In First Person

Frank Rongone: An Eye Opening Experience

Reflecting back upon my chance to serve the Christian Appalachian Project with my co-workers this past June is a humbling opportunity that will not be forgotten.  Before even beginning the 10 hour journey to Kentucky, I did a little research to know what to expect about the area we would be traveling to.  I came to find that it one of the most economically depressed areas in the United States.  Many of the residents of the surrounding Appalachian communities suffer from various health problems, rarely complete a high school level education, and usually live below the level of poverty.  In order to survive, help from the government, volunteer workers (for example, from the CAP program that BBD served), and donations from the public are vital.

The trip began early on a Sunday morning as I made my way along Interstate 64 with my fellow co-worker, Cristi Tilden, and her husband, Pete.  I will admit that the scenery was extremely rural, but also very refreshing.  On the way down, we were hit with a huge surprise when we came by a mall in Charleston, West Virginia that housed a Starbucks coffee shop.  After we left, it was back to the rural hilly views until we arrived at the CAP house in Salyersville, Kentucky on Sunday night.  It was there that we met Anita, the volunteer that would be cooking dinner for us that week.  My expectations were not set high, but she blew them out of the water with some of her homemade recipes.

On Monday morning we got to work.  One of the full time CAP volunteers, Bob, had been working on a house for a needy couple since March.  This couple had been living in an extremely run down home with a leaky roof, boarded up windows, and no electricity.  They clearly did not have the means to make a better situation for themselves, and I was thrilled to be able to help them.  By the end of the week, our BBD team was able to complete a substantial amount of work on the house including the outdoor siding, a handicap ramp to the front door, and a prime and paint job to all of the interior walls.  The couple who we were building the house for personally thanked us throughout each day to let us know how much of a blessing we were to them.

On the way home, I was extremely thankful that I was afforded that opportunity.  Not only was I able to help others, but I also felt like it was an eye opening experience to appreciate how fortunate I am in my own life.  Everyday it is taken for granted when I have the electricity to flip a light switch on, the clean, running water to take a shower, and the means necessary for groceries in a refrigerator.  I never knew that there were so many people in this country without the necessities that most of us would find it so difficult to live without.  For these reasons, I look forward to the BBD service trip next year, and hopefully we will be able to have the same impact that we did this past year.

Frank Rongone: The Value of Teamwork

Throughout my educational and professional experiences, my preferences have always been working on projects and jobs with a team, rather than individually.  In many different ways I have found that collaborating with others can truly provide benefits in accomplishing the task at hand.  Being a newcomer to the BBD staff, I was afforded the opportunity to work on, not one, but two different teams.  This has allowed me to rapidly gain valuable insight that I might not have been exposed to otherwise if I was limited to working on only one team.

Quite honestly, I was nervous at first about having to report to multiple managers, working on twice as many jobs and finding a way to balance my time between the two teams.  These issues, however, are no longer a concern and, in fact, all three of these “concerns” have actually served as a growing experience for me.  Reporting to different managers has allowed me to become familiar with and adapt to different management styles, which is critical to success when working under people.  Working on more jobs has also been helpful in that I have become familiar with certain auditing procedures that apply when particular circumstances exist.  Every audit that I work on follows the same general framework, but what I find most interesting and learn the most from are the scenarios that are unique to each job.  As far as balancing my time between these jobs though, I have learned three important things need to happen to do it well: frequent communication with managers, efficiency, and prioritizing work.  

Like I originally said, what I like the most about teamwork is that it allows for collaboration.  This has continued to prove true in my experiences at BBD.  I have found that if youhave a desire to learn, most people want to teach you what they know.  Through working with different people on different teams, I have been able to receive insight through multiple perspectives which has allowed me to craft the knowledge into a way that I best understand it.  No two managers will ever explain something the same way, and by hearing different explanations with the same meaning, I find the parts in each that I best identify with and form that into an explanation that makes the most sense to me.  I couldn’t think of a better environment to be in to grow and advance in my career!             

Frank Rongone: Getting Through Busy Season With a Little Help From My Friends

It’s no secret that anyone who finds him or herself working in public accounting will have the pleasure of experiencing a “busy season."  For those of you following the blog, you already know that I belong to the Investment Management Group (IMG) here at BBD, so when I refer to “busy season," you know it has nothing to do with preparing tax returns and filing them by the applicable deadline.  What that should lead you to assume is that, yes, the audit sides of our practices also have busy times of the year.   This is a result of the number of jobs that all fall on the same year-end.  Furthermore, the majority of the clients in IMG are registered funds, which have a 60 day deadline, required by the SEC, to complete the audit and render an opinion.  It just so happens that our “luckiest time” of the year is January and February as a result of all of our December 31 year end clients....and I say “luckiest time” because this is when everyone here in IMG is privileged to see each other the most.

The interesting thing about working in IMG is that I’ve realized the peaks and valleys in the workload are nowhere near as intense as, for example, those of the tax department.  Our workload is somewhat smoothed out, but, as I mentioned, January and February are a bit more involved than most of the other months throughout the year.  Obviously, when there is more to get done the hours become more demanding, but now that it's past I’ve realized that we all got through it together…painlessly.

There are a few tricks of the trade that I picked up, and they are pretty obvious, but I would like to share them with you.  Number 1 is Coffee.  My IMG teammates and I get through all of our long days with multiple cups of coffee.  During our “busy season,” it was a common event to take a walk to grab a cup of brew around 4:00 PM.  We felt that “recharging” purposes were served not only from the cup of coffee alone, but also from the interesting topics of conversation we would always manage to be strike up and carry on into the evening hours.  After returning with caffeine, work gets done and time starts to fly.  It’s normally well after 6:00 PM before I am able to look at the clock.   When 7:00 PM hits though, you normally sense this hour because everyone starts to get a little fidgety and talkative.  We get it out of our systems by taking a few minutes and either tossing a wiffle ball around, cracking jokes, or just finding any way we can to have a good laugh.  What I’ve learned through all of this though is despite the amount of work that needs to be done, the best way to accomplish the tasks at hand is to embrace them and enjoy the presence of teammates who are all working together for the same goals.

