A Very Long Audit

ALL IN A DAY’S WORK

y sister, a nursing student at the time, had come to visit and arrived early enough to meet me at my client’s site. She came up to our audit room, met my fellow team members and sat at the partner’s desk, right next to mine. Our workload had slowed substantially, as we had just completed what was my fifth yearend audit for this client, and we were giddy with the excitement of having our first weekend off in quite some time.

After a lull in our group’s conversation, my sister looked at me with an expression of confusion.

“Cara? You’ve been here at this same client since you first started five years ago, right?”

“Yes, I have,” I replied, beaming with pride, reflecting on all I had learned over the past five years. No two days were alike with this client. There was constantly something new to learn; fresh, complex accounting issues arising during each year’s audit.

My sister shot back, “Well, what’s taking so long?”

Having never taken a business course in her life, she had no idea the client needed to have an audit performed each year.

—Cara Greene, CPA