Late Sittings

Muhammad Nauman · 08-02-2003, 11:10 PM

What's your opinion on late sittings.

To me late sittings should only be on clients which have realy targeted deadlines for filing of accounts. Also ICAP should made a rule to prohibits firm in accepting unrealistic deadlines. As the effectees of late sittings are trainees in most of the cases, not partners.

ICAP should also require the firms to cap the maximum time of work till 1200 mid night.

Because due to excessive late sitings our families, friends, health and everything suffers badly.

What's your comments......

smraza · 08-03-2003, 01:11 AM

thats why whoever joins CA, he is told, just forget your personal life for 4 years, (sometimes more), what ICAP can do in this regard, ???????? what do u think what can it do ?? or will it do ????
Most of the Baba e Icap are partners of firms, they wont let it happen.

Another funny thing is that, every partner claims that "I dont ask my trainees to do late sittings".
but he traps the trainees by coming to them at quarter to 500 PM and say do this work and i need it tomorrow morning on my table, (then bechara trainee has to do the late sittings),

during my articleship i used to go home at 100 or 200 AM night
i had to kill my social life, yaar ICAP will not do anything in this regard,

but you can contact CASA in this regard, as it will be more effective if this matter is raised from CASA platform.

S M R

sumaaan · 08-03-2003, 05:44 AM

I guess SMRAZA is correct... ICAP wouldnt want to interfere in this trainee-employer relationship due to its own benefits... Audits are certainly immense hardworking procedures which require sacrifices to the extent where one feels like quitting, I'm sure you all have examples of people 'running from CA' after only a year's audit...

Just imagine... The trainees get to do all the hardwork with a 14 hour job during audits, and the work of CA's is just to make sure everything happens on time <img src=icon_smile.gif border=0 align=middle>... And then sign the papers when the time comes...

Poor trainees!

Evolution · 08-04-2003, 03:25 PM

I beg to differ with sumaaan. Audit managers and partners do undertake a great deal of responsibility that we as trainees do not understand nor appreciate. Perhaps the biggest responsibility that these partners do undertake is signing the audit report themselves on the basis of work performed by us trainees i.e they put faith in the work that we do. We all know the consequences of signing an audit report that gives an inappropriate opinion. As far as late sittings are concerned they are not only part of working as a trainee in an audit firm but also when performing duties as a finance manager in any company. These late sittings just prepare us for a tough road we will have to face when we r in a responsible position and will have to put hours of work in ourselves.

sumaaan · 08-04-2003, 09:39 PM

I agree with the responsibility audit managers and partners undertake while signing the audit report on the basis of work performed by trainees... But don't you think they actually 'have to' take this 'gamble'?... I mean they would never go on 14 hours audits by themselves for months just to make sure everything is properly made... So they 'have to' put a lot of trust in trainees.

Evolution · 08-04-2003, 09:57 PM

Sumaaan dont u think that these partners and managers in audit firms have gone through 14 hour audits themselves during their training periods? I am sure they have.

sumaaan · 08-05-2003, 01:37 AM

Yeah... Perhaps this is the reason why they want trainees a taste of what they went through... VENGEANCE !!!

jbladeus · 08-05-2003, 01:48 AM

14 hours... only??!!

Lol... had this been only 14 hours, i am sure that no trainee wouldve ever complained. I myself have once worked for 4 days and three nights straight, with only a nap of about 4 hours in this whole time!

16-17 hour workdays were a norm in my articleship. 12-13 hours were considered 'jaldi chutti' <img src=icon_smile.gif border=0 align=middle>. A normal 9 to 530 workday was supposed to be a 'Gaali' and ppl who committed that mistake were taken as slackers.

Evolution... yeah i know that the partners themselves did go through the same 'ragraa', but that doesnt give them the right to make life hell for their trainees. When they reach the senior positions, they totally forget about the miseries they themselves went through in their articleship days. And they are totally to blame for accepting unrealistic target dates.

