Introduction

     Welcome to my online portfolio or e-portfolio, this will be the platform as to where I shall share my internship experience as a vocational trainee (VT) at one of the top accounting firms in the world, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

     The brief span of 11 weeks in the audit line proved to be quite fruitful since I not only enjoyed my time there whilst learning new skills and audit knowledge but it also reaffirmed my stance as to purse audit as my career. I believe the best part of the experience was that even though it was short-lived but I was exposed to as many as six different clients in two separate industries. PwC is quite known for its extensive list of huge clients and this was proven true when I had the chance to work for the likes of Genting Berhad and Taisho Pharmaceuticals or better known for its Livita energy drinks. 

     Not only that, I was exposed to businesses in different states where some where semi-active or dormant to the ones in highly competitive markets with some leading their industry sectors to the ones whom were making losses. Furthermore, there were the low-risk clients and then there were the high-risk clients that required me to be more alert and detailed in doing my part of the work to ensure that the quality PwC puts out was not jeopardized. 

     Since I had no previous experience learning audit, everything was quite new and interesting to me. Additionally, most of my time was spent at the clients' premises so to those who say audit is mundane work, they are definitely mistaken in my opinion. Overall, the experience has trained me to be more meticulous in my work and has sharpened my focus. 

     The rest of the e-portfolio would have more detailed documentation as well as graphics so do proceed.

Selection of Company

     With the commencement of my fourth semester, I knew I had to start planning my internship to get a head start on the rest of the applicants. I have always yearned to work for one of the "Big 4" companies ever since I knew about them but the question at the time was "Which Big 4 company to go to?" Thus began my exploration for information through the colossal source of just about anything and everything that is Google to find out which firm would be best fitted for me. The first thing I looked at were rankings and I found that PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and Ernst & Young (EY) were close competitors for the top spot.

     I have known about EY ever since I was little from when they were called Ernst & Whinney because that was where my mother did her internship and my father started out working followed by where they first met but that is a whole other story. So EY had always been a familiar name to my ears however PwC has quite an impressive track record as the leading graduate employer for five years (with three in a row might I add). They are also number one in the accounting and professional services sector as well as the consulting sector. Henceforth, I decided to apply for both firms.

     The first to contact me was PwC and by the time EY called after the first phone interview, I had already been accepted into PwC and I was ecstatic. 

Workshops & Training

     In preparation for my 11 week-long Internship at PwC, I have attended several workshops organized by Taylor's University. The earlier workshops given by Taylor's Career Services had briefed me on the whole internship process and the guidelines to be followed so my application process went off without a hitch. I remember sending out my resumes through self placement right after the very first workshop to give myself a head start (and it worked!). The first workshop had prepared me sufficiently on how to write my curriculum vitae, cover letter and how to get references. One of the most useful advice they gave was to make sure my resume was not too crowded because it would not give the reader the impact desired. 

     The Ethic and Etiquette at Work workshop also provided tips on how to conduct oneself in an interview and at work. Sooner than I thought I had to use the knowledge obtained from this session and apply it in my phone interview with Ernst & Young. I have to admit, the interview was not as flawless as a perfectionist like myself would have wanted it to be. I regretted not practicing a mock interview with the Career Services Center but I can always learn from my mistakes. In between the workshops I also took the initiative to learn some skills on my own through YouTube for example. I observed and studied the proper body language as well as "Googling" for images of proper work attire. 

     The final workshop by BDO and the program director herself Miss Malar was extremely informative. First off, the presentation by BDO although was quite repetitive of what the previous workshops had presented, was different in a sense that it was very interactive. The speaker allowed us to ask as many questions as we liked. I took this as an opportunity to ask him what motivates him to get up and go to work everyday and his answer was to support his family. This was definitely an answer from a different perspective that I did not really consider much about as I am still under the care of my parents. This was followed by an in-depth explanation of how the internship will be evaluated. Her lecture was explained really well so I started the internship being well prepared.

Setting Expectations

Some of the expectations and goals I had set for myself going into the internship:

1. To confirm whether audit would be the most suitable career choice for me in the future
2. To learn as much as I can about audit so I can later apply the knowledge gained to my Audit and Corporate Governance module in Semester 5
3. To learn how to conduct myself in a professional working environment as this is something that can only be learned in the real working world
4. To see how a multinational audit firm works and whether it lived up to the hype of being one of the Big Four
5. To create connections and to expand my networks
6. And my most hopeful aim would have to be impressing my seniors so I can obtain a job offer in the future

Company Profile

     

     PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is one of the Big Four auditors that provides professional services globally. They have a presence in 157 countries with a staff force of 195,400 people. Their services include Assurance, Tax and Advisory with Assurance being the most profitable practice among the three.  Their clientele ranges from major anchor banks and multinational companies to small-to-medium enterprises. 

