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Survey please respond Big 4
Hi Everyone,
I run an analytics website that aims to provide more transparency for college students and young working professionals into potential career paths. I have a survey below specifically targeted for Big 4 professionals. If you have the time can you please fill out this survey? The survey will not ask for any personal information. If you are interested in the results of the survey please email the1stpercentile@gmail.com
Survey Link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc-aKT6KBcIgc9nFMBuS9_WSyabS2tSt2nL7zn0W18kzJZ6TA/viewform
Thanks!
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Anyone recently received a tax manager offer from EY ? I’m going through final interviews and want to see what your experience was like (negotiation process, initial offer higher/lower than expected?, did you give them a salary expectation range? How long did it take from final interview to offer etc) TIA!PwC EY KPMG Deloitte
Subject Expert
How does one get on at a family office?
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Subject Expert
Another reason why the billable hour model and timesheets are outdated and has employees focusing on the time instead of results.
Amen!
Mid tier is way worse. I’ve done both. There is just a minimum amount of client administration required for each client and the client load at mid tier is outrageous compared to B4. I have 25ish clients at EY. I had 250 at a mid tier firm.
I have no idea why they don’t just have admins do all the billing
Admins don't understand who do what or how much time is appropriate for underlying tasks; and people get offended when a stranger reaches out asking if they are charging time correctly.
25% of your time? That’s a lot for administrative work for sure. When you say ‘meetings’, are you counting client and market-focused meetings? Developing people/coaching? If not, yeah 25% is crazy high. If you are counting any meeting, then I wouldn’t call that administrative… it’s literally part of your main job
One of the main reasons I’m looking into industry
There is no timesheet in industry though. Doing admin work is the same as chilling on ESPN in industry. In public admin work kills your utilization
As much as I hate admin, I will say that the billing training at big4 is very key to becoming a partner. The sooner you learn to analyze WIP, profitability, and manage client personality in terms of when and how much to bill, the easier it is when reaching the higher levels. Doing billing when I was at big4 was considered utilization in terms of metrics so it still was considered. If yours is going to some admin code that doesn’t give you utilization then ya that sucks
TSM1 I prefer the term value pricing vs fixed fee. No two engagements are the same and pricing the portfolio/relationship should result in better clients and increased margins. Atomizing knowledge work into 6 or 15 minute increments is how a race to the bottom occurs. Our profession diminishes itself by focusing on inputs rather than results.
In your consulting example, you could gauge the client’s value perception by providing three service-level options priced accordingly. It would force the client to determine the level of service they desire and prevent commoditizing the work.
Your wording is interesting when you say “excessive” or “shouldn’t have been a big lift”. These are judgements, which is exactly what I’m calling for with value pricing. The difference is the judgement should occur upfront and agreed upon with the client before any work is performed.
As far as WIP analysis allowing a Manager to “see how you are trending”, I argue analyzing WIP is incapable of doing this. WIP lacks context, and it is a retrospective datapoint. Using WIP to manage an engagement is the equivalent of using a smoke alarm to time your cookies (Ron Baker quote). By the time WIP reveals an issue it is too late.
A more useful alternative to timesheets/WIP is task tracking / turn-around time. Task aging reports provide much deeper real-time data on project status compared to analyzing WIP.
Oh for sure. But you should use EMS for everything. They are great and never make mistakes right?
At least at KPMG our admins are still mostly US based and not in GDS.
Curious about this. When you say garbage, is it comparable to what a Tax/Audit Staff would give back if assigned the same task? Better or worse?
It is strange to me that firms use CPA time to do these types of tasks when we have a shortage and it doesn’t require a CPA to setup a job code or draft a bill.
I can only speak for Wipfli, but billing and meetings take up a huge portion of my working hours. But we don’t have the same kind of billable hours pressure other firms do. Is it important to be billable? Yes. Is it okay to do other things that are good for the firm? Also yes.
Admin is billable to the client’s admin you are working on
This
Seems pretty normal to me the more you move up
Coach
At my old midsize firm I spent at least 30% of my time on scheduling and other admin tasks 🙄
Why wouldn’t you charge the client for billing and admin tasks? That’s chargeable work.
Subject Expert
Because they probably get harassed about being over budget and are “voluntold” to put the hours elsewhere.