- Watch Thais talk about how her group examines a company’s financial statements and evaluates management’s assessment of internal control over financial reporting.
 - Read, download or print (pdf, 579 kb)
- Take a quick look at some of our clients.
Assurance Services Assurance professionals play a vital role in the economy by providing companies, investors and regulators with confidence about the validity of financial statements, business-critical information or processes. But assurance skills are not limited to audit or to finance. Assurance professionals also help clients make informed decisions about fraud investigation. Working in Assurance Services will give you an excellent grounding in business that will open up a wide range of career options. It will give you the opportunity to apply your analytical skills and intellectual rigor to varied projects and to develop relationships with key client personnel. You’ll work in a high-performing environment with all types of organizations across a range of industry sectors, and through EYU, our unique career development framework, we’ll provide you with the learning, experiences and coaching you need to succeed. Find out more about daily life in our External Audit or Fraud Investigation & Dispute Services (FIDS) practices within Assurance Services: - What would my day be like in External Audit? What projects would I work on?
Our audit professionals examine a company's financial statements and attest to their reasonableness. They get to know our clients’ inner workings, using their analytical skills and curiosity to better understand the business behind and beyond the numbers. This includes assessing the processes and controls used to produce the financial statements. It also involves understanding business drivers, associated risks and their potential effect on financial statement accounts. Additionally, our audit professionals contribute to advisory projects. For example, they help clients convert from local GAAP to IFRS, and assist with due diligence on transactions. You might also: - Work on a variety of clients from small business to multinational corporations, for both public and private clients across a variety of industries
- Contribute to the understanding of the business and its associated risks
- Learn about the key financial and system processes
- Contribute to reports and schedules the team will deliver to clients and third parties
- Attend meetings with key contacts at the clients where we share our main findings
- Be in charge of auditing certain accounts, liaising with clients to obtain the information and explanations needed to support your team’s audit opinion
- Receive on-the-job coaching and mentoring from experienced members of the firm
- Help a start-up company navigate the reporting requirements of the initial public offering (IPO) process
- Help clients implement new accounting and regulatory standards
- Help clients improve their financial communications
And you’ll benefit from a variety of experiences, working on projects that could include such diverse activities as: - Testing the internal controls of a professional sports team by delving into their payroll process
- Helping to bring vision to reality by assisting the entrepreneurs from a high-tech start-up as they navigate the reporting requirements of the initial public offering (IPO) process
- Watching commercials at local television stations to ensure compliance with advertising contracts
- Meeting with company executives to understand their process around identifying and handling fraud
- What would my day be like in Fraud Investigations & Dispute Services? What projects would I work on?
Our fraud investigation and dispute professionals help clients deal with the complex issues of fraud, regulatory compliance and business disputes that could otherwise detract from client efforts to achieve their company’s potential. They draw on knowledge of fraud assessment, monitoring and prevention to identify issues that need addressing, and they use advanced tools such as data mining and electronic forensics to conduct investigations that run from embezzlement and tax scams to insurance claims and securities fraud. This service is about helping organizations manage fraud risk more effectively and treat it as a critical business priority. As part of our practice, you might: - Meet with company executives from major litigation firms and corporate clients, including general counsels, litigation partners, chief risk officers and heads of internal audit, to understand their process around identifying and mitigating fraud-related risks
- Review policies and procedures and perform and document risk assessments
- Contribute to forensic due diligence and audit support
- Contribute to expert witness reports, including the review, analysis and verification of evidence
- Liaise with litigation teams and other legal professionals
- Learn about complex statistical analysis and modeling tools
Because of our global size and the breadth of services our FIDS practice provides, you’ll get the chance to be a part of large engagements — ones that make the front pages of the business press; the ones the boutiques just can’t handle. We participate in M&A disputes, government contract compliance, internal investigation, accounting restatement and even expert testimony. Therefore, you could: - Investigate allegations of kickbacks in a purchasing department that manages a $2 billion budget and 21,000 vendors
- Examine the accounts of a major multinational corporation to determine whether inventories have been inflated or whether funds have been improperly diverted
- Assist a team of mediators as they examine the particulars of a dispute between a major retailer and its constellation of suppliers
- What general business skills would I acquire in my first few years?
- Client relationship and networking skills
- Organizational, time and self-management skills
- Teamworking and coaching skills
- Communication skills, including report writing, questioning and basic presentation skills
- Research and analysis skills, including how to verify, challenge and interpret information used to create financial statements or other business data
- What Assurance-specific skills would I acquire in my first few years?
- Familiarity with IFRS and local GAAP and local regulatory requirements
- An in-depth understanding of auditing and internal controls, including how to document processes and test controls that are in place
- Understanding of how IT impacts processes
- Comprehension of the significance of the Financial Statement Close Process on audit engagements
- Knowledge of financial performance and measurement concepts relating to reviewing business plans, analytical reviews and the valuation and testing of financial instruments
- The ability to determine when to involve advisors from other service lines in the team, and the skill to interpret their findings and conclusions in order to deliver value to the client
- Familiarity with fraud risks and methods for preventing them
- Understanding of GAMx, our state-of-the-art advanced audit support tool
- What opportunities would Assurance Services open up?
You could: - Pursue a particular industry within Assurance Services and develop your reputation as a key advisor in that field
- Take responsibility for supervising a team
- Take a leadership role on our largest accounts, acting as a point of contact between our client and the wider global organization of Ernst & Young
- Work with a variety of audit clients and non-audit clients across different industries
- Explore opportunities to rotate or transfer to other service lines or locations – both national and global
- Make a major contribution to the development of our people through training, coaching or recruitment
- What requirements do I need to start?
We’re looking for intelligent, motivated, creative thinkers with superior analytical, communication and leadership skills and an ability to work in teams. For External Audit, undergraduate or graduate degrees in accounting and CPA-eligible candidates are required. For FIDS, our ideal candidates have a bachelor’s or master’s degree in accounting, computer science, finance, or information science. Often our professionals possess, or are interested in obtaining, professional certifications such as Certified Public Accountant, Certified Information Systems Auditor, Certified Internal Auditor, or Certified Fraud Examiner. If your credentials and interests meet with our expectations, we can offer an exciting combination of diverse, meaningful and valuable work experiences. If all this sounds like you, we’d like to hear from you. |