     Formed through the merger of Coopers & Lybrand and Price Waterhouse in 1998, PwC has evolved into the second best Accounting and Professional Services Provider in Malaysia and in the world as at the year 2014. Below is a brief timeline of how PwC came about:

      With 80% of their workforce being the Generation Ys, it is no surprise that they won Malaysia's Top Graduate Employer three years in a row. What makes them the first choice for fresh graduates would have to be their modern working environment that jives well with the Generation Xs, Generation Ys and us millennials. They also have a very diversified workforce with people of varied race and religion. 

     PwC upholds values like diversity and gender equality within their workforce as well as building good relationships with their customers by providing value-added services. Other factors that make them stand out would have to be their impressive social media footprint and charity work.

About My Department

     PwC offers us interns three departments to choose from namely Assurance, Tax and Advisory. Within those departments are more specific areas grouped based on the client's industry such as:

1) Construction, Leisure/Logistics, Automotive/Agriculture & Services (CLAS)

2) Energy, Utilities, Media & InfoComm (EUMI)

3) Financial Services (FS)

4) Middle Market & Growing (MMG)

The illustration below (based on PwC Malaysia's website) might provide a clearer overview of the departments:

    Since I intend on pursuing audit in the future, I chose the Assurance department where I was then assigned to both MMG and CLAS clients. PwC's Assurance services are not just all about numbers but also to understand the client's business in order to offer better advice. It allows you to deal from the first-line workers to the top management of a company.

    Both industries are quite different from each other with MMG jobs being quite fast paced in nature while CLAS jobs have a slightly longer life span. However, MMG jobs are said to be quite repetitive so by doing a couple of MMG jobs, one can already get the gist of it.

Department Structure

Job Description

My role as an audit intern involved:

1) Vouching Documents

     The bulk of my work as an intern revolved around documents like invoices, payment vouchers, delivery orders and shipping bills. I would go through files and files of these documents especially when substantive testing was needed. Apart from having gained quite some muscle from all the heavy lifting as well as some paper cuts, I did become more familiar with the documents involved in a business' daily transactions, which is not something that is exposed enough of in a class room. As most of my seniors would say, vouching is an integral part of audit especially for interns like me who need to start from the bottom and understand the basic transactions to be able to do more challenging work. Vouching has required me to practice on exercising caution and professional judgement as to whether a document had been tampered with. Vouching is important because it tests audit assertions as well as how true and fair a company's books are. If any type of fraud goes undetected by me it would affect the trueness and accuracy of work of my colleagues.

2) Contacting Debtors 

     I was entrusted with the task of completing the whole debtors' confirmation process. Firstly, I would prepare the templates accordingly followed by mailing them out to our clients' debtors. Once they have replied or even if they did not, I was required to do a follow up by calling them up. This task is particularly important to ensure whether the balance the debtors claim they owe ties to the balance recorded in our clients' books. Any differences would warrant me to inquire further as to why it is so. Another reason why this task is significant is to make sure that these debtors do in fact exist. Additionally, it has helped me improve on my people and communication skills.

3) Physical Asset Sighting

     This starts off with me selecting the sample of assets to sight to which is done through two methods. The first method being list-to-floor and then there is the floor-to-list method. The sample size would be calculated by my seniors so the larger the amount of assets a client has, the larger the sample size. This is also to ensure existence and if the assets are not labelled properly, an issue will be raised to the management. Also, if an asset did not seem to be in proper working conditions I would point it out to my seniors.

4) Casting Financial Statements

     Usually towards the end of an engagement I would cast the financial statements which applies the techniques I learned during the first week of training. Casting includes checking the totals of each column followed by cross-casting which is where all of the column totals are added together. Also, it involves writing down the sources' page numbers next to the figures so the end users of the financial statements can easily refer to them.

5) Rolling Forward Data

     Perhaps the simplest task there is to do would have to be updating the templates of workings to the current year for my team to later fill up. However, it also requires me to match the previous year data to the previous financial reports so that the variances in the workings will not be miscalculated. Any miscalculations could lead to the wrong performance evaluation of the company. 

     At the end of the day, my work did add value to my respective teams and I was not just given pointless tasks to pass the time. This made me feel like I belonged and my presence had somewhat of a significance overall. 

Reporting Line

     As I shifted from one client to the next, the team that I worked with also changed. Hence over the course of 11 weeks, I have reported to quite a number of people from the Associates to the Engagement Leaders. A bigger client would have a bigger team. I worked very closely with the Senior Managers like Selene and Alvin or Executive Senior like Li Shan. On the rare occasion that the Engagement Leaders joined the team at the client's place, I would also help them out. When my Seniors are busy or in a meeting, I would work under and report to the Associates. As a result of having so many mentors I have learned so much more and through the various leadership styles they each have I grasped the idea of how the working world is like. 