Frank Rongone: What I'm Doing Day to Day

As many of you who are following our blog may not have had an internship in an auditing role, the thought of what a first year auditor does throughout the day has probably crossed your mind.  In case you are unfamiliar with how the auditing process works, in order to issue an audit opinion on financial statements, certain steps must be performed known as auditing procedures.  These procedures are tailored specifically to a company according to, for example, the industry in which it operates, whether the company is new and has never had audited financial statements, the comfort level in the internal control structure of the entity, etc.  The way we perform and document the procedures in each engagement is through what we call "work papers."  Work papers consist of pretty much anything such as the planning considerations of the audit, tests supporting our opinion, client prepared ledgers and journals, confirmation documents, contractual agreements, and anything else under the sun that we feel is necessary to support our conclusion.

As a first year staff accountant, I was surprised how much exposure I was given to different auditing procedures, specifically “testing procedures.”  As I mentioned, in order to give an opinion on financial statements, we have to gain comfort in the information presented on the statements (which was prepared by the management of the entity).  This comfort is primarily gained through the test of assertions such as “existence and occurrence” (aka, the balances/transactions of the underlying financial statements are real and actually happened), “completeness” (aka, ledgers/journals/source documents/etc. contain all transactions and are recorded properly and are reflected within the financials).

Not to get into specifics, but within the investment management group, there are several major tests related to the audit of a mutual fund.  We test the dividend income earned by the fund through the securities held within its’ portfolio, we test the purchase and sales transactions of the fund and we also test capital stock activity of the fund by examining the subscription and redemption activity throughout the year and the Net Asset Values that correspond with the activity.  These procedures are important, but they only represent a few of the many considerations that go into the auditing process of a mutual fund.  As a first year staff accountant in the investment management group, you can expect your day to day tasks to include everything I just mentioned and a lot more.   

Frank Rongone: Opportunities For Continued Learning With CPE

As a new hire starting at BBD, I quickly became aware of the plethora of opportunities provided to the staff to obtain the various CPE requirements, such as the 80 hours of CPE credit that Pennsylvania requires of licensed CPAs bi-annually.  The day after orientation, before jumping into auditing procedures, I spent almost a full day evaluating my ethical decision-making abilities through an AICPA self-study professional ethics course.  No more than a few weeks later, I attended an in-house CPE session, which is sponsored by BBD on a quarterly basis.  In that particular session, I was briefed on several topics including 2011 tax changes and Statements on Standards for Accounting and Review Services.

In December, BBD held another quarterly CPE session, instructed by an outside CPE provider (who I gave extra accreditation to due to the fact that he was a LaSalle alumnus).  This course primarily served as an update on the provisions of recently issued accounting and auditing pronouncements.  In particular, the session brought to my attention the divergence between GAAP and IFRS, but also the progression of the plans for convergence.  I realized that the period of time before IFRS became an everyday reality was much shorter than I imagined.    

Although the topics covered in these courses may not apply in their entirety to my everyday tasks, I value them, because as an accountant, it is important be knowledgeable in practice areas across the board, not just not just one specific focus area.  Although I am not a licensed CPA at the moment, it is great to know that when I do obtain my license, I am at a firm that makes it easy to meet the requirements necessary to keep it.  

Frank Rongone: Successfully Navigating the First "Out of Town" Business Trip

As a rookie in the accounting profession, one experience I remember anticipating was my first visit to a client's office.  Working with our Investment Management Group, I got to experience things a little differently than most "first timers." The sites that we visit are actually the offices of the mutual funds' service providers (or fund accountants).  Our clients' service providers are located throughout the country which typically requires traveling long distance (in my case, a plane ride and a hotel stay). This particular visit was to a fund accounting office in Cincinnati, Ohio.  Being that I'm not exactly a frequent traveler, I was feeling a little anxious the morning of my flight.  My ride to the airport wasn't helping things either, considering I was stuck in traffic for half the way there.  All I could think about while I was sitting on the highway was how several of my co-workers had jokingly warned me not to miss my flight (because apparently it had been done by others in the past).  Things turned out smoothly though.  I made it to the security gate with an hour to spare, ate a cold, soggy breakfast sandwich before I boarded the plane, and landed in Ohio, ready to work, about two hours later  (jet lag not being an issue).

Thanks to these technological times, we receive the majority of our audit evidence electronically without having to leave the office.  As soon as I got to Cincinnati though, I immediately had to start digging into filing drawers and pulling out files.  Contrary to the majority of my generation, I’m not a huge fan of working on the computer with electronic files, so examining paper documents was, oddly enough, a treat.

Before I arrived, I was curious as to how I would be perceived by the client’s staff.  I take my role as an auditor very seriously; however, I feel that as a recent college graduate, there is always the potential to be viewed by others as a young kid who doesn’t know much.  After interacting with various members of the client’s staff, I did not feel like that was an issue at all.  Everyone was very cooperative and helpful; in fact, I think I might have even made one woman nervous when I asked to see a couple files at her desk that she had worked on (she calmed down after a second though).

Overall, it was a great first-time experience.  Seeing the operations of a service provider firsthand was a major growing step for me.  I was also able to work closely with my manager throughout the visit, so any questions that popped up were addressed immediately.  To say the least, I was upset to see the week come to an end.  If nothing more, it was great just to be able to work in real (not electronic) files.