I’m Lauren from our Ipswich office. I remember when I first started my application with Grant Thornton wondering exactly what it was that the job entailed, and despite searching extensively for an idea of the work an ‘auditor’ does, I didn’t really know exactly what to expect.

I’ve been with the firm for a year now (time flies!), so I thought this would be a good time to share with you my experience and give other school leavers some idea of the type of thing you should expect to be doing as a new trainee in the audit department.

I was surprised at how involved you get pretty much straightaway, and in my first week I was out at a clients, experiencing the work we do first hand. This may sound a bit frightening but it’s a great way to learn, and my own personal experience at the Ipswich office has been that everybody is really welcoming and happy to help. You never have to worry about a question being too obvious or obscure, most people have been in your place at some point and remember being the new starter, even if it was a few years ago! I found that the trainees who had been in my place a year or two ago were especially keen to help out and explain anything I didn’t understand.

So what actually is it that we do? The dictionary definition of an auditor tells us that “An auditor is an accountant who officially examines the accounts of organisations”, and in principal that is one way of describing what we do, however this fails to capture the wide variety of day to day work we encounter and the dynamic range of clients that we work with.

Essentially, the main part of our work is examining our clients’ financial performance on a yearly basis, gaining comfort over the accuracy of the figures they give us. As an example this could involve transaction testing i.e. tracing a sale through the internal bookkeeping systems but sighting and checking key documents, such as the order request, invoice, dispatch note and bank statements. Another example would include analytical reviewing, which is where we compare the client’s figures to our own expectations, and investigate unusual variances.

In the office we can get involved in organising events, and help out with finalising the accounts ready for signing by the client. Overall, there’s lots for you to experience and plenty of opportunities to get to know everyone at social events too!