Had i been in their position, i never would've metted out this sort of treatment to their 'cheap labor' (a famous term uttered by one of ICAP's most influential players to describe the audit trainees) although lol.. thank god i have much better things to do than to be a partner of a CA firm!! <img src=icon_smile_big.gif border=0 align=middle>

Even cattle have some rights, but it seems that a CA trainee loses all his the day his registration card comes in his custody. The only things that remain after that for the next four years are his obligations towards the firm and his manager and all the dinners he has to give to his peers and seniors. hehehe

On a serious note, since this is a student's forum and many prospective students of CA must be reading this, so i must say to them to not get discouraged by my experiences described above. Maybe i got a raw deal during my articleship and got hectic clients. In your case, it may be easier....

... or WORSE!! <img src=icon_smile_wink.gif border=0 align=middle> lol... just kidding!

________________________
Arrrgh... it sure's gonna be mighty rough sailin' today ... mates!

jbladeus · 08-05-2003, 01:57 AM

Shouldnt this topic be in the 'Firms' forum? Maybe this would've generated more member feedback 'cos this topic doesnt seem to be in its proper place. Students are not concerned with the issues of an articleship life.. are they?

btw, i think that students are ones who are still in college. The ones who are in firms, i like to call them trainees... yeah yeah, i know they too are students, but there should be some demarcation line between these two. <img src=icon_smile.gif border=0 align=middle>

________________________
Arrrgh... it sure's gonna be mighty rough sailin' today ... mates!

sumaaan · 08-05-2003, 06:38 AM

Whoa !!... I guess that's why the word 'hardwork' was coined.

But oh well, if a person has opted to become a Chartered Accountant, he/she should bear all this.

smraza · 08-05-2003, 03:00 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=1 face="Verdana" id=quote>quote<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>
I beg to differ with sumaaan. Audit managers and partners do undertake a great deal of responsibility that we as trainees do not understand nor appreciate. Perhaps the biggest responsibility that these partners do undertake is signing the audit report themselves on the basis of work performed by us trainees i.e they put faith in the work that we do. We all know the consequences of signing an audit report that gives an inappropriate opinion. As far as late sittings are concerned they are not only part of working as a trainee in an audit firm but also when performing duties as a finance manager in any company. These late sittings just prepare us for a tough road we will have to face when we r in a responsible position and will have to put hours of work in ourselves.

<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana" size=2 id=quote>

Yar Evolution but you must also the compare the rewards (Audit fee and the Stipends)

S M R

Muhammad Nauman · 08-06-2003, 01:25 AM

Friends! Agreed with your comments.

But what i want to emphasize is that we all accept extreme late sittings as a fact.

We should consider that this is not correct. When we will made a strong view in our minds that continuous late sittings (even beyond mid night)is not humanly possible then there will be chance of reducing late sittings.

Also I think adequate planning at the initial stage of the audit helps in reducing late sittings.

We should not accept it as a FACT. We all should try to reduce it to an acceptable level, if it is not possible to eliminate it comletely.

smraza · 08-06-2003, 05:38 AM

I agree with you Nauman,
but partners has become phychi about late sitting, they have understanding that if there is no late sitting then there is no work, like in kpmg, the trainees used to come to office at time, but we used to start our work on or after twelve, so actually they were doing 7 or hours job, but they use to leave the office after 8, 9, or sometimes 10.

I 100% agree with you, that if we plan the whole audit work at preliminery stage, then we can avoid late sittings,but you will also agree with me that when the audit is at finalization stage (even it is private limited company) you cannot avoid late sittings, because there are some informations which client provides in last week of finalization (i m talking about most of the clients), so you can just file that information, you have to verify all those informations / documents, and you are not in a position to trust you junior, sometimes you will have to look everything yourself.

S M R

Muhammad Nauman · 08-06-2003, 10:02 PM

Yes raza u r right. We have to do late sittings at the finalization stage of the audit. And it is the part of audit life. But its good to see that almost all of us agreed on the view of reducing late sittings.

I think the senior trainees can made substantial efforts in reducing late sittings. We should also discuss with our managers, so that late sittings should not be normal routine in audit life.

If something wrong had happened in past, then we should try to rectify it in future.

Thankx to all for your valuable comments on the topic.

smraza · 08-07-2003, 05:54 AM

But Nauman,
what can we do in this regard ????? can we change the mentality of the partners, if the staff dont do late sittings then they think that working is not up to the standard, and he enters into files, and after sometime you hear a sound of dhamaka, we cannot do anything in this regard <img src=icon_smile_sad.gif border=0 align=middle>

S M R