Key Highlights:
- Accountant is the transaction recorder while Auditor is a financial statement inspector.
- The auditor uses risk-based criteria when they work. All the work starts from understanding the customer’s core business, analyzing the relationship of information on statement, gathering all evidence to support our conclusion, and finally giving the assurance to the investor.
- Doing a job that matches your value is essential.
- I noticed that the consulting process is similar to design thinking process start from understanding the customer match with empathy user, analyze and assessment match with analyze the insight and defined problem, solution design match with ideation, implementation which including the design part and development, and finally measurement and adjustment match with research and refinement of your product.
The nature of the auditor’s work
First, let me tell you that being an auditor isn’t the same as being an accountant because many people now miss understand that both of them have the same role. But in fact, it doesn’t. An accountant is a person who records business transactions which are divided in 5 main categories, asset, liability, equity, income and expense. On the other hand, the auditor is the person who examines all the items that an accountant records to guarantee the financial statements are reliable and clean. (There are no signs of fraud from management or employees.
Working as the auditor, “Risk” plays an important part in their work. All of the audit methods were created to serve the different types of risk from each financial statement section and the unique risk of each business. But before we can define the risks, we need to gain a deep understanding of the customer’s core business of what they do or sell, who are their customers, partners and competitors?, including how the business practical flows?, how was the transaction flow?, or even Is the internal control system effective? and etc. They collect all of this information to assess and determine all potential risks including fraud risk. After finishing with the understanding part, we analyze the relationship on the statement whether the changes in the Balance sheet are consistent with the changes in the Income statement? because each line in the statement always has their pair. While the auditor analyzes the trend, they also gather evidence to support their conclusion.
What made me decide to change my career?
At first, I realized that the value of work doesn’t fit my value. I like to make things that create a positive impact for people such as to make people’s daily routines easier or let them become the better version of themselves. I found this when I was a senior and needed to take care of the younger members in my team. At that time, I need to coach the younger members on how to work and why we need to do that, including giving some practical guidelines to them. I like when I can change the question mark to the lightbulb in their head. And it’s even more delightful when they can do their jobs well. So,that’s where I started questioning myself.
Another reason is I noticed that I don’t like working in such a way that I have to keep track of mistakes. I don’t like the moment I walk to a client asking such a question like “Is there something wrong on this account because it’s not related to that other account?” No matter how polite the question is and how soft of your tone is, your customer still knows that you find something nonsense in there. Then the atmosphere changes. It feels so awkward that I need to ask the customer until they tell you the truth of why it comes like this.
How my life being a UXUI designer
Being an UXUI, I have a chance to learn, observe and practice since gathering requirements, analyze and prioritize insight, create business flow along with user flow, and design pitch deck mockups. (Be noted that I got the job after the team conducted a user interview). I think it’s very important for the designer to be user-centric while carefully reminding yourself of your customer’s brand too. So, having a chance to observe the PO gathering requirement is so helpful. It helps me understand the business along with the user’s needs and it helps you easily shape the foundation when you design.
Moreover Being a UXUI in a consulting firm gives you a lot. First, I like that the nature of consulting is similar to the design thinking which need to understand customer match with empathy users in UX, Analyze and assessment all thing that your team discover similar to analyze the insight and defined problem, Solution design to address the core issues or opportunities match with ideation in UX, Implement and make all the ideas at previous phase go alive which include UXUI design part in there and finally measurement and adjustment to monitor the result and adjust to drive success and improve outcomes.
Recently, I had an incredible chance to write the software spec requirement of the dashboard and report part, one of the important features, and it opened up my world a lot. This scope of work is to write how this feature can do and how we can improve the experience of customers from using Dashboard & Report. First, I start with understanding the customer’s existing report of what the purpose of each report is by grouping information in main categories, find relations between those groups of information, then you will see the main purpose of each report. After I know the purpose and what needs to be shown, I start to think of how to improve those reports such as is there anything that I can regroup, combine, or add. Finally when it’s time for a review by a customer, I feel so happy that they’re satisfied and give good feedback that we can collect and provide the information they need more than 90%.
