Useless Workpapers

Auditing for small CPA firms can sometimes be so frustrating. The kind of clients small firms usually have are  privately held companies.  It's unlikely for private companies to have an internal audit department and the kind of internal controls that are often found in publicly traded companies.  It's either because they are too small, or they have grown to too big that its huge business volume has outgrown its existing internal controls.

Although I have  been doing audits for years, I am still frustrated when taking on a new client because the accounting staff always gave me worthless reports and useless information  that I couldn't audit on. It's either because the predecessor auditor always asked for the same worthless reports and never cared if they were useful or not, or the new client's accounting staff think auditing is really a joke and just give me whatever papers that are convenient for them to get.

After spending time testing and finding too many exceptions, I often realize that I am testing on the wrong report that is totally irrelevant or report that doesn't include all the activities because it was printed a couple hours too early.  It's a huge waste of my time when the clients' accounting staff give me incomplete reports or pieces of information here and there that don't tie to the whole picture.

I bet this is never the problem with the big 4 firms, since they have more knowledgeable clients and they have much better documentation of prior year's workpapers?

The challenge for auditing for small CPA firms is to get the clients' staff to provide useful and relevant information to be audited upon..

I'm really frustrated because I had just wasted an entire day of work to find out that I was working on bad reports....  So, tomorrow I have to request the client's accounting staff to give me the right reports and to show them why the ones they gave me are no good and are useless.  Then I will have to start the testing all over again.