Lee Wu went all the way to Barbados to work as an audit itern. Here he details the work involved.

On my first day at work, my manager brought me to a UK Corruption Act workshop. The purpose of the workshop was to increase my consciousness about bribery and the implications of the violation of the Act in regards to Commonwealth countries. In addition, my manager’s aim was to help me to learn the liabilities that could be imposed on an auditor when the auditor does not report to the appropriate authorities when he/she has a reasonable doubt that the client is engaged in bribery.

As an audit intern, my responsibilities revolve around auditing privately held firms, including participating in audit meeting and planning, testing details of account balances, performing analytical tests, and gathering various kinds of audit evidence. Similar to Canadian auditors,in Barbados, auditors can expect to sometimes work long hours to meet deadlines. Over here, for the most part, we perform work in the accounting office rather than at the client's office, and generally talk to and coordinate our work with the owner of the business. When required, we also carry out audits at clients’ organizations.

Working at this firm gives me the opportunity to be exposed to all facets of the accounting process, from auditing financial statements, to completely preparing financial statements, as well as completing corporate tax returns. Now I have a more holistic understanding of the accounting issues related to small- or medium-sized businesses, especially in the industries of the clients that I work with. I enjoy the smaller clients our firm has because it enables me to learn something new every day. Right now, I am in charge of completing most of the work on my own. This means that I have the opportunity to work on more sections of the audit, including the audit of sales and collection cycles, cash balances, payroll and personnel cycles, and the inventory and warehousing cycles. It is extremely rewarding to get a chance to complete every part of the audit.