{"version":"1.0","provider_name":"Faces Online","provider_url":"https:\/\/faces-online.nl\/en\/","author_name":"Asset Financials","author_url":"https:\/\/faces-online.nl\/en\/author\/elleke-bender\/","title":"Will You Join the Auditing profession After Graduation? - Faces Online","type":"rich","width":600,"height":338,"html":"<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"haRAatJTlI\"><a href=\"https:\/\/faces-online.nl\/en\/will-join-auditing-profession-graduation\/\">Will You Join the Auditing profession After Graduation?<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" src=\"https:\/\/faces-online.nl\/en\/will-join-auditing-profession-graduation\/embed\/#?secret=haRAatJTlI\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" title=\"&#8220;Will You Join the Auditing profession After Graduation?&#8221; &#8212; Faces Online\" data-secret=\"haRAatJTlI\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\"><\/iframe><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n\/* <![CDATA[ *\/\n\/*! 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In Hong Kong, if you, being a university graduate and no matter whether you are majoring in the accounting study, would like to enter the auditing profession, you could join a CPA (Certified Public Accountants) practice to start your career. In Hong Kong, accountants who are authorized to sign auditor\u2019s report are known as CPA (Practising) (which is also known as Licensed Auditor or Practising Accountants in some other countries). This qualification is granted by the Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants (HKICPA), which is the regulatory body of the accountancy profession in Hong Kong. A CPA can practice on his\/her own as a sole practitioner or together with other CPAs to form a partnership. In addition, CPAs can also incorporate a limited liability company to practice in a limited liability form as Hong Kong currently still does not have any Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) structure. As a result, CPA practices in Hong Kong can basically be categorized into 3 layers, namely the Big 4s and local practices at the two ends, with mid-tier firms in between. The size of Big 4s in Hong Kong ranges from 1,000 to 2,000+ staff; while smaller local practices can be as small as only having one partner and few staff members. For mid-tier firms, their sizes can be ranged from 30~40 people to over 1,000 people; while the more typical size is between 70~80 and 200~300. In addition, these mid-tier firms can further be sub-divided into whether they are associated with an international network. In this article, we will illustrate from the perspective of a mid-tier firm with international background in Hong Kong, Mazars CPA, to see what a university graduate can learn and be exposed to as well as how one can develop after joining a CPA practice and become a real professional accountant. Structure of a CPA Practice Mazars in Hong Kong has a total of about 280 people which is a typical size of a mid-tier firm here. Apart from the largest Audit and Assurance Department which provides auditing and related assurance services, it also provides services like taxation compliance and advisory, business risk review, forensic accounting, company secretarial, insolvency and liquidation as well as accounting outsourcing (see Chart 1 below). This also applies to most of the CPA practices in Hong Kong (or elsewhere in the world); they will provide a wide range of accounting related services to suit their clients\u2019 needs. Mazars has its worldwide network in over 71 countries which enables us to serve clients with business and operations spreading over the world as nowadays most businesses do not only exist in one single city or country. Chart 1: Diversified services offered Working in an Audit Department Although you can choose to join different departments in a CPA practice to start your accounting career, most will start from Auditing. In Hong Kong, unlike many European countries and in the US, audit is mandatory for all limited liability companies incorporated in Hong Kong irrespective they are public or private entities. This explains why auditing division is normally the major and most important service for most CPA practices in Hong Kong. Indeed, Audit Department normally recruits freshmen from universities every year. Once you join the Audit Department as a freshman, you will have the opportunity to expose yourself in the business world through your role as an auditor. In the Audit Department, you will usually be engaged and involved in audit assignments. Auditing is the highest level assurance given by a CPA, and therefore, as mentioned above, only authorized persons are eligible to sign an auditor\u2019s report in order to ensure the quality of those authorized persons. In order to sign off an auditor\u2019s report expressing an opinion on a set of financial statements, auditors are required to follow certain detailed requirements and procedures from considering to accept a new audit client, through the planning and execution of auditing procedures and to the completion and issuance of an auditor\u2019s report, including its format. This set of standard requirements and procedures are known as Hong Kong Standards on Auditing (HKSA) in Hong Kong which is fully converged with the international standards which are known as International Standards on Auditing (ISA). The objective of the standards is to ensure that the opinion given by an auditor is consistent and of high quality of assurance. When you are assigned to an audit engagement, you are required to understand the client\u2019s business, the environment in which it operates and its operations &amp; systems of control. In addition, you have to analyze the risks associated with the entity and design sufficient appropriate auditing procedures to address these risks in order to ensure there is no material misstatement contained in the financial statements we are going to express an opinion on. This really gives you chances to gain not only accounting and auditing knowledge but also business exposures. Although audit assignments are strictly bound by the HKSA\/ISA and each engagement should follow closely all the required approaches and procedures, you could still learn different types of knowledge and skills when you are involved in auditing entities in different types of business and industry. Taking inventory count as an example, is a very common auditing procedure to verify the existence of inventories. However, the skills to be used in different industries will be different and the experience gained will also vary. Imagine you are counting inventories in the warehouse of a production plant of a manufacturing company and in a retail shop selling luxury goods on the high street. Not to mention bank notes in a bank, coal in a power plant or cows in a farm. Your exposures to business knowledge are therefore enhanced when you are involved in the audit of various types of industries. Apart from audit engagements, you may also be involved in other nature of assignments such as due diligence reviews and investigations. As these types of assignments"}