Culture, clients and career: The people behind the audit at Haines Watts

Culture, clients and career: The people behind the audit at Haines Watts

Ever wondered what a career in audit looks like? As a profession, audit is clouded by misconceptions, often being overlooked as a box-ticking role with little variety. Our audit partner Nicola Scarr, and audit assistant Rebecca Elliott discuss how this is far from the reality of the day-to-day role of an auditor at Haines Watts.

It’s often thought that audit revolves around ticking boxes, looking at spreadsheets and crunching numbers all day. When in reality, the profession hinges upon people, collaboration and getting to know the people behind some really ambitious, interesting and fast-growing businesses.

We sat down with our Audit Partner, Nicola Scarr and one of our Audit Assistants, Rebecca Elliott, to get an insight into what working in audit really looks like.

Together they consider what a career in audit looks like at Haines Watts, as well as the role they play in not only ensuring that their clients remain compliant in an ever-changing legislative landscape, but that they flourish in a local community of owner-managed businesses, SMEs and charities.

Why did you choose to work in audit?

Nicola: The thing that attracted me to audit was the client and team interaction, and as I was going through my training contract it felt like a good introduction to the profession.

I had my year group who I went to college with and progressed in my job alongside that which can be hugely sociable. With your training contract, you’re not really in the office that much, you’re out and about at different places and speaking to different people. There’s lots of teamwork, collaboration and working with clients. If you’re a people person and interested in business, then it’s perfect.

I also really liked the flexibility, and still do. It’s different to other departments in the accounting industry. You’re given a workload, you manage it and you know what’s important, which I think is a good thing and is empowering from a relatively junior stage.

Rebecca: I’ve always enjoyed being involved in the detail of things alongside client service, so I decided audit was a good route for me. I completed my AAT qualification while working as a project accounts assistant for a charity, and after completing that I decided to move into audit at Haines Watts alongside my chartered accounting exams.

Career routes into audit

Routes into the profession are completely varied. The traditional path would be applying as a graduate in the summer and then starting your ACA or ACCA but whether you’re a career changer or decide to do an apprenticeship, the door is open to people with the right skills and ambition.

Nicola: I did an internship between second and third of university at a big four firm. To be honest, at the time I didn’t really know what audit was. I did a degree in Maths and some people on my course were applying for accounting internships. I thought great, I can try a career and get paid for it, so I went through the process.

At any point in your career you could say “okay, I fancy audit”, because there are a lot of transferrable skills. The technicalities of accounting which you could have learnt with another team in a different role, teamwork and collaboration are transferrable both joining or leaving audit.

Rebecca: In 2021 I completed my apprenticeship in business administration and my AAT qualification whilst working as a project accounts assistant at a charity. I then decided I wanted to be a charted accountant with the ICEAW qualification. To do this, I needed to work for an ICEAW employer so I started to explore my options. I spent some time researching local practices and decided Haines Watts was a great fit for me.

What does it look like to work in audit at Haines Watts?

Nicola: Everyone on our team is different, so it’s great to get more than one perspective on things.

However, one thing auditors at Haines Watts have in common is wanting to speak and deal with people. You’re an auditor if you can build great relationships with a client, understand the business and then react accordingly.

Having an analytical and challenging mindset (which we could call professional scepticism in an audit) makes for a great auditor. But I guess it’s looking at something and asking ‘does that make sense?’ and more importantly ‘why?’.

At Haines Watts teamwork and collaboration are both hugely important. Having the confidence to ask your team questions and get involved from the get go will definitely stand you in good stead. It’s about being vulnerable and authentic, and having the confidence to say ‘I’ve never done this before, I might be wrong, but I’m going to have a go’ and ‘when I mess it up I’ll sit and debrief with somebody and say all right, now I understand why’. If you’re struggling with something we’re all here to support each other.

Rebecca: Haines Watts is very people focussed so working here is a lot about team work. Everyone in the team has different strengths and brings their own expertise and interests so we’re very collaborative and bring the best out in each other.
We’re all encouraged to bring new ideas to the table and use our initiative to develop both our own skills and the success of the team.

A typical day on the audit team

Nicola: My typical day revolves around working with people. Whether it be client meetings or an internal meeting with the audit team, business development or a pitch.

I like to break up the week between technical file reviews, meetings and client work. We encourage people of all levels to attend client meetings to get everyone involved and build skillsets and relationships early on.

Working in a team is fun. We have an energetic team and we collaborate well. We typically have people in the office, working from home or with the clients on any given day. But we make sure at least once a month we have a team meeting in-person and we do all of our training face-to-face too. One thing that never changes is there’s a lot of discussion, collaboration and support.

Rebecca: Working in an audit team means no two days are the same. We work between the office, home and client offices so there’s lots of changes in scenery!

