来源：四大新鲜事儿
2024年1月份已经开启，审计师们又进入了“忙季”，各大会计师事务所将竞相为客户出具年度财务报表审计报告，而员工们要加班到深夜，周末也要赶工。这是初入公共会计行业者的必经之路，也是许多人不愿意从事这一职业的原因。
美国四大会计师事务所中的一家一直在努力减轻“忙季”压力，将更多审计工作提前至上年年底之前，并宣称已取得一些初步成功。
毕马威美国公司表示，上市公司审计人员在忙季的8个周末总工作时间超过50小时的人数比例，从3年前的近三分之一，降至2022年的不到五分之一，并且有望在2024年进一步减少。2022年，29%的员工在周末根本不工作，这一比例高于两年前的18%。
推动这一变化的是毕马威美国两年前制定的一系列目标，即在每年的10月和12月的最后期限前完成一定比例的大型上市公司客户的审计工作，如果达不到这些目标，将削减高级管理人员的薪酬。
毕马威美国审计业务副主席Scott Flynn表示：“我们需要分散一下1月、2月和3月的忙季高峰。年轻人对工作与生活平衡的看法与我刚入职时不同，因此我们努力满足专业人士的需求。”
Flynn说：“而且，我晚上10点或11点的工作效率不如下午4点和5点的高，特别是在1月和2月。”
Flynn表示：“这个问题变得紧迫起来，因为现在更多的审计工作是远程完成的，而不是在现场完成的。当你在客户会议室或办公室进行社交互动时，你无法得到自然的休息。我们需要以不同的方式考虑心理健康问题。”
由于采用了监控审计进度的新技术，工作实践的改革成为可能，这种改革最初是针对美国大客户的审计工作推出的。这项工作的很大一部分涉及对公司内部控制的判断，可以在一年中的任何时候进行。
不过，2023年毕马威美国所有上市公司客户以及多数私人公司的审计都采用了这种方式。该公司表示，与2020年相比，“忙季”年审工作的10%在2022年底完成，到2023年，这一数字将达到20%左右。
毕马威美国的高管们希望，除了鼓舞员工士气之外，这项活动还能带来其他好处。客户需要全年与审计师有更多的互动，Flynn表示，这应该会提高审计质量，他称：“你已经提前完成了问题识别过程，你将有更多的精力来处理1月和2月的突发情况”。
原英文报道如下：
Accountants enjoying downtime over the holidays know they will return in January to the notorious “busy season”, when audit firms race to sign off on clients’ annual financial statements, as staff work late nights and weekends. It is a rite of passage for those new to public accounting, as well as the reason many decide the career is not for them.
One Big Four firm in the US has been trying to make it less stressful, and is trumpeting some early success from pulling more audit work forward to before year-end.
KPMG said the number of people working more than 50 hours in total across the eight weekends of busy season for public company auditors fell from almost one-third three years ago to less than one-fifth last year — and it is on course to reduce it further in 2024. Twenty-nine per cent of staff worked no weekends at all last year, up from 18 per cent two years before.
Spurring the change has been a set of targets imposed two years ago to finish certain percentages of audit work for large public company clients by deadlines in October and December, and a vow to cut the pay of senior executives if those targets are not met.
“We needed to take some of the top off the mountain in January, February and March,” said Scott Flynn, vice-chair for audit at KPMG US. “Younger people think about work-life balance differently than we did when I was starting out, and so we’ve tried to meet our professionals where we think they need to be met.
“Also, my work at 10pm or 11pm is not as good as my work at 4pm and 5pm. Especially not in January and February.”
The matter became urgent, Flynn said, because more audit work is now done remotely, rather than on site. “There are not the natural breaks that you get when you’re in a client conference room or in an office, having social interaction. We need to think about mental health differently.”
The revamp of work practices — which became possible because of new technology to monitor the progress of an audit — was initially introduced for audit work on large US clients. A significant portion of that work involves judging a company’s internal controls, which could be done at any time of the year.
This year, however, it has been rolled out to all KPMG’s public company clients and most private company audits as well. The firm said it pulled 10 per cent more work forward to before year-end in 2022 than it did in 2020, and the figure is set to be about 20 per cent in 2023.
Executives hope that the exercise will have benefits beyond staff morale. Clients have had to accept more year-round interaction with their auditors, but Flynn said it should improve audit quality.
“You’ve brought forward the issue identification process and you have more capacity to deal with the unexpected in January and February.”
四大君推出10大职场圈子！入圈可实时了解金融圈职场的最新动态、机构发展动态、监管政策解读等；在线收听圈内资深人士的职场和专业话题分享；通过与圈内职场经验人士互动解决自身的各种职场疑惑；下载本圈收集的各种数据报告、专业干货等，进行自我学习提升。点击下方“财融圈”小程序，即可加入我们！