Week 1 - 2

Tuesday

     Early in the morning I made my way to Malaysia's very own concrete jungle as PwC's headquarters is located smack dabbed in the city, to be more precise in Kuala Lumpur Sentral. I walked into the lobby to see some familiar faces alongside some not so familiar faces of the interns from other universities. I could tell that it was going to be a very eventful first day and I was right. The whole day consisted of making new friends and meeting some of the staff as well as an office tour where we saw Dato' Faiz (PwC's Executive Chairman) in action in his office. I received my very own key card and laptop to use for the entire internship period. This was followed by several tutorials by the PwC staff on how to use them. 

     After that there was an ice breaking/team building session which required us to be split into teams to then build the tallest tower out of spaghetti. To our dismay, the tower collapsed but my team still had fun together and we learned that a team should be more organized for a task to be completed properly. As explained by one of the staff, this was to represent the work ethics I should have where team work is crucial in getting something done on time. This was followed by a brief lecture on the dos and don'ts at the office relating to aspects like the proper work attire and behavior. 

Wednesday - Thursday

     These two days were made up of workshops where I learned how to use the audit software system. The workshops were located at PwC's training facility in Sheraton Hotel. First I learned how and where to check the engagements and supervisors I was assigned to. Afterwards, we were put into groups to do an activity to test our knowledge on audit assertions. This was the first time I learned about Audit but I could fortunately keep up. Plus, I learned how to cast financial statements. Learning how to use Aura, PwC's audit system, proved to be complex as most of the interns could not understand but after the staff showed an example on how to use Aura to test an invoice sample, it became clearer to me. There were other complex things I learned for the first time like testing a targeted sample of Property, Plant & Equipment (PPE) additions but looking back now, once I practiced it on the job, it was actually not all that hard. Last but not least, in teams, we had to conduct a mock interview with a "client" as an opportunity to practice our approach with actual clients in the future. An important lesson was that an auditor should not aggressively approach the client as if they had committed fraud. The training PwC had given was really informative and had prepared me sufficiently for the upcoming weeks, which just goes to show how amazing their standards are. 

Friday

     Met my first ever senior in charge, Li Shan an Executive Senior. In retrospect, Li Shan was easily the strictest senior I had worked with but she would constantly give me instant feedback which I had really appreciated. Her criticism was constructive and at first it was hard for me to accept but after a while it helped me better myself. Since the engagement technically started next Monday, there was not much to do so I only ran errands. On the bright side, I did get to learn the basics like how to request for documents from the filing room and how to use the printer. Lunch was slightly more eventful when I ran into Mona, the Head of Resourcing, followed by Dato' Faiz. I began to notice that the working environment in PwC is quite relaxed and most of the employees were really friendly which is exactly why I can call any one of them just by their first names. On top of that, Dato' Faiz just randomly struck up a conversation with me about his wife's amazing cooking skills. On a more serious note, he gave me great advice when I told him I was a new intern. He told me to ask a lot of questions so I can learn as much as I can and to never shy away from opportunities.

                                                                                                                                  

Monday

     Arrived at IPDecor's office in Nilai and the finance department was right above its factory. IPDecor is in the MMG industry and their previous year's performance was really good. Besides Li Shan, the team consisted of Melissa, an Associate, who just so happened to be an ex-Taylorian. She was a lot like me, quiet but still friendly. We were both then briefed on the client's business nature.

Tuesday - Wednesday

     With the help of Melissa, I learned for the first time how to vouch a sales invoice and payment voucher. I started off rather slow but once I became more familiar with the documents, I managed to pick up the pace. At the same time I was learning how to adapt to the professional working environment as I had no previous working experience. I learned through observation mostly, I would mimic how Melissa interacts with Li Shan and the client. If I had any questions, Melissa told me not to hesitate asking so it was really easy to get along with her. 

Thursday - Friday

     Li Shan explained to me how to carry out a physical asset sighting just in case Melissa was not around to do it next week. I immediately pulled out a pen and paper and starting jotting down the key points such as acknowledging the tag, brand and condition of the asset. Afterwards I did a lot of data entry, 10,000 rows in Excel to be exact. I have to admit, I had to get a little creative in finding ways to stay awake during this time because the routine work was not exactly challenging my mind so after awhile it just became second nature as if I were a robot on autopilot. Nonetheless, I did learn many new Excel shortcuts which made me realize just how technically inadequate I was. Be that as it may, I did make up for my lack of IT skills by being a quick learner. I picked up the shortcuts after only a short while and I am quite a fast typer so that made me feel slightly better that I could compensate for one of my flaws.