Audit Senior, Mazars, Sutton

As the Lead Senior you will be working on a broad range of clients, covering a number of sectors - sizes ranging from owner managed businesses up to fully listed companies..

Clients

Our team works with a broad range of clients. Ranging from a turnover from circa £100 million up to £1 billion, covering various sectors such as retail and wholesale, professional services, hospitality and leisure, not for profit, education and pension schemes

Job Role

• Planning
• You will have full responsibility for all aspects of planning including resourcing, coordinating manager and partner, budgets, client meetings and visits.
• Performing an assessment of systems and controls and identifying risks as a result of this review.
• You will perform preliminary analytical review and highlight risk areas for further audit investigation. Consider expected trends and ensure analytical review addresses this. Communicate expected trends and relevant ratios that should be included in this review to the audit team.
• In light of the above, you will produce a work programme for the assignment tailored to the risks associated with the client.
• Drafting the budget and assigning audit areas to team members (where applicable) so as to manage the audit risks and develop the team members.
• Producing the Audit Strategy Memorandum (ASM) to detail the above strategy to the client. Be involved in the delivery of the ASM to the client.
• Preparing or supervising the preparation of draft statutory financial statements based on the information provided by the client.
• Organising, preparing agenda’s for and, where appropriate, chair team meeting and communicate the strategy to team members.
• Ensuring team member’s objectives have been set.
• Ensuring all Manager and Partner review points are noted and cleared.

Controlling the Assignment
• Allocating work to team members based on skill and knowledge, ensuring development objectives are met; in particular assigning more responsibility to more junior staff.
• Completing the complex areas of the assignment.
• Providing on the job training to assistants.
• Reviewing work and providing informal feedback throughout the fieldwork stage. Ensuring issues are highlighted and resolved before manager review.
• Acting as a point of contact for both manager and client, ensuring both are kept fully informed of any issues arising and the progress of the audit.
• Reviewing actual to budgeted time and informing manager of any issues immediately.
• Building strong working relationships with client, ensuring any problems or requests are dealt with promptly.
• Communicating with all other departments (e.g. tax, outsourcing etc) and passing on all relevant information.
• Being aware of development concerning client affairs and any opportunities to provided additional services.

Completion
• Ensuring completion of Financial Statements, including completion of disclosure checklist and closedown of audit files.
• Ensuring standards and procedures are maintained by the whole team; completing/presenting audit file with cleared review points.
• Drafting the audit opinion summary for Partner review and drafting management letters and any other reporting documents, including group reporting and audit committee papers where required.
• Providing constructive feedback for the completion of staff appraisals on the assistants and seniors and 360 degree feedback on managers and partners.

Person Specification

• ACA, ACCA, CA (or equivalent) part qualified or qualified – essential
• External audit experience on a range of clients across industry and commerce sectors – essential
• Practical application of International Financial Reporting Standards – desirable
• Demonstrates and applies advanced technical, commercial and industry knowledge to the role, identifying issues and solutions.
• Actively seeks to enhance expertise and knowledge.
• Pro-actively identifies client need and keeps them informed of project status as appropriate.
• Develops and maintains relationships with internal and external contacts at all levels.
• Begins to develop a network of client contacts.
• Takes ownership of projects, effectively delegates to others within the team and takes responsibility for quality control.
• Acts as a role model for the team and values others expertise.
• Provides assistance, shares experiences, provides meaningful feedback and proactively supports the development of others.
• Willingness to be involved in delivering feedback to the wider team, including presenting group training sessions.
• Participates in meetings, providing information and ideas with clarity and persuasiveness.
• Excellent written and verbal communication.