Most of the work involves speaking to clients, asking questions and really understanding their business. We work together as a team and get the chance to work on aspects of the business we’re interested in, and coach newer members of our team to do the same.

What does progression look like?

Working and studying

A key part of progression in many accountancy careers involves sitting exams alongside working full time in order to achieve chartership.

Nicola: You’re definitely not going to know everything on day one, there’s a lot to learn. Through exams, there’s almost a lightbulb moment when what you’ve learnt clicks with what you are doing in the office. Learning audit and progressing is about having a go and asking questions. I remember being terrified to go and ask a client a question, and receiving an answer that I didn’t expect. But people in business understand how people train in audit.

What I would say is exams are tough, and shouldn’t be underestimated, especially when balancing them with a full-time job. Struggling with exams is normal, but it can sometimes feel quite isolating. We find it’s best to support people however works best for them. We’ve worked with people in the past who are great at audit, but who may take longer with the exams, and I don’t think it effects performance in their day-to-day job.

Yes, for a personal and professional goal you want to reach and box off that chartered accountant status. You can also do a great job in the team learning in the role and going through the training journey at your own pace, which I think makes the process enjoyable.

Rebecca: Audit is very much ‘learning on the job’. When I started, I knew very little about audit and two years later although I feel I’ve progressed a lot, there’s still so much more to learn.

Balancing exams and work can be tough but we get study leave and support from the team so that we can do our best in both. In terms of progression in the role, we are encouraged to take on new responsibilities and learn more complex areas of audit as soon as we feel ready to do so, with great support from more experienced members of the team to help us along the way.

Taking the next steps in your role

Nicola: I was promoted to Partner in April 2022 which was a huge personal and professional milestone. Alongside Sara- our Tax Partner and as new female partners in Haines Watts North East, I think that’s a huge step for culture in the profession as well as me personally.

The first steps into an audit career at Haines Watts are completely supervised for the first 18 months- 2 years. But a big thing for me when recruiting new auditors, particularly the graduate level is could that person sit with a client, speak to people professionally, and hold a conversation while presenting Haines Watts as a brand on day one?

You do get a lot of responsibility early on in audit relative to other professions and they’ll probably be times when our graduates who have been here 12 months are probably seeing clients on their own, but it is in a managed way.

There is a level of review processes, speaking to the team, coaching people beneath you, speaking to the client and making decisions.

Rebecca: My next focus in my role is to continue bringing new ideas to the audit team and develop my own skills and efficiencies. I still have a lot to learn and I’m looking forward to taking on more responsibility.

In the last 6 months I’ve taken an interest in our onboarding process and coaching our new cohort of graduates and I hope to continue to do this and keep improving these processes with both them and new cohorts in the future.

Working closely with business owners…

By understanding each business and the people behind it, auditors are quickly able to spot both opportunities and challenges that might have otherwise gone unnoticed. So, building relationships with others is a key component to excelling in audit.

Nicola: Working with such a wide range of clients allows trainees to learn at an accelerated speed while working with a variety of technical challenges while helping clients with things that could be completely unusual. Doing this, you often hear people ask ‘how are we going to account for this?’ or ‘is there going to be a problem with the accounts?’. They’re all different, even to this day.

What is looks like in practice…

Nicola: It’s impossible to spotlight just one client as a standout business. I have clients that have had some really exciting growth over the years, and being able to support them and see the impact they have on their employees and the wider region is amazing.

In terms of the portfolio that we have, it’s a totally mixed bag. We’ve got construction, we’ve got manufacturing, service providers, property companies and games developers.

I guess it would be typical of the region, but the thing that most of them have in common is that they’re all owner-managed, locally-owned, employ people in the North-East and have an impact on other local businesses.

Rebecca: I love talking to the clients, getting to know them and their businesses and working with various sectors including charities and seeing how they’re run. Each one is different.

One piece of advice from a partner…

If I could give myself one piece of advice looking back it would be that you don’t have to do everything perfectly. I think I’ve struggled with that in the past.

But I’d also say you don’t have to do everything now. I think I am ambitious, and that’s what’s driven me but possibly at some points over the years it would have been helpful to know that I don’t have to be good at something immediately. At Haines Watts we certainly encourage that it’s good to make mistakes. I’d rather somebody have a go at something in a supported way and think ‘oh I didn’t do that well’ but they learn for the next time.

People have the opportunity to do things, we’re very open, we’re flexible, and we have good relationships with our clients. Ultimately, we trust people. So, if people want to develop in a certain area, or they’re nervous of something we’ll support them in the best way possible to get that experience and get them ready for the next level.

I think what you often see is people put a timeline their career. You know ‘I want to be promoted to manager in X number of years. You’ll get there whether it takes 2 or 10 years’ experience. If you’re promoted when you’re ready is that not better? Because then you’ll have a much, much more enjoyable career and feel less stressed. That would be my advice.

Interested in pursuing audit? Take a look at our vacancies.