Excel training for auditors

I recently designed and delivered some Excel training for auditors. Specifically, it was Excel training for audit trainees who had just started at the firm.

I benefitted enormously at the start of my career when my employer arranged for all new audit trainees to have Excel training as part of our induction. Even though it was pretty basic, it established a good grounding in things like formula construction, absolute and relative cell references, and a few shortcuts.

Continue reading “Excel training for auditors”

Useless Controls

A company seal is a useless control
A company seal aka a useless control. Photo by 戸山 神奈 on Unsplash

Because I was once an auditor, I have an obsession with useless controls. This is where an organisation makes you do something which they think is providing some kind of internal control. However, when you think about it in more depth, you realise it isn’t providing any control at all.

Some examples of useless controls

I had locked myself out of the online portal for an old pension scheme. I rang up and gave my account number. They asked for my full address as a security measure before they reset my account.

Continue reading “Useless Controls”

A smooth year end accounts process

Plan ahead to make your year end run smoothly
Photo by Bill Oxford on Unsplash

If you’re managing a finance team, at some point you (or someone in the team) will need to prepare some kind of year end accounts, also known as statutory accounts. I’ve been doing this for many years now and in this post I will share my observations about what makes for a smooth year end process.

The short version of this; planning in advance will always reap dividends. As you will see, most of my advice concerns things you can and should be doing well in advance of year end.

Continue reading “A smooth year end accounts process”