paper. I think I have settled on writing about XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) because it just sounds so useful.

My paper is supposed to address a technical accounting issue I encountered during my internship and a solution. I’m not sure that I really encountered this issue, but it certainly seems that some of the large consolidated audits could benefit from XBRL.

I will have more opinions on this after I get further into my research, I’m sure. It seems like there must be a more efficient way to transfer financial data between companies than what we used during my internship, but at the same time, I think that a lot of the issues may not be remedied with XBRL alone.

I’m interested to read more and see what’s going on with this, as it has been in the works for a few years now, but I never heard anyone at my internship even mention it.

So I had a long chat with one of my favorite professors today about what kind of firm I should be looking for. I didn’t tell her that I didn’t get an offer from my internship, but I told her that I felt like I didn’t fit in at my internship and I was considering looking at smaller, regional accounting firms.

Her opinion was that if one Big 4 wasn’t the right fit for me, there was still a good chance that I would like one of the others. I had been thinking that they might have some differences in culture, but would otherwise be about the same to work for. What I got from our conversation is that there are differences, and that there are also differences within any one of the big firms depending on which part of the country they’re located in.

The main selling point of Big 4 seems to be the “opportunities” you get from them. I think that people are referring to opportunities to move to a good job when they say “opportunity,” and are not necessarily referring to opportunities within the firm.

Then again, Big 4 does offer opportunities to re-locate while still working for the same company. That can make life easier if your spouse has to move for work, as you can hope for a transfer, rather than having to quit and find a new job entirely. Also, you can move to a different job within the firm, such as from audit to tax or forensics if you aren’t happy with your job. I don’t think a smaller firm could be so flexible.

Another good point that my professor made was that since there are fewer people at a small firm, then it could be even harder to fit in because there would be less diversity.

I’m not sure what to conclude here. I think a smaller firm could be nicer, but you would need to be pretty clear on what you want. For example, I know there is at least one regional firm that does a lot of forensic accounting, so if you knew that’s what you wanted to focus on, you could go for a job there.

I think I have to really define what I’m looking for before I fling myself into the job search again, so that I can explain to a potential employer exactly why it is I would love to work for their firm.

sxc.hu/chappy14

My last couple of posts about the end of my internship have gotten quite a bit of attention, Thank you as well to everyone who links to me!

The reviews and comments on the posts sparked a lot of discussion about how recruiters and potential employers view blogging, as apparently not many interns out there are interested in sharing their experiences the way I have!

I’ve been involved with social media for a long time now, starting with Livejournal and DeviantArt at the beginning of high school. In fact, I still stay in touch with some people that I first got to know through DeviantArt.

There is something that appeals to me about blogging and connecting to so many other people just by searching for shared interests. It is very rewarding to know that even one person got something valuable out of my experiences (besides myself of course!)

I Can't Hide. sxc.hu/sande2

I know that I can’t rely on anonomity in this blog, as much as I can go out of my way not to link to my full name, etc on here, so I do have to pay attention to what I write. However, from the recent responses I’ve gotten, I know that there are people and firms out there who are just as excited about blogging and social networking as I am.

I had a great conversation with my father today about his views on blogging and online networking. I told him that I was a little nervous about the fact that I seem to be unique in blogging about my accounting internship, but that I really enjoyed being involved in this new world of networking.

My dad told me that when he was studying engineering, 40 years ago, the university got ahold of two Wang computers (think today’s TI-83 calculator). The students had the chance to use them, but you know what? None of them did. And look at where computing went from there.

Maybe some employers will shy away from the fact that I have a blog, but I hope that the ones that are pumped up about social networking will see it as a positive point about myself!

You learn some of the acronyms as you go through college business classes… but then you get into the real world and people start throwing these letters around like they know what they mean!

My last client was a software client that makes ERP and CRM software. I knew that these terms were familiar, but I had no idea what they stood for. And then when I figured out what they stood for, I still didn’t really understand what they meant. Those acronyms tend to stand for equally baffling words.

For example, ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning. What kinds of resources? What kind of stuff does this do? CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management, but again, with no direct experience I only have a vague idea of what that kind of software would do.

I didn’t really need to understand what the client’s software did, so I never looked it up, until now when I have downtime and they keep popping up in my e-learnings! Also, as a full-time worker, it is important to understand the client’s business, which means I need to be able to comprehend what it is their product does.

My approach to acronyms in the future will be to look them up as soon as I start hearing them tossed around on the job, or see them on a client’s website. However, I feel like I would really have a better picture if I could actually USE some ERP or CRM software for a bit to see what it looks like and how it works. I haven’t figured out how to do that yet. Any ideas for how to understand business-specific software without getting the chance to use it?

I am assigned to a client this week, but my orders are to “shadow” the senior and manager here, and not to charge any of my time to the client. And so far “shadowing” means, sitting here doing online training. Which is fine with me, because actually shadowing the senior sounds like I’d just sit and stare at her clearing open review notes. Instead, I’m learning about online branding!

I have been slowly working my way through the e-learnings related to the manufacturing sector. I guess I’m attracted to the industry because my dad works in manufacturing, but the more I learn, the more I think I should pick a different industry (perhaps one that is actually growing??).

Oh man, the e-learning is talking about “the internet is here!” and how we see brands on portals “such as Yahoo!, Lycos, and Excite!” Are Lycos and Excite still around? I feel like those are the search engines the librarians in elementary school taught us how to use…

Well, I’m about to enter my last week of this internship. It’s been a fun ride, despite my days of stress. Most of the time, I am confident I can handle it.

The best part of this job is definitely the people. Every senior and manager is different to work with, but they were all great. And the staff I worked with were always helpful and great to talk to. I feel like I never had a ton of friends among other accounting majors, so it’s a nice surprise to me to suddenly be surrounded by people who are fun to be around, and also understand what COGS and EBITDA is if it comes up in conversation.

I’m sad that I have to leave the company now, but hopefully I will find out soon whether I have a full-time job waiting for me when I graduate!

I started working on an outline for the internship summary paper I have to turn in as part of my requirements to get course credit for the internship, so I might try and rewrite that as a blog post once my thoughts are more organized.

Photo by bbsc30 @ flickr

My ideal job, while I am still yong without my own family, would involved living in a foreign country for a year to two years, and then moving on to another one. I am not picky about wanting to be in western Europe, or English-speaking countries. I would be quite happy in Latin America or eastern Europe.

So I tried inquiring about what kinds of skills or clients I should work on to make me a better candidate for international options. So far, everyone’s answer has been that you only get a chance to travel internationally once you reach the manager level, and that there’s nothing you can do to change this.

I’ve decided to stay optimistic, and be skeptical of this advice. There must be some sort of area I can gain expertise in that would make me especially useful for working in international offices. I just have to figure out what that might be. Any ideas?

I haven’t written much about my daily tasks, which I know I was really curious about as a student. Also, I need to write a paper about my intern experience, so I’m supposed to keep track of what I do. Honestly, so far it’s been a pretty different experience depending on the job I was on.

Dirty Work

I have had to make a few copies in the last few weeks. Someone has to do it, and we don’t take an administrative staff with us to a client, so whoever is the least busy, which is usually the intern, gets to do it. This kind of work doesn’t bother me at all. It’s kind of nice not to be staring at a computer screen for a bit.

This kind of work, for all it’s mundane-ness, can be tricky. It is really, really bad to mess up on who gets mailed what, or where hard copies get stored. People get concerned about their own private data if you accidentally mail someone else’s to them. If you store a hard copy in the wrong place, it may never get found. So make sure you pay as much attention to this job as you would to one that feels more “important.”

Monotonous Work

This is what I’ve been doing for the past couple of days. It feels like more direct audit work than copying, but it is very repetitive and detailed. It can get monotonous, it’s easy to screw it up (actually, I did a little bit, but I’m told it was easy to fix.) So be careful.

The client I’m working at right now is huge, with a bunch of subsidiaries. I have to match subtotals on the income statements and balance sheets that we’re using for our testing, to a giant consolidated income statement and balance sheet broken down by companies. I’m not sure where the glitch comes in, as they are based on the same raw data, but some accounts are in the wrong categories in our broken-down balances, and I have to check each little number for that, and figure out where it should’ve been put.

With this kind of work, I tried to keep in mind that everyone on the team with be using this workpaper, and they will notice if I don’t do it perfectly. Also, when I did find errors, I got my manager to teach me how to fix the files myself, rather than relying on him to do it.

Also, I have done much more boring work in the past for no pay or minimum wage. If it feels like a monkey could do it, be glad they’re not paying you a monkey’s wage to do easy work!

Audit Work

I have gotten to do a lot of regular work on the audit itself so far too. It mostly entails selecting a sample from a population, for example, unpaid invoices, and looking through payment schedules to make sure that those invoices are truly unpaid. You get to look at lots of invoices, check details, and shipping documents when you’re doing the actual testing.

Your accounting background will help you understand what the test is trying to check and why. For example, if something is recorded as a prepaid expense in December, it had better relate to an expense during the following year or so-and not the period before December. (Otherwise it should just be recorded as an expense, not a prepaid expense.)

Really, this covers the general type of work I have gotten to do pretty well. I won’t give specifics of exactly WHAT we do to test things, because I think all firms have their own methods for how they set up their workpapers, etc.

Photo by John Althouse Cohen @ Flickr

So, as part of getting course credit for my internship, I have to write a 5 page “evaluation” paper, a sort of summary of what I did, what I learned, etc. However, the main assignment is a 15 page paper where I have to address a current issue in accounting. Since the assignment title is “Issues and Solutions” I suppose I have to come up with a solution too.

A glaring issue right now is how accounting firms are dealing with the recession. However, I’m not sure that cutbacks in spending are really an “accounting” issue, and I don’t know if I can write 15 pages about it. Someone else suggested writing about the shortage of accountants, especially in regard to 2010. I need to investigate that a bit but a google search didn’t turn anything up at first glance.

I had a dream the other night that I came up with a great topic, but I couldn’t remember what it was when I woke up!

Photo of Atlanta - by Nrbelex @ Flickr

Today was another long one… I left work at 8:45 (my senior was still there, reading over the stuff I’ve done all week), and there were all these PEOPLE on the road. Who even does that? Go home at a decent time people!

Today was not nearly so bad as yesterday. I didn’t feel as rushed to get stuff done, although that’s because I stayed until 8:45 instead of 4:30 like yesterday, haha. I’m excited that tomorrow is the last day, but honestly, I’ve gotten SO MUCH experience this week. I can’t even remember what I’ve done…

I tested operating expense, rent expense, journal entries, tied out the Japanese and US balance sheets, did an interest analytic (which I maybe messed up a bit, but not enough to matter)… So much stuff!

Business jargon is weird for me… I’ve never really been one to use slang terms, and business jargon is essentially the slang of the work-world. But people are forever refering to “tieing things out,” and I never really realize that’s what I’m doing. The way I think of it, I’m just making sure some numbers match.

Tomorrow is time for another evaluation!! Oh dear… and bagels! I almost forgot. My job for the morning is to fetch bagels on the way to the client. My life is very glamorous!!